Would Thomas Jefferson Be Electable Today?

Question

Jefferson was one of the greatest Americans ever. He admired the teachings of Jesus, but did not believe that Jesus was god's son or that Jesus died for mankind's sins on the cross. So, imagine someone running for office today, hundreds of years later, saying the following things that Jefferson said. Would that person not instantly be deemed unelectable by mainstream America?

"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 Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

"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."

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/jefferson.htm

It is known that Jefferson was a deist. He believed in a natural God. Everyone did back then because it was pre-Darwin. There is virtually no question at all that a Jefferson of our age would be an atheist/agnostic liberal.

Answer 1

Jefferson would be unelectable today, but not because he was a Deist (Jefferson did believe that God existed, he just didn't believe in the Christian God or any other revealed religion). Jefferson would not be electable because he believed that everybody has inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (a euphemism for property rights). Were he around today, he'd be struggling with media bias just like Ron Paul is.

Answer 2

Jefferson was a realist ... and far too intelligent and forth coming to be elected today

mostly the far right wing that panders to religious zealots ... not so much mainstream

love the whole doomsday theory, hope it works out for you

As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France. He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of the republican virtue, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for a quarter-century and was the precursor of the modern-day Democratic Party.(wiki)

Answer 3

Time poll from the late 1990's.

What % of Americans would vote for someone who spent time in Prison?
78%
What % of Americans would vote for someone who was convicted for sexual misconduct or rape?
71%
What % of Americans would vote for someone who claimed to be an atheist?
12%

One of the reasons that the members of the Constitutional Convention worked hard to hold off having direct elections is because this kind of thing happens - most Americans don't have enough executive mental capacity or critical judgment to be able to effectively chose their own leadership. Now we have "In God We Trust" on our currency, Commandment tablets in front of grindingly poor states' court houses, and chaplain prayers before every session of Congress. And those who support these demeaning acts against reason have the audacity to claim that our forefathers WANTED this.

Sigh.

PS: REgarding the answer directly above mine, I don't think that the asker is implying any sort of "Doom's Day" scenerio - s/he is simply quoting Jefferson's critiques of Christianity.

Answer 4

No, I don't think he would be electable. Some people have said that they won't vote for Mitt Romney because he's mormon. That doesn't leave much room for an agnostic. Too bad. I wish there was a candidate who was the exact opposite of W. Jefferson might be close.

Answer 5

Jefferson did not merely "have" a Bible. He made his own version of the
Life and Morals of Jesus by cutting and pasting extracts from the
Gospels.

But not even that necessarily proves he believed in God. Jefferson
made numerous statements referring to God that he would hardly make
if he did not believe in God.

Jefferson did not think that Jesus WAS God, and considered the idea of
the Trinity an absurdity. He did not believe in the miracles recorded in
the New Testament, and for that reason omitted them from his "Jefferson
Bible." He DID believe in the after life, and probably would not qualify
as a deist.

"I believe, with the Quaker preacher, that he who steadily observes
those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be
questioned at the gates of heaven, as to the dogmas in which they all
differ. That on entering there, all these are left behind us, and the
Aristides and Catos, the Penns and Tillotsons, Presbyterians and
Baptists, will find themselves united in all principles which are in concert
with the reason of the supreme mind." --Thomas Jefferson to William
Canby, 1813. ME 13:377

On the Book Of Revelation , this is what Jefferson wrote:

"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it, and I then considered it
as merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of
explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams... I cannot
so far respect [the extravagances of the composition] as to consider
them as an allegorical narrative of events, past or subsequent. There is
not coherence enough in them to countenance any suite of rational
ideas... What has no meaning admits no explanation... I do not consider
them as revelations of the Supreme being, whom I would not so far
blaspheme as to impute to Him a pretension of revelation, couched at
the same time in terms which, He would know, were never to be
understood by those to whom they were addressed." --Thomas Jefferson
to Alexander Smyth, 1825. ME 16:100 [The ellipses omit portions
related to a specific book manuscript Smyth sent to TJ.]

If necessary to categorize Jefferson's religious belief, Unitarian would
seem to be the correct category. He wrote:

"I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who
will not die an Unitarian." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse,
1822. ME 15:385

He would hardly make such a statement if he did not himself believe in
God and basically agree with the Unitarian viewpoint.

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his
justice cannot sleep forever." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia
Q.XVIII, 1782. ME
2:227

If he didn't believe in God, he would hardly believe God was just.

"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the
hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." --Thomas
Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. Papers, 1:135

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have
removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the
people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are
not to be violated but with His wrath?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes
on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782. ME 2:227

Would Jefferson make such statements if he did not believe in God?

There is no question that Jefferson definitely did believe in God and in
the afterlife. The only way one could maintain that Jefferson was an
atheist is to assert that his statements about God were rhetorical and
metaphors. But anyone who has read Jefferson's writings knows that
that cannot hold up. His last words reportedly were, "Nunc dimittis
Domine."

Answer 6

He wouldnt make it. Christianity on a pie chart in america is like pac man. {< wakawakawaka

Answer 7

The Libertarians and Repubicans would vote for him. The Dem's would mostly vote against him.

But, he would be electable and probably formidable during debates.

Answer 8

No.