country were not God-fearing people (including Quakers)?
2006-12-17 13:38:46 · 15 answers · asked by judy f 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
If you read the writings of Paine, Jefferson and Franklin you would see they were somewhere between deist and agnostic.
2006-12-17 13:45:22 · answer #1 · answered by Beavis Christ AM 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Mostly Deists, but it was really a mixed bag. The Quakers were in PA and they were pacifists that were against a war for any reason including independence.
Jefferson felt the need to write his own Bible. http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/
Not very Christian like, is it?
2006-12-17 21:44:46 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
They were God-fearing people. They left England to get away from the king's rule. But they never stopped believing in God. There were more than one Christian denomination that came to America in the beginning and as more was allowed in, things became secular.
2006-12-17 21:44:08 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most, if not all, were Christians of various denominations. A few were Deists. That is, they believed in God, but didn't subscribe to any church. Remember that the government controlled churches they grew up in had made some of them very skeptical of organized religion. No atheists or agnostics that I know of.
2006-12-17 21:45:15 · answer #4 · answered by guitar teacher 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The Treaty of Tripoli, America's first treaty which was passed unanimously and signed by John Adams in 1797 states in its 11th article, and I quote:
"America is in no way founded upon the Christian religion."
And here are some quotes from the founding fathers themselves:
"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 (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)
Every man "ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." - George Washington (Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia in May, 1789)
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787)
"When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." - Benjamin Franklin (from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780;)
"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... Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."- Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)
"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." - Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)
"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?" - John Adams
"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." -Thomas Jefferson (The Jefferson Bible)
2006-12-17 21:42:33 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 7⤊ 1⤋
So "god fearing" always means good, huh? Yeah right.
Edit: I have no clue if Deists fear any god, so maybe not. But that doesn't make it/them any less then a bunch of Christians (and maybe better). Unless, of course, you are prejudiced like that?
2006-12-17 21:48:46 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Whether they were or not, they were very careful to make clear that this is not a Christian nation, or a nation that officially follows any religious belief system. Read the Constitution: they were very clear about it. There is no mention of "god" or "Jesus" or "Christ" or anything like that. "Religion" is mentioned twice: once to prohibit any religious tests for public office, the other time to prevent the government from passing any laws establishing any religion.
Case closed.
2006-12-17 21:43:50 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 1⤋
You can't possibly be that thick.
NO ONE is saying the forefather's weren't "god-fearing." What they were NOT were self-righteous Bible-thumpers. They knew how WRONG is was (and is and will continue to be) to force their own personal beliefs down everyone else's throat.
2006-12-17 22:36:34 · answer #8 · answered by Voodoid 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Did you not read all the answers the first time around? Do the research for yourself and you'll see the truth. Don't just repeat buzz phrases you've heard people say on TV.
2006-12-17 21:43:02 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 1⤋
Some were, and some weren't. But the people who founded the consitution were mainly deists.
2006-12-17 21:41:40 · answer #10 · answered by Mayonaise 6 · 6⤊ 0⤋