On Nov 27, 9:11 pm, ray <
xxxray...@aol.com> wrote:
> In article <
jaupa901...@news2.newsguy.com>,
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> Anonymous <Anonymous@Anonymous> wrote:
> > "Ray O'Hara" <
raymond-oh...@hotmail.com> wrote :
It is a great mistake to conflate religion with Christianity as this
video does at the beginning. There is no evidence for it and this
video is making completely unwarranted links between Christianity and
the Founders. While the Founders were generally religious people they
were not in general Christian. Most were in fact Deists.
Such as -
George Washington went to an Anglican church ever day but never
participated in the communion . When Rev. James Abercrombie, rector of
the church that Washington attended, was asked by Rev. Bird Wilson as
to Washington's beliefs, Rev. Abercrombie replied:
"Sir, Washington was a Deist."
Later in a sermon in Oct. 1831, Rev. Bird Wilson said:
"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the
presidents who had thus far been elected not a one had professed a
belief in Christianity...."
The presidents who had been elected by that time were Washington;
Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson. He said our first
seven presidents were not Christian.
Benjamin Franklin once said:
"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented
myself from Christian assemblies."
Here's an excerpt from John Adams in a letter to FA Van der Kamp,
December 27, 1816:
"Jesus is benevolence personified, an example for all men. Dupuis has
made no alteration in my opinions of the Christian religion , in its
primitive purity and simplicity, which I have entertained for more
than sixty years. It is the religion of reason, equity, and love; it
is the religion of the head and of the heart."
Sounds like he's a Christian but later in the same letter he writes:
"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? How has it happened
that all the fine arts, architecture, painting, sculpture, statuary,
music , poetry, and oratory, have been prostituted, from the creation
of the world, to the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition
and fraud?"
In the first quote, the phrase "in its primitive purity and
simplicity" means as it was before it was corrupted by superstitions
and actions of the church leaders. Thomas Jefferson had similar ideas
about Christianity. These guys liked the Jesus character to the point
of considering him to be the greatest philosopher who ever lived.
But they disliked the myths surrounding him such as the miracle
stories, supernatural myths (that he was a god) and they greatly
disliked what Christianity became after Jesus' death . They thought
Jesus was a good person but not a god. This is typical of Deistic
thinking of the time, to which several of the founding fathers
subscribed. Deists believe in both a god and reason. They accept the
findings of science . They believe that any and all revealed religions
(Abrahamic) are superstition. They also make spiritual references such
as God, Creator, Divine, Providence, Heaven and nature. Christianity
does not own these kind of references.