Christians, our founding fathers were Deists, they did not believe in the Bible, your thoughts?

Question

The greatest part about this is, you don't even have to believe me, google the issue and read more than a couple of lines, on even the most conservative of sites, you will be forced to concur.

They also made it a point to specify in the constitution that no religious exam should ever be given as part of obtaining either citizenship or an office in the government, and yet every politician, whether they truly believe in your God or not, feels absolutely compelled to state that they have a belief in Him.

I'm curious, does anyone know why America has reverted from an enlightened, well-meaning country, back to the similar European circumstances that we came here to escape in the first place?

To Joshua J, this may be true, however, lets not ignore that Washington, our very first president for x's sakes, when complained to by the reverend of the church he was attending that his leaving before church services were over was setting a bad example, well, Mr. President decided he should just stop attending altogether.

And then Mr. Jefferson, another very important founding father, why,he was the one who originally wrote the letter suggesting the idea of a seperation between church and state.

They may have disagreed, but the people who actually had the greatest affect, they seemed to concur on this one issue. (Powned)

I'm sorry, the above extension was directed at Adam J, my bad.

Answer 1

Yeah most of them borrowed a lot of ideas from the French Philosophes Like Montesquieu and Voltaire etc.

The politicians in the USA use religion as a platform to get elected. I guess because idiot Christians want a "Noble and Righteous" Christian in House, Senate, and White House.

Let's face it the US politicians are not looking out for the interests of the people they represent, they are out for themselves.

It seems that anyone can get elected in America just because they say "I am Christian, I read the Bible, BLah, blah blah."
Christians vote because they are stupid enough to believe a politician that tickles their ears. And Voila, you have politicians who serve themselves and not the people they represent.
They don't put any money into education (which could help the people make better decisions like voting bad representatives and senators and presidents out of office). It has already come to the point where if a Politician says he is a Christian, Christians automatically believe that he/she is good.

Our forefathers wanted a Democratic Republic that would last till the end of time. Somehow, we have arrived at an Oligarchy.

My fellow Americans, the best way to change the government is with your vote. I suggest that we vote out the Career politicians and get some new blood in there.

Remember, the Government exists to serve us. We are not supposed to serve the Government.

Answer 2

Most were Christians, some were Deists yet ascribed to the goodness of Christ and the Ten Commandments. Take a tour of Washington monuments, Congress and the Supreme Court and you'll find plenty of Biblical quotes...even the Liberty Bell, one of the icons of our freedom, is inscribed with a Bible passage taken from Leviticus 25:10 "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" http://www.eadshome.com/QuotesoftheFounders.htm
http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/heritage/heritage19.html
America was established on the principle of freedom OF religion, not freedom from it. Most of the early public schools and colleges, Harvard, for one, were setup by Christians and included the Bible as part of the curriculum. Congress has opened every session with a prayer to God, as has the Supreme Court.
Religious freedom in America has been usurped by those wishing to destroy religious beliefs and rewrite the history of our country.
As one essay puts it....
How Long Do We Have?

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most ben efits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years"

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;

2. from spiritual faith to great courage;

3. from courage to liberty;

4. from liberty to abundance;

5. from abundance to complacency;

6. from complacency to apathy;

7. from apathy to dependence;

8. from dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29

Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..." Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

Answer 3

Not all were Deist, but you are correct that many were. I also find it ridiculous that a major concern of our nation's leadership is spent on which church he does or doesn't not attend. Many of our nation's founding fathers also didn't fight the war because of religious freedoms (just as the pilgrims didn't come here to find religious tolerance), but it was important to them that no one religion should be forced on any thinking man.
I believe our politicians are only giving the people what they want- there is a majority of Christians and to get the vote they must portray themselves as like minded. I just find it really scary when you do get someone in office with a far right interpretation of their religion and begin making policy accordingly.

Answer 4

Personally I think the whole 'what the founding fathers believed' argument is intrinsically absurd. The founding fathers were not a hive mind but a group of people who had widely differing opinions about a whole host of subjects (just read Madison's notes on the constitution if you want to see how much they disagreed). I'm sure some of them were extremely religious, while others may well have been closet atheists.

Answer 5

So you don't. Fine. Why is it, exactly, you feel compelled...night after endless night....to exact debate over something that you feel with all your being and are strong in your conviction. What, exactly, is your problem? Just want ceaseless argument?

Answer 6

I can't speak for yours, but my founding fathers up here in Canada were largely not deists, but mostly Anglicans, Catholics, and Presbyterians.

Remember - the US is only 5% pf the world's population. For most of the rest of us "founding fathers" has a very, very different meaning.

Answer 7

Awesome. Awesome to the max. =)

Answer 8

christians are just very loud...


and they're gonna deny that the founding fathers were deists, just watch