What do atheists think about this famous Thomas Jefferson quote?

Question

"I consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered to contain the outlines of the sublimest system of morality that has ever been taught." -Thomas Jefferson

Answer 1

Probably much the same thing that Christians think about this Jefferson quote:

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward 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."

Funny thing is, he's right on both counts.

Answer 2

I don't know; I'm a Pagan, not an atheist.

What do Christians think of THESE famous TJ quotes?

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.

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.

If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

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.

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.

Answer 3

Thomas Jefferson was a deist, not a theist.

Edit: Why are the christian saying "you wanna follow someone that owned slaves" The bible promotes slavery, or is that different because it's the bible.

I would love to know where you got that quote from. It seems, as if, it may not be authentic

Answer 4

I cannot find an authoritative confirmation of that quote, and quite frankly, its suspect. These, however, are real:

"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 effects of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." [From Notes on the State of Virginia.]

The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. [Letter to John Adams, on Christian scriptures (January 24, 1814)]

Answer 5

You don't have to be a theist to be of the opinion that Jesus was a good person. I don't see Thomas Jefferson saying that Jesus was the son of God.

Answer 6

I don't like the word doctrine...
His teachings were very interesting...
It is incredible how people can distort those words but it happened and still does...
And Thomas Jefferson never met the Dalai Lama either..

Answer 7

Those doctrines are certainly in the running. What's your point?

Atheists do not believe that there is a god. Jefferson's comments here have nothing to do with whether or not there is a god.

Answer 8

I think he was a very political person. History indicates that he was under attack by Christians for his beliefs which were not Christian in nature. He did not believe in the divinity of Jesus. He was deist which is very different from being a theist. I truly feel that his comment was an attempt to make himself more acceptable to the Christians who could help him advance his political career,

Answer 9

Just that Jesus taught good things, about how to be a good person. Doesn't mean that old TJ believed he was the son of a god. I believe that someone named Jesus existed...he was a good person. Do I believe he was the son of god? No...there is no god.

Answer 10

No problem with it. Jesus *did* set forward a very good system of morality.