If our Founding Fathers were all Christians, why did they say this?

[ErikJ]

Reposted from DU Religion forum Feb 2015:

If our Founding Fathers were all Christians, why did they say this?

DailyKos

by Tolerant Libertarian


Nobody can deny the fact that Christianity has played a huge role in our history. From the first Thanksgiving to the ideas of Jesus Christ that are embroidered in our culture today, Christianity and the Bible is responsible for a big part of our heritage.

However, many conservatives will take this fact way out of context. They'll think that you have to be a Christian to be patriotic, which is simply not true. Following the more secular teachings of Jesus Christ (being charitable, loving one another, treating strangers with kindness) is what the men who founded this country were for.

I don't want to waste my time listing all these obscurant far-right arguments, so instead I'll list the facts straight from our forefathers.

“If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”

- George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia (1789)


“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear.”

- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr (1787)


"In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind.”

- Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (1771)


“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.”

- Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791)


“Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.”

- Roger Sherman, Congress (1789)


"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."

- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)


"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people build a wall of separation between Church & State."

- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802)


"To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."

- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis No. V (1776)

“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”

- Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779)


"Christian establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."

- James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr. (1774)


"There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness."

- George Washington, address to Congress (1790)


"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

- James Madison, General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1785)


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/18/1285607/-If-Our-Founding-Fathers-Were-All-Christians-Why-Did-They-Say-This?detail=email

[Iliyah]

1. Some were not.

Many settlers were persecuted because of their beliefs. But GOPers should know that if they understood American history.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. They cannot even understand what "freedom of religion" means.

It is quite the leap to expect them to understand American history.

[yeoman6987]

14. They should have been more clear in the Declaration of Independence

Instead of writing it in a letter and other writing. It sure would have made things much easier.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. Cuz our four fathers were probably among the highest educated,

read, travelled, and knowledgable on this side of the pond. They were well aware of the damage and danger that religion represents.

I still marvel at how that collection of folks managed to do what they did.

[elleng]

4. also here today:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016126629

[Laxman]

5. And Then There's This.....

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 Minerva in the brain of Jupiter- Thomas Jefferson-Letter to John Adams April 11, 1823

[marym625]

6. They weren't all Christians

And they certainly weren't puritans.

We are not a "Christian nation." Jefferson wrote in his autobiography,

"The bill for establishing religious freedom... I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it's protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word 'Jesus Christ,' so that it should read 'a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.' The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination."

A must read: The Original Draft of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
[link:http://classicliberal.tripod.com/jefferson/draftvirgfree.html|Link

[Hydra]

7. The people spouting the "Christian Nation" stuff are willfully blind

Their own Book tells them to keep their religion to themselves...and they refuse to.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206:5-15

5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

---

14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

Arguing is pretty pointless when they are out of their prayer rooms and out demanding laws to repress people.

[Ed Suspicious]

8. Many were Deists.

[underpants]

10. Yes they were Deists

[Loryn]

13. Exactly!

[onecaliberal]

9. They don't even know this country was founded because

People were escaping religious zealots.
To believe the founders wanted to impose religion on Americans is ludicrous.

[gratuitous]

11. Because they weren't nitwit literalist Christians?

Just guessing. But we used to (and some of us still do) know how to handle the language of myth and legend, of allegory and parable. We have large swaths of our society, though, who don't have the imagination, training or mental acuity to discuss anything but the topmost surface level of the stark wording of the translator. Growth begins below the surface, deep in the soil, where the roots are. (That's allegorical language there, just in case you missed it.)

[RichGirl]

12. A few years ago...

Driving to Lynchburg VA...home of Liberty University...saw billboards with pictures of founding fathers with quotes. The only one I remember was George Washington (I think) he said "It was the teachings of Jesus that matter, not his divinity." The opposite of what Christians believe today and definitely not what they teach at Liberty.