Can someone help me with a "Founding Father's" religious issue??..........

[Minnesota Libra]

....I'd like to know how many of our Founding Fathers were religious and how many weren't. As well as what religion they were and how devout they were. In other words how much religion influence our original Constitution.

I'm out to prove or disprove at least a few of our neocons/fundies.

:loveya:Thank you guys:loveya: - as always I can depend on DU for truthful information, guess that's why I keep running back here when I want to know something.:grouphug:

[acmejack]

1. I know Jefferson was a deist

as were several others. I will leave that to others, however.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. "Others" checking in:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/ffnc/

Benjamin Franklin, delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, said:
"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.

From:
Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming, p. 404, (1972, Newsweek, New York, NY) quoting letter by BF to Exra Stiles March 9, 1970.

[liberal N proud]

2. Here is some info about religion from a few of the founding fathers

Here is some info on the most known Founding Fathers and their statements on religion:

I have examined all the known superstitions of the Word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world ...

The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind ... to filch wealth and power to themselves. , in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
Thomas Jefferson

The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes; fools and hypocrites. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson

Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy can forgive sins ... and you will have sins in abundance. I would not dare to dishonor my Creator's name by it to this filthy book .
Thomas Paine

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God.
Thomas Jefferson

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

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 than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Paine

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Thomas Paine

Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religions.
George Washington

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.
George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 726]

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
George Washington, address to Congress, 8 January, 1790


Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.
George Washington, letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792

http://www.anotherperspective.org/advoc550.html

[Minnesota Libra]

4. Thank you for this - this is exactly what I was hoping for................

....a couple of fundies/neocons I know will never know what hit them.:rofl:

[seabeyond]

5. this list may be a little longer. some the same

Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.

- Thomas Jefferson

The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

- Thomas Jefferson

The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

- John Adams

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

-James Madison

What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy.

-James Madison

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

-Thomas Paine

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it (the Apocalypse), and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814



The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter... But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789

They believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.

-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
Patrick Henry has been quoted as saying that, but as to the context, and the source I am not sure.
Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. A Deist according to Webster's is (1) The belief in the existence of a God on purely rational grounds without reliance on revelation or authority; especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. (2) The doctrine that God created the world and its natural laws, but takes no further part in its functioning. Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the Bible (The Jefferson Bible), of which I own a copy. It TOTALLY removes all accounts of the divinity of Christ and all of the miracles - including the virgin birth. Benjamin Franklin was raised Episcopalian, but was also a Deist. John Adams was raised a Congregationalist, but later became a Unitarian. Here are what some of the other founders had to say about it.

John Adams:

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

John Adams again:

"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

Still more John Adams:

“...Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”


Thomas Jefferson:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

Jefferson again:

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

From Jefferson’s biography:
“...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, ‘Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion,’ which was rejected ‘By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.’”

James Madison:

"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."

James Madison again:

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

Thomas Paine:

"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible)."

Finally, a word from Abraham Lincoln:


The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
-- Abraham Lincoln

[Minnesota Libra]

8. Thank you for this, I'd say our Founding Fathers were ................

....by no means religious.

[Ian David]

6. The Founding Fathers and religion

"It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov't from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others."
James Madison, "James Madison on Religious Liberty",

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity." -- Thomas Jefferson




One of the most common statements from the "Religious Right" is that they want this country to "return to the Christian principles on which it was founded". However, one only needs to do a little research into American history to discover that this statement is a lie. The men responsible for building the foundation of the United States had little use for Christianity, and many were strongly opposed to it. They were men of The Enlightenment, not Men of Christianity. They were Deists.

When the Founders wrote the nation's Constitution, they specified that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." (Article 6, section 3) This provision was radical in its day-- giving equal citizenship to believers and non-believers alike. They wanted to ensure that no single religion could make the claim of being the official, national religion, such as England had. Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention religion, except in exclusionary terms. The words Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, and God are never mentioned in the Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence gives us important insight into the opinions of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the power of the government is derived from the governed. Up until that time, it was claimed that kings ruled nations by the authority of God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea of divine authority.

