Care for a little Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln?

Question

Benjamin Franklin
"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies."
"Lighthouses are more helpful then churches."
-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor
Abraham Lincoln
"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
Thomas Jefferson (Deist)
"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 political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. "
"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
"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 towards uniformity"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."
"Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies."
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Answer 1

I don't know if you saw my earlier question, but I posted some Jefferson quotes and one guy said I was foolish and re-writing history, essentially calling me a liar, lol.

Answer 2

Possibly, but the world and the nation have changed allot since their time. The main problem, as I see it is that the richest of the rich simultaneously blame the poor for their lot in life and do their best to deny them the tools to improve it. That strikes me as singularly unfair. When the richest of the rich get into trouble, they're too big to fail and get uncounted trillions in tax payer's dollars to bail them out. When the California budget goes belly up, it's the poor, the health care safety net, the schools that get cut. No. I don't believe the founding fathers ever intended for the richest to pay for everything for the poorest, but I don't believe they were completely without compassion for the less fortunate either. Nor would they have wanted to see the wealth gap between the richest and poorest continue to widen into the new feudal dark age that we have today. Out of the world's nearly 7 billion people roughly 1 billion don't get enough to eat on a daily basis. I personally don't believe it's because 1 in 7 people are lazy or stupid. The least we could do is give these people the means, education and encouragement to make better decisions. Just assuming that they're somehow inferior and letting them fend for themselves hurts us all.

Answer 3

Those are good points to bring up to those fundies I've met that say we should teach Creationism in schools because, "Christianity is what our country was based on". I also agree with Mark Twain's opinion that nothing creates an atheist faster than a thorough reading of the Bible. As for Earl D stating that politicians start wars, he needs to click on to this source to see all the wars "sanctioned by God''.

Answer 4

Yeah! Good stuff, and important reading for the many who assume that America's early heroes were all ipso facto Bible thumpers.

CD

Answer 5

Jefferson and Franklin were Carpetbaggers

Lincolin was an OK guy

You seem to have a great LOVE for LAWYERS and POLITICIANS

Those are the people who send boys off to war, you know.

Those are the people who have just extended funding for the war in Iraq

They funded VIETNAM

I'll take a christian any day of the week over a politician.

ALL politicians should be marched into the oceans to drown!

Answer 6

Hear, hear! Nice to see these statements again, in a place where they're sorely needed.

Answer 7

Sometimes when I read Jefferson I just want to stand up and cheer.

Answer 8

I agree with the one just above me.

Answer 9

Wow...and I thought our founding fathers wanted a theocracy. Guess I was wrong.

Answer 10

Like everyone else here, they too had their opinions.