Which of these quotes did you learn in school?

Question

" It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible". - George Washington

" The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty". -- Thoms Jefferson"

"That Book (the Bible), sir, is the Rock on which our Republic rests". - Andrew Jackson

"God who gave us life and liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are a gift from God?" - Thomas Jefferson

"It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God and to obey His will". -- George Washington

" We stake the whole future history of this nation upon the ablility of its people to govern & control themselves according to the 10 Commandments". -- James Madison ...Chief Architect of the US Constsitution and 2nd Pres. of US.

Thanks Gary . . . cut and paste :)

Answer 1

I am currently in U.S History studying Washington and Jefferson and I haven't heard any of these quotes.

Why is God being abandoned in our schools? They can't take God out of the pledge of alliegence or off of our money. As you can tell from the quotes, this country was founded on God and if you if you don't believe it, then you can respect it.

Answer 2

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."

- Abraham Lincoln

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies."-Benjamin Franklin

"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

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
-John Adams

"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 Minerve 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

Answer 3

None. Most of what I learned was on my own and thru personal research.

Most of the founding fathers were Christian! Some deists.

Thomas Jefferson was either deist or atheist. He called himself a materialist.

Washington's faith is unknown.

Even Benjamin Franklin who was a deist and didn't like the religious system said that religion was necessary for it's morals.

Why is it so hard for people to admit this???


By they way,,,you have to look at their whole life and all their quotes and not just a few. Several didn't like the religious "system" but that doesn't mean they weren't Christian. You have to dig deeper

Answer 4

I don't consider myself voracious, but I'm answering anyway. I know of someone like this. Within months of going to prison he was asking his friends for books. He had read all the books in the prison library. We were all asked to give a couple books that we no longer needed. I don't think I contributed any, only because I had so few books and I loved the few I owned. I was more of a ride my bike to the library kind of kid. At any rate, I don't believe all his reading did him a great deal of good. I believe he was back into that prison before he had time to do anything with himself, despite his dad giving him a job. Dad was one of the town's most loved and hated ministers at the time. I digress. My favorite author is the author I'm reading at any given time. Now I'm enthralled with a whimsical children's book with jokes that are far too sophisticated for most children. I look forward to reading more from Avi, even if I have to read by myself while the children read easier material.

Answer 5

When I've posted contrary non-theistic or deistic quotes, I've always included references for cross-checking. Please include those. I recognize some of them but a couple don't ring truly consistent with other writings I've read, and I'd like to follow up on your sources.

EDIT: Here is a website refuting your TJ quote regarding the Bible being the Cornerstone of Liberty:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/archives/quote072.htm

EDIT 2: Here's a quote that is exerpted on the Jefferson Memorial:
"Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively." From "A bill for establishing religious freedom."

I also cannot find the Life & Liberty Jefferson quote at any non-religious web site. It sounds like a misquote from "A testament of freedom," "The god who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time...."

Answer 6

The George Washington quote was not written by him. It was in a prayer book determined by the Smithsonian and Washington experts not to be in his hand. In fact a teacher got in a lot of trouble for teaching it fraudulently.

Answer 7

none of those. I learned "...one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." -the Pledge of Allegience.

Answer 8

All of them. And since my education didn't happen on Yahoo Answers, I also saw what they REALLY THOUGHT in private letters. Like most politicians, they played lip service to religion.

Answer 9

Sure they are not taken out of context.

Jefferson WROTE HIS OWN BIBLE, perhaps he was talking about his OWN Bible.

I can quote you some Jefferson that will knock your socks off. He HATED religion, especially the "Christians" whom he termed to be almost evil.

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science." Jefferson

"I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests." --Thomas Jefferson

"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind." --Thomas Jefferson

"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson

"The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy]." --Thomas Jefferson

"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

"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



Washington was a diest.

He was a church elder at one point in time, but most of his life he was a Diest, which probably means he wasn't a Christian.

When trying to arrange for workmen in 1784 at Mount Vernon, Washington made clear that he would accept "Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists." Washington wrote Lafayette in 1787, "Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest and least liable to exception."

Washington was an inclusive, "big tent" political leader seeking support from the large numbers of Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Quakers in Virginia, and even more groups on a national level. He did not enhance his standing in some areas by advocating support for a particular theology, and certainly did not identify "wedge issues" based on religious differences. Instead, in late 1775, Washington banned the Protestant celebration of the Pope's Day (a traditional mocking of the Catholic leader) by the Continental Army.

Washington was not anti-religion. Washington was not uninterested in religion. He was a military commander who struggled to motivate raw troops in the French and Indian War. He recognized that recruiting the militia in the western part of Virginia required accommodating the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Baptists, and Dutch Reformed members in officially-Anglican Virginia. He was aware that religious beliefs were a fundamental part of the lives of his peers and of his soldiers. He knew that a moral basis for the American Revolution and the creation of a new society would motivate Americans to support his initiatives - and he knew that he would receive more support if he avoided discriminating against specific religious beliefs

Andrew Jackson...

a co-founder of the modern Democratic Party

Jackson met Rachel after her first husband, Colonel Lewis Robards, left her to get a divorce. They fell in love and quickly married. Robards returned two years later without ever having obtained a divorce. Rachel quickly divorced her first husband and then legally married Jackson. This remained a sore point for Jackson who deeply resented attacks on his wife's honor. Jackson fought 103 duels, many nominally over his wife's honor. Charles Dickinson, the only man Jackson ever killed in a duel, had been goaded into angering Jackson by Jackson's political opponents. Fought over a horse-racing debt and an insult to his wife on May 30, 1806, Dickinson shot Jackson in the ribs before Jackson returned the fatal shot. The bullet that struck Jackson was so close to his heart that it could never be safely removed. Jackson had been wounded so frequently in duels that it was said he "rattled like a bag of marbles".[22] At times he would cough up blood, and he experienced considerable pain from his wounds for the rest of his life.

He was said to be a Pesbyterian


Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. 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, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]

Answer 10

all of them.

Did you learn about what they did in private when they weren't spouting religous comments to the public? I didn't until my (Christian!) college years.