When you talk about Founding Fathers being religious, you do realize their primary religion was Deism, right?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidential_religious_affiliations

Answer 1

I'm glad you posted this, though no matter how often you may mention that fact that most of the Founding Fathers were Deists, some Religious Rightists will still keep trying to rewrite history and insist that the US was founded on Christianity.

Answer 2

They were PRIMARY Christians and here is the facts and the link.

Religious Affiliation of U.S. Founding Fathers # of
Founding
Fathers % of
Founding
Fathers
Episcopalian/Anglican 88 54.7%
Presbyterian 30 18.6%
Congregationalist 27 16.8%
Quaker 7 4.3%
Dutch Reformed/German Reformed 6 3.7%
Lutheran 5 3.1%
Catholic 3 1.9%
Huguenot 3 1.9%
Unitarian 3 1.9%
Methodist 2 1.2%
Calvinist 1 0.6%
TOTAL 204

Answer 3

They have been for the main section deists, yet as adherents "to various sorts of Deism that have been the widespread religious progression out of the Enlightenment, (...) they built an earthly gadget of government the place religious liberty became given super protections. They known that the liberty to inspect, innovate, and test in religious concerns became significant and that this could in basic terms ensue in a social context the place people are loose to have self assurance as they choose." EDIT to those that say the themes are brought about by those (oftentimes, heathen secularists and atheists, impressive?) who think of freedom of religion and freedom from faith are the comparable, think of returned: no it is easy to have freedom of religion in the event that they don't seem to be additionally loose from the government advertising or endorsing somebody else's faith. .

Answer 4

Wrong

The majority of the Founding Fathers were actually Christians

Very few were diests such as Franklin and Jefferson

Signers of the Declaration

Episcopalian/Anglican 32 57.1%
Congregationalist 13 23.2%
Presbyterian 12 21.4%
Quaker 2 3.6%
Unitarian or Universalist 2 3.6%
Catholic 1 1.8%
TOTAL 56 100%


Delegates to Constitutional Convention 1787

Episcopalian/Anglican 31 56.4%
Presbyterian 16 29.1%
Congregationalist 8 14.5%
Quaker 3 5.5%
Catholic 2 3.6%
Methodist 2 3.6%
Lutheran 2 3.6%
Dutch Reformed 2 3.6%
TOTAL 55 100%


All Founding Fathers

Episcopalian/Anglican 88 54.7%
Presbyterian 30 18.6%
Congregationalist 27 16.8%
Quaker 7 4.3%
Dutch Reformed/German Reformed 6 3.7%
Lutheran 5 3.1%
Catholic 3 1.9%
Huguenot 3 1.9%
Unitarian 3 1.9%
Methodist 2 1.2%
Calvinist 1 0.6%
TOTAL 204

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Answer 5

It also depends on what one means by our "Founding Fathers," ..... if one means just the aristocrats who were gathered in Philadelphia drafting a Constitution, then maybe you're correct. I don't know.

But here are certain crucial points to remember: the Constitution did not become the supreme law of the land but for the fact that it was ratified and the views of the ratifiers are just as important as the views of the proposers of the Constitution. Likewise, the First Amendment was proposed by an overwhelming majority in Congress and then was sent out to be ratified in the states.

So what do you know about whether or not most of the people are participation of the drafting, proposing, and ratifying of the Constitution were "deists" (good?) or "christians" (as if that's bad)?

Furthermore, are you trying to imply that "christians" are some kind of johnny-come-lately infiltrators who don't know or care about the principle of "separation of church and state"?

Answer 6

I have to disagree with you. I do agree that several were deists but, don’t rely too heavily on wikipedia, it doesn't hold much water on historical and political topics. The info is too malleable to too many people.

This is a question I am preparing to post… I think it answers your question –

Judeo/Christianity and America - Which statement is most correct?

The vast majority of the writings of America’s founding fathers and the United States of America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution were influenced and inspired primarily by the writings associated with or contained within:

The Quran
Secularism
Deism
The Bible
StarHawk’s book Spiral Dance
The Communist Manifesto

Hints can be found here:
Declaration of Independence:
http://www.wallbuilders.com/searchResults.asp?cx=017913191964562303374%3Ap_grmfhrw8c&cof=FORID%3A11&q=declaration+of+independance#919
Constitution:
http://www.wallbuilders.com/searchResults.asp?cx=017913191964562303374%3Ap_grmfhrw8c&cof=FORID%3A11&q=constitution#917

Answer 7

Deism sounds like a liberal term used to justify religion. Most religions are based upon human experience which deism, by the totally opaque definition, seems to be.

Further, most people who make a claim about our Founding Fathers and their religious participation tend to do so by today's standards. That's like asking why Paul Revere didn't just call someone about the British.

Answer 8

Washington professed Christ when he was young but didn't say anything either way when he was older. Family and friends saw him often kneeling and praying in his study. He also kept a prayer journal. But you could look at some letters he sent to Jefferson. No one really knows if he was Christian or deist.

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

Ethan Allen and Ben Franklin were deist

John Adams was Unitarian and believed in Christ.

Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry and John Jay were Christian

Roger Sherman was Christian and part of Congregationalist Church

Benjamin Rush was Christian

James Madison was Anglican

*You Asked couldn't have made it any clearer!

Answer 9

I certainly do, but I don't talk much about the Founding Fathers being religious... well, not to them being CHRISTIAN. They often referred to "God," please note that so do Muslims ("Allah" means God), Hindi, etc. Even Wiccans refer to "God and Goddess." If we were a Christian nation they would have referred to Christ on our money, etc.

What confuses people is that a lot of the "pilgrims" who landed on Plymouth Rock in the 1600's (though less than half of them on the Mayflower) were Puritans, fleeing what they saw as the sinful excesses of the Church of England back home. Plymouth Plantation was run by strict religious rules--not just Christian, but PURITAN Christian, the kind that thought it was perfectly okay to whip people for being Quaker. Several major people who were kicked out for breaking those rules, such as a famous woman who dared run a Bible School class from her house that was more popular than the Sunday services, ended up founding Providence, RI. By the time the Salem Witch Trials proved yet again the problems with letting religious hysteria rule civil courts, the 1700's were about to start.

Also, the earlier plantation of Jamestown wasn't founded for Religious reasons, but for capitalism, pure and simple.

By the time the Founding Fathers were establishing our new country, about 150 years had passed since Plymouth Rock. The most educated men in the country tended to believe that one's religious beliefs were one's own, and many of them (like Jefferson & Franklin) did not belief in the central concepts of Christianity (like the Resurrection). Even Adams was a Unitarian, which refused the belief in the Holy Trinity.

It's true that the *culture* they came out of was fairly Christian, in the same way our culture today is (we DO get time off work for Christmas and Easter, after all). But that's different from saying the USA was founded to be a Christian nation. It was not.

Answer 10

This is from your last link:
This article or section has multiple issues:
Its neutrality is disputed. Tagged since April 2007.

It may contain original research or unverifiable claims. Tagged since April 2007.

It may contain an unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not verifiable with the given sources. Please help add reliable sources about the topic "religious affiliations of US presidents."

This is how "reliable" Wikipedia can be.

Answer 11

No. I don't "realize" that. They were primarily Christian. Many of them ministers of the Gospel of Christ. So... take your revisionist history books (wikipedia...your "reliable" source?) and put them on the burn pile or use 'em to line your bird cage. That's all they're good for anyhow.