Re: RATHER DEFINITIVE -- Most think founders wanted Christian USA

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
Date: September 15, 2007 8:09:08 PM EDT
To: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

Hey John --

Delighted to see yer "UNFalwellian" citations.  Very useful "in these  
trying times".  ;-)

In contrast to what many inadequately educated Americans today think,  
consider what many of the nation's best-known founders actually DID say:

George Washington, 1st President (1789-1797)
  "... the Government of the United States of America is not, in any  
sense, founded on the Christian religion ..."
Source: The "Treaty of Tripoli," negotiated and signed by the First  
President of the United States, on November 4, 1796

John Adams, 2nd President (1797-1801)
  "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no  
religions in it.
Source: A letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 15, 1817

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President (1801-1809)
  "Christianity ... (has become) the most perverted system that ever  
shone on man. ...  Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were  
perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and  
importers ..."
Source: Six Historic Americans, by John E. Remsberg

James Madison, 4th President (1809-1817), often called the Father of  
the Constitution:
  "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it  
for every noble enterprise."
Source: Letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774

Benjamin Franklin:
  "I have found Christian dogma unintelligible.  Early in life I  
absented myself from Christian assemblies."
Source: "Toward the Mystery"

Thomas Paine (1737-1809):
  "I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His  
name to
that book (the Bible)."
The Age of Reason, Part 1, Section 5

Thomas Jefferson:
  "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to  
liberty.  He is always in alliance with the despot ..."
Source: Thomas Jefferson letter to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814.  ME 14:119

Thomas Paine (1737-1809):
  "The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is  
the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no  
principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can  
demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion."
From The Age of Reason

And not as founders of the USA, but similarly well-known:

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865):
  "The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I  
could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of  
Christian dogma."
Sources: Salvation for Sale, Gerard Thomas Straub; also quoted by  
Joseph Lewis

And for Southerners, although not a founder of the United States, but  
as a leader in the brief-lived Confederacy:
Robert E. Lee, in a Letter to President Pierce:
"...Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers  
who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always  
proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?"

Oh, and by the way, of the activities that the Bible's Ten  
Commandments prohibit, throughout the history of the USA, its secular  
laws enacted by those founders and all of their successors, prohibit  
only two as crimes.  (VI and VII)


===

And this, from one of my former high school students who's now a  
shrink <grin>:

"If you talk to God, it's religion. But is God talks to you, it's  
schizophrenia." -- James Latham


See ya!

--jim


-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com