The 1796 treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "in no sense founded on the Christian religion." They meant it. This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams.

More:
http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html






Founding Documents
Nourishing The Erroneous Idea Of A National Religion

Jefferson, Madison And Jackson On Prayer Proclamations

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed governmental proclamations for days of prayer and fasting. As president, Jefferson flatly refused to issue them. Madison issued such proclamations under pressure from Congress during the War of 1812 but later said he wished he hadn’t. Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, also refused to issue religious proclamations.

Here is what Jefferson, Madison and Jackson had to say on the subject:

Thomas Jefferson: On Jan. 23, 1808, Jefferson replied to a minister named Samuel Miller who had asked him to issue a religious proclamation. Denying the request, Jefferson wrote, “I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.…. I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it….very one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, & mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the US. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.”

James Madison: In an undated essay historians believe was written between 1817 and 1832, Madison listed five reasons why presidents should not issue prayer proclamations. “The members of a Govt as such can in no sense, be regarded as possessing an advisory trust from their Constituents in their religious capacities,” Madison wrote. “They cannot form an ecclesiastical Assembly, Convocation, Council or Synod, and as such issue decrees or injunctions addressed to the faith or the Consciences of the people.” Madison also criticizes prayer proclamations because they “imply and certainly the erroneous idea of a national religion.” For more information, read the relevant passage from the full essay.
http://www.au.org/site/DocServer/Madison_on_Govt_Procs.pdf?docID=145

Andrew Jackson: Jackson considered religious proclamations a violation of the First Amendment. Asked to approve a proclamation setting aside an official day of fasting and prayer in response to a cholera epidemic, he refused and in 1832 wrote, “I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.”

More:
http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=resources_founding_NDP




Brochure

This brochure is also available in PDF format. Click here to download the brochure.
Is America A 'Christian Nation'?
Religion, Government And Individual Freedom

Is the United States a "Christian nation"? Some Americans think so. Religious Right activists and right-wing television preachers often claim that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation. Even some politicians agree. If the people who make this assertion are merely saying that most Americans are Christians, they might have a point. But those who argue that America is a Christian nation usually mean something more, insisting that the country should be officially Christian. The very character of our country is at stake in the outcome of this debate.

Religious Right groups and their allies insist that the United States was designed to be officially Christian and that our laws should enforce the doctrines of (their version of) Christianity. Is this viewpoint accurate? Is there anything in the Constitution that gives special treatment or preference to Christianity? Did the founders of our government believe this or intend to create a government that gave special recognition to Christianity?

The answer to all of these questions is no. The U.S. Constitution is a wholly secular document. It contains no mention of Christianity or Jesus Christ. In fact, the Constitution refers to religion only twice in the First Amendment, which bars laws "respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and in Article VI, which prohibits "religious tests" for public office. Both of these provisions are evidence that the country was not founded as officially Christian.

The Founding Fathers did not create a secular government because they disliked religion. Many were believers themselves. Yet they were well aware of the dangers of church-state union. They had studied and even seen first-hand the difficulties that church-state partnerships spawned in Europe. During the American colonial period, alliances between religion and government produced oppression and tyranny on our own shores.

More:
http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=resources_brochure_christiannation


Priority Mail

Why President Jefferson's Letter To The Danbury Baptists Is Still Being Read By Americans After 200 Years

By Rob Boston

On New Year's Day, 1802, Baptist minister John Leland arrived at the White House with a present for President Thomas Jefferson.

It was a "mammoth cheese," weighing more than 1,200 pounds and accompanied by a placard proclaiming: "The Greatest Cheese in America for the Greatest Man in America!" The gift came from a group of Baptists in Cheshire, Mass., where Leland, a former Virginia resident, had settled. The cheese wheel, the Baptists said, was given in appreciation of Jefferson's strong stand in favor of religious freedom and his opposition to all those who sought to impose state-sponsored orthodoxy.

