Our Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians

I went too Jefferson High School, perhaps you can enlighten me as to what Jefferson's religion was? Please come up with the correct answer or otherwise I will just assume you are nothing but a conservative claptrap mouth piece!

Very well said.

An astute observation!!!

Even if it is bullshit.

Those horrible religious people really get my goat too.!!!!

I'd say more of an Oligarchy

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
Ben Franklin 1787

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. (Albert Einstein)

"The moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation toward all his creatures. That seeing, as we daily do, the goodness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men to practice the same toward each other." Thomas Payne

preach away, it's still a fairy tale to me.

I heartily second that.

Here are some more quotes you might be interested in. I have more if you would like to read them. I think these should be enough for you to see that atheism is more popular than you might think. Certainly it is popular amongst people of high intellect.

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a Demon then the word of God" Thomas Paine

"I am fully determined never to puzzle myself in the mazes of religious discussion, to content myself with practicing the dictates of God and reason so far as I can judge for myself" John Quincy Adams

"Question the boldness even the existence of a god, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear" Thomas Jefferson

"The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense. Why is man afraid to think?" Thomas Paine

" I am a deeply religious non-believer. This is a somewhat new kind of religion. Albert Einstein (Spinoza was considered to be a pantheist not a christian)

"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there was no religion in it." John Adams

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies." Ben Franklin

Other notable atheists include:
Mark Twain,Carl Sagan, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Howard Stern, Jesse Ventura, Francis Crick, Sigmund Freud, Dr. James Watson, Woody Allen, Katherine Hepburn, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Leslie Nielson, Studs Terkel, George Carlin, Stephen Hawking, Andy Rooney, Marlon Brando, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kurt Vonnegut, Elton John etc, etc, etc,.

The history channel? please -- they have a humanist agenda and often i can debunk what they present just off the top of my head.
If you take what they say as "gospel" , that is not very wise. Many times i have seen them omit pertinent details or state falsehoods. I enjoy watching their shows but i always have by bullshit detector on when im watching.

The "History Channel" uses the bible as a history book.
Just think of it.

All that was b.s. you got off the history channel -- which is notably an atheist leaning farce.
All you gotta do is go back to the original sources and read to know what your saying is wrong.
David Barton is the man who owns more of those original documents than anyone and has written many books which tell a different story than the revisionist history that you've been repeating.
Just thought i'd let you in on that.

Im the same way, it is a form of entertainment just to pick out their bullshit points on the shows.
We know ahead of time what they are trying to do -- they put on a show that is supposed to be an expose on something and then they interview people who share their humanist point of view.
They actually had a guy on trying to explain how a big wind parted the red sea. He brought out some big fans to try and blow the water in a creek until it seperated.
Pure and utter bullshit.

It seems as though a lot of people haven't studied history and need to be reminded occasionally. Thanks for the history lesson jubal.

Thank you jubal. Even though im in the SEIU, i absolutely abhor what they are trying to do.
Redistribute wealth from the united states to around the world.
They ARE communist and their leader is a great buddy of our esteemed president.
Workers of the world unite is their slogan as it was the slogan of the wobblies.
I think it's debateable on whether they were communists or not.
We are starting to see public pushback against union contracts that are ruining companies everywhere.
If we want to put people back to work, im afraid were going to have put the unions down.

That guy is a real piece of work, fried I'm assuming!

the guys post generate an immediate delete from me when I see them. They are nothing more than the vomit of a disturbed individual.

almost as bad as akamail's blatant racism, or jammer's undercurrent of racism.

Neph, you noticed too? LOL!

awww cmon we've got you pegged and you dont like it.
you don't realize that you thinking i'm lame only adds to my cred.

Very funny Monte....you're so cute...."adds to my credibility".

Hey Kenny,
your last response differs from the intent i come away with in most of your posts. That said i agree with you (finally) with the above response

Well thanks cmdinc, isn't that what this site and many posts is all about. If you have gotten any impression of where I stand then so be it. I just want people to use this site for public discourse, without that basic thing how can we ever progress. Sometimes as you know the discussion gets way off topic and we as posters need to keep bringing real logic to the table. Sorting the B.S is annoying and totally unnecessary. Thanks for your comments and keep up the hard work. Not too many Mason's chimed in and I would appreciate their response as well.

Hey Kenny,
A Mason will never "chime in" about being a Mason or what they do

Your probably right about that cmdinc. It still would be nice if they did, it's pretty much anonymous here and what would they have to fear! Lately, or even not so lately I have been fascinated by the Mason's and the Templars.

cztheday, your knowledge of history is a great resource. Thanks for upholding the true father of our country. Wasn't that college tuition free.

that is *the* most backward statement i have seen on current yet. i suppose that the ACLU is all for taking freedoms away as well?

who told you that? Rush, Hannity? Glen Beck?

oh did i mention the aclu? which by the way was started by communists who stated they would do just that.
are you trying to hurt my feelings by saying im backwards?
I can prove that freedom is an affront to the progressive agenda --- that is probably more than you have.

galwayman, I'm a big fan as well of Thomas Paine. Thanks for your great comment and the substance within.

the same thing that makes all of our great presidents great; the don draper effect, commonly known as cheating on your spouse. Jefferson did it, FDR did it, JFK did it, and Clinton did it. Maybe if Obama does he will actually get health care reform accomplished and get the troops home.

Indeed. Cheating on his wife and fathering illegitimate children is what allowed Thomas Jefferson to so gracefully handle the Barbary Pirates Affair, in which he single-handedly destroyed American trade by blocking all imports and exports. Truly a magnificent president...

ares: you win the prize for most myopic view of thomas jefferson i've ever heard.

i'd like to think that penning the declaration of independence takes a bit more historical precedence over his handling of Barbary Pirates Affair...

