Did you know the founding fathers were NOT Christian?

Question

http://www.borndigital.com/founders.htm

Actually...MOST of our founding fathers WERE NOT Christian....
Jefferson, Paine, Washington, Madison, Franklin, Morris, Adams.....Not Christian.

Answer 1

It's actually more complicated than that. Jefferson, Paine, Washington, Madison, Franklin, Morris and a lot of others were Deists, and while perhaps only Jefferson and Paine would avow an anti-Christian belief, most wouldn't have said they were NOT Christian. They were, simply, enlightened thinkers, and not in any way fundamentalists. An indication of this is their penchant for referring to God as "Almighty," "Creator," "Nature," "Providence," etc.

Answer 2

The only non-Christen among the founders was Thomas Paine who was deist, although Jefferson certainly espoused a very liberal form of Christianity and rejected large parts of the bible including just about anything involving a miracle. The evidence indicates that Franklin flirted with Atheism in his youth. Washington and Adams were both firmly Christians. What is important is that most of the founders believed in freedom of religion and didn't believe that those with different beliefs should be discriminated against.

Answer 3

Hello... =)

Oh....the vast majority of them were, my friend.

There were a few notable exceptions, like Jefferson, and so forth...but remember that this was the era of the Western Enlightenment, meaning that mankind was beginning to realize his potential as intellectual beings. To some, this meant analytically looking at God, and in some cases, discounting the possibility. Would Jefferson have considered himself an Atheist?? Certainly not..... An Agnostic...probably....

Remember that Franklin was a Quaker (the origin of the term "holy roller", from their tendency to quake and shake and roll on the floor from the "power" of the Holy Spirit)......

They recognized the importance of keeping their Religions to themselves however, and also the importance of not cramming their beliefs down other people's throats. So, they certainly were NOT like the Christians of TODAY, that's for sure.

Christianity was much different in those days as well. The South wasn't full of Baptists, but a branch of Anglican or C.O.E.... The morality of the day was different as well. For example, it was unthinkable for these southern gentlemen to have a mistress, but quite common for them to sleep with slave girls, since slaves were neither considered human, nor truly beasts.

All in all, it is comparing apples to oranges, really...we cannot have a good understanding of the Religion, ethics, ideals, or morality of the day, because we cannot draw on any of the experiences that they had. In many ways they were far less narrow-minded, and inhibited than we are now, about a great many things, and we have turned back the "enlightenment" quite a bit in the past 250 years, but in other ways, we have a truer sense of what is "right".....We certainly have not become more compassionate, and, if the same conditions presented themselves, we would fail at grasping the great equanimity and vision that came so easily to them.

Namaste,

--Tom

Answer 4

it seems as if some one is constantly trying to prove that our country is and our constitution is not based on the Christan faith when all you have got to do is read a little about our fore fathers and it becomes obvious they were mostly Christan, and George Washington was Presbyterian if I remember right and they had prayer service before every meeting and before any plans were made for battle,and yes they did want the gov, not to endorse any particular faith or sect, as they knew what problems could arise out of this b,t,w, most of our signers of our declaration of independance and writers of the constitution were quaker, I don't claim they were better educated or smarter than our politicians today but, they dammned sure had more common sense, and they were also statesmen with the country's best interest at heart, can anyone say the same for any politician today?

B,T,W, which one was Jewish as several including washington worte a letter to congress to never allow Jew's to immigrate to America this letter is available at the George Wasington institute signed e several of our signers of the constitution and bill of rights
England had just kicked them out of England and they knew the problems they would cause ,and they were right,

Answer 5

They all believed in God, just that some like Washington and Jefferson believed he put us here to run the course as we see fit, like spinning a top and letting it fly. In fact the concept of "freedom" comes from the fact that God didn't prove his existance so that we worship in fear, but they we CHOOSE to worship or not, as we see fit, and no lesser being (human) has a right to demand we worship them. An ancestor of mine was kicked out of Plymouth Colony for that idea, he refused to "worship" King James. More importantly, to avoid teh religous wars of teh old countries they wanted a government that didn't take sides in religous issues, it's not that they were denying Christ so much as they didn't want politics of the church and feuds between denominations destroying the country, they just "assumed" the country always would be Christian and at anyrate you can't legislate faith, nor should any government try, it leads to nasty things like getting burned at stakes or your head chopped off.

Answer 6

Yes, I think people say that in order to push through so called Christian values onto the rest of us.

Answer 7

Well, they certainly were not Muslim and only a hand-full were Hebrews. For the most part, they were indeed church-going Christians. At least, they attended when it was convenient for them. I don't believe that there was an agnostic in the bunch.

Answer 8

Puh-leez

Answer 9

Of course not. But they were also not stupid enough to think that man got here alone. They were smart enough to realize that sometime along the way, God helped us become what we are now.

They didn't want to force us to believe in their God, but they wanted us to not be as stuck-up as to think we created our world.

They were a lot smarter than people nowadays.

Answer 10

Didn't know that but it does make sense. Takeing up arms and seperating church and state.