Jefferson received the offering with enthusiasm, but consuming the delicacy created some special problems. Two years later it was still being served at White House dinners. Federalist Sen. William Plumer of New Hampshire sampled a piece while dining at Jefferson's table in 1804 and later remarked that it was "very far from being good."

Religious liberty seems to have been the topic of the moment at the White House that New Year's Day. A few hours later, Jefferson penned a famous letter about religious freedom and church-state separation. That missive, a reply to the Danbury, Conn., Baptist Association, contains Jefferson's view that the American people through the First Amendment have erected a "wall of separation between church and state." (Jefferson was apparently in a letter-writing mood that day. He also wrote two notes to sons-in-law, detailing the arrival of the "mammoth cheese.")

More:
http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=cs_&page=NewsArticle&id=5609&security=1001&news_iv_ctrl=1046



Press from Pledge

The Boston Globe

July 11, 2002

What the founders really intended

JEFF JACOBY cites the clerk's entry ''in the Year of Our Lord'' on the signature page of the Constitution as an ostensible counterbalance to the inescapable fact that although many of the signers were Deists and many of the rest ''Rational Christians'' (what we would now call Unitarians), all explicitly avoided any mention of a Deity in the Preamble or the Articles of the Constitution (''The Founders and God,'' op ed, July 4).

Certainly, the failure of such a citation, even in the Preamble, which offered a fertile opportunity for some such mention, is the ''elephant in the room'' which he is trying to wag by the tip of its tail. Religion is mentioned only once in the body of the Constitution, to abjure any religious test for office, and alluded to once in the assertion of the right to swear or affirm an oath of office.

The Founding Fathers certainly were aware of the vicious persecution of Quakers under the Puritan Theocracy and of the Baptists under the yoke of the established Anglican Church of Virginia, not to mention the vilification of Thomas Paine, who was a Deist, although a distinctly unorthodox one. They clearly opted for freedom of conscience on this issue by writing an explicitly secular Constitution.

The most cursory reading of the US Constitution reveals that one of its fundamental precepts is the obstruction of any tyranny of the majority. Efficiency and simplicity are both compromised to preserve this principle.

This is the cardinal principle of the Appeals Court decision concerning the insertion of ''under God'' into the Pledge of Allegiance. This is not, as Jacoby implies, an attempt to scrub the public square free of God, but a recognition that a secular public school should not be involved in the indoctrination of children by religious doctrines to which their parents object - certainly a right guaranteed by our intentionally secular Constitution.

JOSEPH GERSTEIN

Weston

The writer is president of the Humanist Association of Massachusetts. [e-mail]

More:
http://www.americanhumanist.org/press/bgjuly1102.html

[Minnesota Libra]

9. Thank you - this is exactly what I needed - you guys...........

....at DU are all phenomenal:grouphug:

[papau]

7. While tolerant and with a diest bent, most of the founding fathers, includ

including those mentioned above, considered themselves Christians and died as "Churched" persons. Jefferson in particular went back and forth a bit.

Some were indeed atheist - indeed a bit "loud atheist" :-)

There were also Jews as founding fathers.

For fun, ask your fundi friend just how close were we to becoming a German speaking nation rather than an English speaking nation? :-)

[Minnesota Libra]

10. That is a very good question and should shut them up.........

....good one:bounce:

[Ian David]

11. Benjamin Franklin was a bisexual sadomasochist swinger

I don't have time to do the research right now, but start by googling Benjamin Franklin and Hellfire Club Paris.

[Bonhomme Richard]

12. Here, the Treaty of Tripoli states it clearly.

"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

This was signed by John Adams and ratified by congress. It couldn't be clearer.

[Minnesota Libra]

13. Thank you for this - by simply reading what you guys are................

...providing me with I'd say our neocon/fundie friends are totally off base when they claim our country was founded on faith/religion.