Thomas Jefferson... our 3rd president, also the author of the Declaration of Independence...
Its too bad he would be shunned and laughed off the stage today - he was really anti-religious. Just listen to him:
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition, Christianity, one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
Thomas Jefferson was a very reasonable man. Highly educated, very rational. Do you think America will ever have leadership like him again?
2007-12-07 02:38:57 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
To all that are clinging on every last thread... yes, he was a "deist". He thought there was a creator. Had he been here, in modern times, with what we know today, he would not have had to resort to a creator-type figure.
2007-12-07 02:46:02 · update #1
Thomas Jefferson also said.........
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."
" The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty".
...and....
"It is God who gave us life and liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are a gift from God?"
What was your point again?
2007-12-07 02:44:43 · answer #1 · answered by phrog 7 · 1⤊ 4⤋
Jefferson was a wise man. While he attested to his faith in a god, he was anti-christian and anti-most other organized religious groups.
He and others fought agains the christian nutcases of his day and their attempts to have their beliefs written into the Constitution, Bill of Rights.
But for him and Madison, Franklin and others, those screwballs would be in control. Then we'd be like the Islamic countries.....with our lives being ruled by mandatory religious practices, rules, laws and punishments.
He and most of the Founders were Deists. Many had no belief at all.
I think it's fascinating (and a little sad) that so many christians firmly believe that ours is a "christian nation". Their ignorance of the facts is so obvious....
Here are a couple more gems from this wise man:
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] 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.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
---- and ----
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
---- and ----
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.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
2007-12-07 11:44:22 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, the pendulum is already starting to swing.
NO WE WERE NOT MEANT TO BE A CHRISTIAN NATION:
The exact phrase was first used in Thomas Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists, explaining the decision to seperate state and religion:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for is faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
James Madison, principal author of the constitution:
"Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, NOR COMPEL MEN TO WORSHIP God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform" (Madison, Annals of Congress, 1789).
"The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State." (1819).
2007-12-07 10:41:50 · answer #3 · answered by slushpile reader 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Better read the Declaration of Independeance again......
Thomas Jefferson NEVER said that nonsense...
You sound VERY ignorant of the Christian heritage of this nation ...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."
" The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty". -- Thomas Jefferson"
"That Book (the Bible), sir, is the Rock on which our Republic rests". - Andrew Jackson
"It is God who gave us life and liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are a gift from God?" - Thomas Jefferson
"It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God and to obey His will". -- George Washington
" We stake the whole future history of this nation upon the ablility of its people to govern & control themselves according to the 10 Commandments". -- James Madison ...Chief Archetect of the US Constistution and 4th Pres. of US.
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ." - Patrick Henry
So why should we believe clueless atheists that are trying to convince us otherwise? I choose to believe our Founding Fathers and reject the atheists who are trying to re-write history to suit their own selfish agenda.
"America was founded as a Christian Nation according to John Adams: "The highest history of the American revolution is this:It connected in ONE INDISSOLUABLE BOND the principles of civil government with the principles of CHRISTIANITY". -- John Adam - 2nd President of the U S
2007-12-07 10:42:02 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 4⤋
Jefferson actually wrote his own version of the bible, removing all supernatural references.
2007-12-07 10:42:54 · answer #5 · answered by David Carrington Jr. 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Most of out first Presidents are the kinds of men we need in office nowadays.
2007-12-07 10:43:11 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Yes and much more frequently when the republican party goes out of business.
2007-12-07 10:41:52 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
George Washington believed in wooden teeth. We didn't hate him for that.
People sometimes don't know the truth when they're right in front of it.
2007-12-07 10:42:51 · answer #8 · answered by ~*Felicity*~ 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
No, because America is closed-minded. Sad, because he was great leadership.
2007-12-07 10:42:28 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
mediocrity rises to the top in the media driven us of a
2007-12-07 10:42:02 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