Abraham Lincoln, 1 of the most morally grounded and revered of our forefathers wasn't a Christian?

Question

What's your take on it? I'm asking because many Christians claim our American forefathers wouldn't approve of a secular nation as a matter of precedence.

Well, here's a quote from Abe himself. I think it pretty much sums it up:

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

SOURCE: The Oregonian & cafepress.com

I never said Lincoln didn't believe in "God". I said he wasn't a Christian. Stay on point.

It would seem many Christians are confused. Having a basal belief in "God" doesn't mean you subscribe to Christianity. This is my point. Once again, see the quote above.

Although Abe did speak of or elude to "God" periodically, he probably didn't do it in the Gettysburg Address. Neither of the 2 actuall copies of the speech contain the line concerning "God". Most historians believe this was an embelishment added years after his death.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/lincoln.htm

Answer 1

Despite what some Christians would have you believe... the Founding Fathers actually did not want a nation ruled by religion... hence the Seperation of Church and State. The idea was that religion would not dictate national policy... and that government would not interfere with expression of faith.

Whether any one of our forefathers was or was not a Christian actually is not much of an issue when you approach this question from the perspective of what would those forefathers want our nation to look like today.

I think it goes without saying that Abe would be saddened with the disrepect and sometimes outright hatred Americans show each other. Whether secular or religious, democrat or republican... we need to do better by each other.

Answer 2

Don't know where you got your information from.

The following demonstrates Lincoln's humble, unquestioned dependence on God's aid. Rarely do our history books tell the story of a president on his knees in prayer! This was a statement he made to General Dan Sickles, a participant in the battle of Gettysburg:

"Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of the campaign up there (at Gettysburg) when everybody seemed panic stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this war was His war, and our cause His cause, but we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville... And after that, I don't know how it was, and I cannot explain it, but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His own hands and that things would go right at Gettysburg and that is why I had no fears about you." [July 5, 1863]

Answer 3

One does not have to be a Christian to believe in God or have morals.

Our country was founded because of religious persecution and thus created a government that was supposed to be separate from religion, which is how it should be. The laws of men are different from the laws of God. The latter should be at individual discretion.

Also, please note that many of our forefathers also believed in slavery and beating their children. We are all evolving to a new level of existance that does not require such things. Regardless of what the forefathers would or would not approve of is inconsequential.

Our country is founded on the basis of freedom. This means that everyone is allowed to share their opinions, whether we agree with them or not, and we are incredibly fortunate for this.

I hope this answered your question?

Best wishes.

Answer 4

Our forefathers did believe in God. Look at the motto on the US 'In God we Trust". Now they did not believe in Government and a state sponsored religion. Most of them had left England where the Church of England was ran by the Government and the Church ran the Government. They found this was wrong and that people should be able to choose their own religion. They did not intend to have no religion because for most of us it is part of us. We will always vote based on our belief's and ideals and those include our religion.

Answer 5

Where did you get that bad info from?
Lincoln was a Christian.
Here is the exact text of the end of the Gettysburg Address:
"that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Answer 6

Lincoln became a Christian in 1864 or do ya not know your History.

When he testified about his CHristian faith after becoming a Christian he said "when I became President and I asked people to pray for me I was not a Christian."

He gave testimony to the times when he was not a Christian and how the change came about and how he now believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The day he was shot to death he told his Wife he wanted to visit The Holy Land and at the moment he was shot he said "maybe we could go to Jeru" meaning to say Jerusalem but was shot before he could finish saying Jerusalem.

Answer 7

Christian these days are trying to rewrite history and science. So take there words with there agenda in mind.

Lincoln was a great man regardless.

Answer 8

Who said he was not a Christian, he was brought up in a Christian home, married a Christian woman, lived and died as a Christian.

How do I know these things?
Family history, that is how.

Answer 9

LISTEN!!!!!!!!







































The forefathers believed in God. So what? That doesn't make them Christian, you dipshits.





Abraham Lincoln's Humanistic Religious Beliefs

In debates on whether Ohio's state motto unconstitutionally advances religion, some motto supporters pointed out that Abraham Lincoln mentioned God in some of his speeches. Lincoln's religious views, however, were inconsistent with the motto.

Ohio's motto, "With God, all things are possible," is from Jesus' teachings on salvation as set forth at Matthew 19:26. The motto thus endorses Christian theology, including the belief that God assists human activities by intervening in the world and altering the course of nature. Lincoln did not subscribe to those ideas.

As a young man, Lincoln read the theological works of the deist Thomas Paine, and it was well known among his friends and neighbors that he agreed with Paine and was a deist and infidel. The youthful Lincoln even wrote a manuscript, which he intended to publish, arguing against the divinity of Christ and the divine inspiration of the Bible.

