Dan wrote:
I'm sure that one can deconstruct it to mean anything, but the word
"creator" meant at the time "being who created." I'm not really an
origional intent guy, but I think using the same mapping of combination of letters onto ideas as they used at that time is really a good idea. In
other words, it is clear from his writings that Jefferson was a Deist, not an athiest or an agnostic. Man's rights were God given, in his mind. He
considered religeous liberty important because he felt that organizations
did much more harm than good when they mucked around with the relationship
between man and God.
Ah, but they did not have the explanation for creation that Darwin has provided for us so it is understandable that even the most rational humans thought there must have been a being that created us. Furthermore, Websterâs defines a Deist as "One who believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason." In other words, the mention of a Creator in the DoI has no religious significance in the eyes of a Deist
-- Doug
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