The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation. (Deists, America)

[logician]

Maybe they had a change of heart:

John Adams

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Treaty of Tripoly, article 11

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed"


"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."


"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed."

"What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because of suspected heresy? Remember the Index Expurgato-rius, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter, and the guillotine; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion's Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years." letter to John Taylor, 1814, quoted in In God We Trust and 2000 Years of Disbelief


"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.


"The Government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion.The Government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion."

Ben Franklin

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."

"He (the Rev. Mr. Whitefield) used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard." Franklin's Autobiography


"In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it."


�Some volumes against Deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle�s Lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the Deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appealed to me much more forcibly than the refutation itself. In a word, I soon became a thorough Deist.�


"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies."


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

Thomas Jefferson

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites." Notes on Virginia


"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" Letter to von Humboldt, 1813


"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." Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823



"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own" Letter to H. Spafford, 1814



"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State." in a letter to S. Kercheval, 1810



"...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, 'Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion,' which 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 the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.'" From Jefferson's biography



"I never told my religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I have judged others' religions by their lives, for it is from our lives and not our words that our religions must be read."

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."

[Starfish]

Originally Posted by The Seeker

Are you saying that they believed that Jesus was the son of God or that they believed in what Jesus taught? If the latter, I will agree with you 100% Both Jefferson and Adams had a lot of respect and admiration for Jesus and his teachings, but rejected the notion that he was the son of God. I'm agnostic and feel the same way they did. Jesus was indeed a very wise man and the world would be a much better place if people followed his teachings. However, I feel that Jesus was in no way, shape or form the son of God.

I don't have any more opinion than what we have before us--their own words. Whether or not Adams and Jefferson believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ is read in what they have said. They both claimed to be Christian, and that involves a belief in Christ as the son of God.

There is a popular belief here that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. (Deism means a belief in a God who created the world, then abandoned it.) So IF they were Deists, then it would follow that it could be because the true gospel of Jesus Christ had not been restored yet, but would be soon thereafter.

Side note: I read somewhere that Washington wasn't always a steady church-attender, but made his troups attend church because he recognized the good influence it would have on them. He definately believed religion was important in society.

[lilithu]

Washington and Madison, I'll give you. Tho Madison was a very ecumenical Episcopalian. He went to university at Princeton and was heavily influenced by Presbyterian thinkers there.

Jefferson and Franklin were NOT Episcopalians. They were raised in that tradition, yes. But that would be like claiming I was Confucian because my parents are. Or any number of Jews and Catholics who are culturally Jewish and Catholic respectively, but do not practice. I've already said that Jefferson attended a Unitarian church when he could. Franklin did not attend any, and he specifically said that he felt no affinity towards any of the religious groups, and also felt no hostility towards any of them.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Starfish

I don't have any more opinion than what we have before us--their own words. Whether or not Adams and Jefferson believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ is read in what they have said. They both claimed to be Christian, and that involves a belief in Christ as the son of God.

They both claimed to be Unitarians and Unitarians do not believe in the the divinity of Christ.

[The Seeker]

Originally Posted by Starfish

I don't have any more opinion than what we have before us--their own words. Whether or not Adams and Jefferson believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ is read in what they have said. They both claimed to be Christian, and that involves a belief in Christ as the son of God.

There is a popular belief here that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. (Deism means a belief in a God who created the world, then abandoned it.) So IF they were Deists, then it would follow that it could be because the true gospel of Jesus Christ had not been restored yet, but would be soon thereafter.

Side note: I read somewhere that Washington wasn't always a steady church-attender, but made his troups attend church because he recognized the good influence it would have on them. He definately believed religion was important in society.

Please site a quote from either Jefferson or Adams which states they believe in the divinity of Jesus. My guess is that you won't find one. They considered themselves to be Christians because they believed in doctrines of Jesus. This in no way implies that they believed Jesus was the son of God.

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus....I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson.

It's safe to say that they were Deists because they both stated a belief in God. I'm not sure how you would gather from this that they believed that the true gospel of Jesus would be restored. Being a deist means that you believe in a god that doesn't take an active role in human affairs.

Adams, like Washington, also thought that religion was important to society. He believed that people acted bad enough with religion and couldn't fathom how they would act without it.

[Starfish]

Originally Posted by lilithu

They both claimed to be Unitarians and Unitarians do not believe in the the divinity of Christ.

Are Unitarians Christian? I don't know. Unless I'm mistaken, a Christian believes that Jesus was more than a wise man. I mean, I think Jewish people feel he was a wise man, but they obviously aren't Christian.

[Starfish]

Originally Posted by The Seeker

Please site a quote from either Jefferson or Adams which states they believe in the divinity of Jesus. My guess is that you won't find one. They considered themselves to be Christians because they believed in doctrines of Jesus. This in no way implies that they believed Jesus was the son of God.

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus....I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson.

Well, whatever. Whether they believed in Christ's divinity or not, isn't the point here. They still called themselves Christian. And I think that is what this thread was referring to.

It's safe to say that they were Deists because they both stated a belief in God. I'm not sure how you would gather from this that they believed that the true gospel of Jesus would be restored. Being a deist means that you believe in a god that doesn't take an active role in human affairs.

Adams, like Washington, also thought that religion was important to society. He believed that people acted bad enough with religion and couldn't fathom how they would act without it.

They had no idea that the true gospel of Jesus Christ would be restored in a few years. But it SEEMS that they felt it was lacking in their world. If so, that would be an accurate feeling. God certainly was not taking an active role in the religions at that time. However, they still prayed. God was still listening to and answering their prayers.