If Our Founding Fathers Were All Christians, Why Did They Say This?

[eridani]

This is quite a useful collection, with links to more quotes.


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

“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)

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Ben Franklin sez...

You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it.

Here is my creed.

I believe in one God, the creator of the universe.
That he governs by his providence.
That he ought to be worshipped.
That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children.
That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.
These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire,

I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes,
and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity;
though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.
I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed;
especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.

-Ben Franklin, 1790

[pipoman]

2. Who said they were all Christians?

[uriel1972]

3. The Religious Right...

The fact they were Deists is a nuance that escapes the RR.

[bananas]

7. They were still Christians

http://altreligion.about.com/od/alternativereligionsaz/p/Deism.htm

Deism is not a specific religion but rather a particular perspective on the nature of God. Deists believe that a creator god does exist, but that after the motions of the universe were set in place he retreated, having no further interaction with the created universe or the beings within it. As such, there are a variety of common religious beliefs that deists do not accept.

<snip>

Famous Deists:
A large number of United States Founding Fathers were deists or had strong deist leanings. Some of them identified themselves as Unitarians, a non-Trinitarian form of Christianity that emphasized rationality and skepticism. These deists include Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison and John Adams.

<snip>

[LostOne4Ever]

8. Depends ENTIRELY upon your definition of Christian

If you are defining it as believing that Yeshua was a great philosopher with many good ideas on morality worthy of study then, yeah they were Christian Deists. There are also Christian atheists by that definition

If you are defining it as believing that Yeshua was divine or some incarnation of/or the son of the god of the Old Testament, then many of them were definitely NOT Christian. Especially the likes of Paine, Jefferson, Maddison and Franklin.

[el_bryanto]

9. And many of them were - I think the article is a bit of an over reach

It's one thing to say that this nation wasn't set up to be a Christian nation or that our Constitution wasn't set up as a Christian document. I'd agree with both of those.

But to argue they weren't Christian at all seems like a stretch, as there are plenty of quotes that suggest that some of them were.

Bryant

[LostOne4Ever]

10. I think you are reading words into my post and the OP that are not there

The OP is responding to RWers who try to claim ALL our FF were Christians and founded the country as a christian country.

He/she is providing evidence to the contrary. I do not see anything in the OP to suggest that ALL our FF were NOT Christians.

When I made my original post I accidently posted

"then they were definitely NOT Christian."

Which I quickly realized stated something I did not mean, and almost instantly edited it to

"then many of them were definitely NOT Christian. Especially the likes of Paine, Jefferson, Maddison and Franklin."

which not only states that some of them were Christians, but gives specific examples of those who were not.

Neither my post or the OP "argue they weren't Christian at all"

[el_bryanto]

12. Fair enough - you are right I read it to quickly. nt

[Deep13]

4. They were not all Christians.

A lot of them were deists. A few were outright skeptics. That was the leadership of the revolution. The public was pretty religious. Nearly all of them were Protestant Christian, except for Maryland, which was mostly Catholic.

[rug]

5. Why would you think Christianity opposes reason and supports persecution?

[Igel]

6. Step back 250 years.

There were wars between religions. The most notable were between the Catholic religion and the Protestant religion.

Ahem. Both were Christian. But yet they were "different religions." Now, in the era of ecumenism when there's "a" Christianity and "an" Islam we put the division between big chunks of divergent-but-similar-enough confessions.

Spiritual tyranny for the Baptists was in the recent past. At the hands of Anglicans and Catholics. And the one way to protect people from such tyranny was to emasculate government. The federal government could not have a religion. In order to protect rights, it must never be in a position to be able to usurp those rights. Government is there to protect, not to coerce. Those who would coerce must not be allowed to have the authority to govern.

Beyond that there was the debate between obscurantism and reason. We still see it today. The rational folk of their day saw no real divide between the two. Now we must be atheist and intelligent or religious and dullards; or we must be religious and moral or atheist and immoral. This is a lunatic position from the POV of 1770, for most thinking people. Some held this view; they were intolerant of others and, to be frank, absurdly arrogant.

We used to like the idea of "freedom of conscience." Now too many push for making sure that diversity of thought is verboten. We redefine "diversity of thought" to include just our way of thinking and decry others. Then again, I already opined on this in my previous paragraph so I'll just finish (more of) my coffee.

[hrmjustin]

11. They weren't all Christian.

Washington was Episcopalian.

[okasha]

13. Actually, he was Church of England to begin with.

The Episcopal Church as such came into being as part of the Revolution. CofE bishops refused to consecrate a primate for the newly independent colonies, so Samuel Seabury was consecrated by a pair of Scots, who had had their own differences with the English 30 years back.

And then, there was that unfortunate bit about the King being Supreme Head of the Church.

[hrmjustin]

14. Yes that is true.

[struggle4progress]

15. ... Jefferson believed in the existence of a Supreme Being who was the creator and sustainer

of the universe and the ultimate ground of being, but this was not the triune deity of orthodox Christianity. He also rejected the idea of the divinity of Christ, but as he writes to William Short ... he was convinced that the fragmentary teachings of Jesus constituted the "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man." In correspondence, he sometimes expressed confidence that the whole country would be Unitarian ...

Jefferson's Religious Beliefs