Did you know that you can go to the local 'Bible Book Store' and buy books that claim Benjamin Franklin

Question

was a God fearing, Bible believing Christian?

Is old Benjamin rolling over in his grave?

Answer 1

he was

Answer 2

Management of a place of business do not like non-employees of their establishment taking it upon themselves to redistribute the goods. Look at it this way, imagine someone came into your home, and because they were a religious believer, decided to take it upon themselves to redistribute your books on atheism, perhaps in the garbage. Wouldn't you get upset that someone had the gall to come into your space, decide that what they believe is right, and your belief is wrong, and "help" you by rearranging your stuff? If you are going to protest something, do it in a legitimate way. If you wanted the bibles to be in the fiction section, contact that bookstores management, and tell them your opinion. Peace, and Namaste!

Answer 3

He should be, as that is an outright lie.
I'm betting that they still think that America is a christian nation.
Jefferson said it best;
"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378

Now, that SHOULD quell the arguments, but Jefferson uses big words, and most christians simply won't understand what he meant by those words...

Answer 4

My favorite story about Benjamin Franklin is how he was converted to Deism by reading a book that was arguing against it!

Answer 5

You can also buy books that try to tell you that George Bush (and John Kerry) are Christians. Both of those guys are members of a much different church, The Skull & Bones and that is were the alligences is.

Answer 6

uggh! I wouldn't linger too long in that 'Bible Book store.' Did you buy the book? I would be curious to know how they back that up, I guess because he talked about God in some of his proverbs.

Answer 7

How about reading Franklin's Autobiography published after his death with the aid of his son William Franklin.

Try reading the Continental Congress Records, Treatises, Assembly session documents of the 1700s.

Try reading the original and final drafting of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin helped draft it.

In 1731, Franklin publicly articulated his own personal creed that he lived by in both his personal and public life:

"That there is one God, Father of the universe. That He is infinitely good, powerful and wise. That He is omnipresent. That He ought to be worshipped, by adoration prayer and thanksgiving both in public and private."

In 1787, at the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia, when decisions could not be reached and tempers flared among the assembly, Franklin, then age 81, stood to his feet and said to the heatedly arguing assembly:

"I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? ... I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the builders of Babel … Therefore, I beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning..."

The Congress to this day, still opens its assembly with prayer.

Benjamin Franklin was indeed a God-fearing, Bible believing Christian.

Answer 8

Pretty amazing, and a little sad.

Oh, andyknapp09, what an amazingly ethnocentric comment. Do you think that all the Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Indigenous Peoples believed in the bible "in those days"?

Or do you just think those people didn't have any kind of "society"?

Answer 9

Benjamin Franklin probably was a deist, a believer. He makes many references to God in many letters he sent to other individuals...

http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/religion/franklin-religion.html

Here's just one of them. Take from it what you want...

To Ezra Stiles, 9 March 1790 (B 12:185-6):
You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.

Answer 10

He should be considering he was a Deist and a Freemason at that. Did they conveniently cover up the fact that he was a Mason and met with Voltaire on one of his trips to France?

I'd say he's been constantly rolling over a number of years given what this country has come to.

Answer 11

That's depressing. I'm not sure he'd be rolling over in his grave. Given the way Ben was, I suspect he'd be laughing his [butt] off.