Wow that was harsh on Thomas Jefferson dude or dudest. I for one am one of Jefferson's biggest fans, his contributions to our country's early beginning are alone
some of the biggest benchmarks this country has ever had.

He wrote an eloquent, fantastic essay expressing the sentiments of countless revolutionary colonists.

Then he was an unfaithful husband and a shitty president.

JanforGore, I loved that comment. Sensibility is at stake
in many of the regressive post and tolerance has been left in the dust at times, and your voice is always needed.

I think you hit on something here with your comment, it shouldn't matter and so many posts have degraded to a tit for tat warfare that tempers get the better of us all. I though by posting a reminder that religion needs to be a haven for some people and when it gets mixed up in the conversation of logic it no longer wins an argument.

jubal, I feel honored by your multiple comments of wisdom on this subject.

You are correct in saying that a nation can be torn by religion, but to say that a nation cannot be formed because of a religion is ignorant. Think of all the nations that were formed and continue united because of religion. That is a vast majority.

I have to disagree there. Your claim that there are vast numbers leads me to understand you are talking about current [modern] nations. I will give you this, what nation wasn't founded on religious motivations [whatever such motivations may be]? Not many. But the concepts of most religion is Theocentric, or more appropriately AXIAL. By very definition the heart of such principles and values are based on creating seperation-rulers and subjects; God and followers. Any axial belief system will always have a history of rittled with conflict-and an active role in such combat, even if such a role appears to violate it's own teachings, maintaining seperation [the axial system] is ultimately the design of such a religion.

well said, kingfugazi.

you can make an argument that America is the ONLY nation NOT founded on the principle of heredity/religion, but rather on an ideal that given the opportunity, ANYONE, regardless of heredity/religion/social status, can be successful.

Excellent comment Tyr, thanks for contributing.

Ben Franklin also said that "A good husband was worth two good wives, for the scarcer things are, the more they're valued."

He also was repeatedly unfaithful to his wife.

Forgive me if I do not take him for the authority on moral and spiritual character. The man was despicable.

And, funnily enough, Eisenhower himself was an atheist.

Eisenhower wasn't an atheist, where are you getting that from?

"It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a supernatural power because man's physical senses cannot detect it. But there cannot be ignored the influence of conscience, the respect we feel for the Moral Law, the mystery of first life..or the marvelous order in which the universe moves about us on this earth. All these evidence the handiwork of the beneficent Deity. That Deity is the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ, His Son."
D.E.

keithponder thanks so much for your comment and while I have your attention I loved your comment's on that other race riot post. You were a lighthouse in a sea of crazyness and I applaud you! If only some of the negative commentators there could have walked a mile in your shoes.

The only mention of "god" is in the Declaration of Independence that acknowledges divine rights as human beings endowed by a creator. EQUALITY!

You should really take a look at the video I posted further up in this thread about "Putting Faith in its Place".

Who has the right to define God X for everyone else? Whose interpretation is correct?

Correct, it is only listed once, yet mention of religion (Christianity in its many forms at that time) is scattered throughout. I see little importance that point has with my comment.
In what ways was I forcing religion upon anyone? I am entirely against it, in fact. I simply implied that our founding fathers were in fact "Christians": depending on your definition of the term. Though some may have not accepted the faith, they still felt it necessary to instill Christianity into our culture. Please do not get me wrong and say they established a federal religion, for that is nowhere near my meaning. Religion can be separate from government in many cases, yet it still imposes on our decisions we make, and that is clearly seen in our history.

The Treaty with Tripoli was printed in the June 17, 1797 edition of Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser. I had the Library of Congress send me a copy so I could see it for myself, because some christians claimed that congress never saw it, or the people never saw it, or that it was something that Joel Barlow added on his own. Here is a link to a free website where I posted the PDF. The treaty is printed in its entirety. Article 11 is on Page 4 column 2.

http://treatywithtripoli.webs.com/Philadelphia%20Gazette%20&%20Universal%20Daily%20Advertiser.pdf

It might be a little slow loading because of the free web host.

Chod77, and LibertynJusticeforAll, you both have brought substance to this article and thats what I like. If I don't learn something in a day I consider it a day lost.

ignorant butt head. Religion does not dictate if you are a conservative or not

huh?! what are you talking about?

he's talking to an earlier post (Down with the masons).

No fuck you, you don't even know what a Mason is asshole

you don't even know what a mason is, so shut the hell up

Thomas Jefferson was not an atheist. He believed in a Creator, not necessarily the Christian perspective (deist). He actually created his own "Bible", appropriately called the "Jefferson Bible" where he literally cut and pasted parts of the Bible he found relevant and/or necessary. The point was to create the original moral philosophies of Jesus.

no, the point of the Jefferson bible was to remove all references to the "supernatural" aspect of religion from the bible. he didn't cut and paste the bible, he edited it so that just the moral teachings remained

you both just said roughly the same thing, hope you happy about being angry :)

what about my post sounded angry?

personally i'm an atheist and put as much stock in the moral teachings of Harry Potter as I do in the Bible, i was just clarifying the previous posters point.

i wonder if i could start a church of Harry Potter and claim tax exempt status...

Put me down for the Harry Potter church!

they were *not* atheists they were deists.

unclecharlie, you should check out the history of free masons. George Washington was sworn in as our first President in full masonry uniform and he kissed the bible a mason tradition in many of their ceremony's. Don't forget they were opposing the King of England and sought religious freedom from the church of England.

Kenny you don't know shit about being a Mason.

lets not forget that george washington who supposedly was not a christian stopped to pray every 2 hours while he was in office.