One of his friends became worried about the effect this writing would have on Lincoln's career, and therefore destroyed it by throwing it into a fire. Nonetheless, Lincoln never denied he had written the manuscript. Nor did he ever disavow the views contained in it, join a Christian church, or be baptized.

His friend's concerns turned out to be well-founded. When Lincoln ran for state legislature in the 1830s, his opponent accused him of being an infidel and of having said Jesus was an illegitimate child. And when Lincoln ran for Congress against a Methodist minister in 1846, he was again charged with being an infidel, if not an atheist.

Lincoln did not deny the charges of infidelity, which were indeed injurious to his early political career. But these experiences taught him to keep his religious views much more private.

As a result, Lincoln's later public statements about religion became guarded and discreet. He employed vague language such as "Divine Providence," "Justice of God," "Most High," and other expressions that were generally consistent with his own deistic inclinations and the various religious views of his constituents. Still, when he ran for president in 1860, his candidacy was opposed by 20 of the 23 ministers in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois.

The outbreak of the Civil War made even more imperative the need for Lincoln to appease religious groups and downplay his disagreements with their creeds. The southern churches had sided with the Confederacy, and the northern churches were divided. Lincoln knew that if he lost the support of religious persons in the North, his administration and the Union would be ruined.

It was in this political context that Lincoln, in some of his speeches, was impelled to employ vague, deferential, and sometimes complimentary references to religion as part of his efforts to save the Union. He sincerely needed and appreciated the support of ministers and their congregations in the war effort.

Nevertheless, a careful reading of Lincoln's speeches gives no clear indication that his views about Christian theology had changed from his younger days. In fact, he never publicly renounced his earlier views - despite the political benefits he could have gained by doing so. Instead, as the New York World stated in about 1875: "He declared frequently that he would do anything to save the Union, and among the many things he did was the partial concealment of his individual religious opinions."

Although Lincoln expressed religious platitudes during the Civil War, his specific ideas about the divinity differed markedly from those of the orthodox churches. His close friends knew the details of his private beliefs.

For instance, Jesse W. Fell had been secretary of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, and was instrumental in bringing forth Lincoln as a candidate for president. Fell later wrote of Lincoln's religious views: "He fully believed in a superintending and overruling Providence that guides and controls the operations of the world, but maintained that law and order, not their violation or suspension, are the appointed means by which this Providence is exercised."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis, appointed to the court by Lincoln, was a longtime confidant since their days as Illinois circuit-riding lawyers. He served as Lincoln's campaign manager at the 1860 Republican convention, and administered the estate of the slain president. Davis said of Lincoln's religion: "He had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term - had faith in laws, principles, causes and effects."

Lincoln's law partner of 22 years, William Herndon, similarly related that Lincoln did not believe in miracles or the efficacy of prayer. According to Herndon, Lincoln maintained "that all things, both matter and mind, were governed by laws, universal, absolute and eternal. . . . Law was to Lincoln everything, and special interferences [were] shams and delusions."

Herndon also said there is no evidence that Lincoln's religious views changed after he became president. Herndon wrote in the 1890s: "Now let it be written in history and on Mr. Lincoln's tomb: 'He died an unbeliever.'"

Moreover, Mrs. Lincoln quoted her husband as saying, "What is to be will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree." She explained he "was a religious man always, I think, but was not a technical Christian."

The famous orator Robert Ingersoll corroborated that fact. He served as Illinois Attorney General in the 1860s, was somewhat acquainted with Lincoln, and knew well many of Lincoln's friends and associates.

In regard to Mrs. Lincoln's statement that her husband was not a Christian, Ingersoll added: "Hundreds of his acquaintances have said the same thing. Not only so, but many of them have testified that he was a Freethinker; that he denied the inspiration of the Scriptures, and that he always insisted that Christ was not the Son of God. . . ."

Because Lincoln rejected the idea of miracles and other supernatural interferences with the laws of nature, he emphasized a reliance on human effort in solving problems. In an 1856 speech in Kansas, he stated: "Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon."

Lincoln also advocated the use of reason and experience instead of an unquestioning adherence to ancient doctrines. He explained in an 1860 speech in New York: "I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current experience - to reject all progress, all improvement."

In an 1892 editorial, the Chicago Herald summarized Lincoln's religious views: "He was without faith in the Bible or its teachings. On this point the testimony is so overwhelming that there is no basis for doubt. In his early life Lincoln exhibited a powerful tendency to aggressive infidelity. But when he grew to be a politician he became secretive and non-committal in his religious belief. . . . It must be accepted as final by every reasonable mind that in religion Mr. Lincoln was a skeptic."

Answer 10

he was a christian