Re: [CTRL] The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians
-Caveat Lector- InfoWarz It's funny how the real revisionists, such as Steven Morris, Ph.D., love to use the dubious term, Deist when snip MJ It is far MORE humorous that apologists stick their thumbs in their ear and their toungues out while wiggling their fingers at those who present EVIDENCE contrary to their indoctrinated beliefs ... rather than attempting to counter those materials presented. It would certainly be far more compelling if you proclaimed: This author was incorrect when he claimed A because of D, E and F. OR Insert Founder, a man who was involved with a, b and c ... and did not simply hold a chair down on the floor ... contributed X to the Constitution as he expounded upon Book, Chapter and Verse of the Christian Bible for its relevance/necessity. His actual words can be found in his letter to X or his document Y or the Debates of the Convention or Several States Z. Oh well. Ever hear of or consider the Enlightenment? Regard$, --MJ Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain. -- John Adams It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible. -- Thomas Paine The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of His existence and the immutability of His power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries. -- Thomas Paine A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians
-Caveat Lector- from - http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/march96/morris.html The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians By Steven Morris, Ph.D. The Christian Right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States, as part of their campaign to force their religion on others who ask merely to be left alone. According to this Orwellian revision, the Founding Fathers of this country were pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. Not true! The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New Testaments. Thomas Paine, pamphleteer whose manifestoes encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the War of Independence: I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of . . . Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all. [1] George Washington, first president: He seems to have had the characteristic unconcern of the 18th century Deist for the forms and creeds of institutional religion. Although he often referred to Providence as an impersonal force, remote and abstract, he never declared himself to be a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a Universalist who denied the existence of Hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. [2] John Adams, second president: Drawn to the study of law but facing pressure from his father to become a clergyman, he wrote that he found among the lawyers a noble air and gallant achievements but among the clergy, the pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces. [3] Late in life, he wrote, 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? [4] It was during Adams' presidency that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. This treaty with Tripoli was written and concluded by Joel Barlow during Washington's administration. [2] Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence: I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian. [5] He referred to the Revelation of St. John as the ravings of a maniac [6] and wrote, The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and preeminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained. [7] James Madison, fourth president and Father of the Constitution: Madison was not religious in any conventional sense. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. [8] During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. [9] Ethan Allen, whose capture of Fort Ticonderoga while commanding the Green Mountain boys helped inspire Congress and the country to pursue the War of Independence: That Jesus Christ was not God is evident from his own words. In the same book, Allen noted that he was generally denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian. [10] When Allen married Fanny Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the Judge asked him if he promised to live with Fanny Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God. Allen refused to answer until the Judge agreed that the God referred to was the God of Nature, and the laws those written in the great book of Nature. [11] Benjamin Franklin, delegate to the Continental Congress and the
Re: [CTRL] The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians
-Caveat Lector- BFThe Founding Fathers were religiously complex. They certainly were not fundamentalists, most of them, but they were in a Christian cultural context. They were, in a cultural sense, Christians, just as Einstein was very Jewish even though he was not an Orthodox Jewish Fundamentalist. The Christian context of Washington and others was cpmplex, incorporating Hebrew, Hellenistic, secular, and Eastern ideas. Attempts by Fundamentalists to claim them are ridiculous. Attempts by secularists to claim the Founders are also ridiculous. They were their own men. Spiritual reality is more complex than the Fundamentalist and secularist boxes anyway. I believe that one strain of philosophy that led to the Constitution was an emerging understanding among Gentiles of the Noachide creed. This is often confused with Fundamentalist Christianity by many in the Peter Marshall/Tim LaHaye camp. That is not to say that the Fundamentalists are way off. God IS central to an understanding of the rise of our nation. It is just that they over-simplify the matter historically, and actually miss the drama and mystery of the actual history. Actual history is far more interesting than anything in a child's censored textbook. I believe that Washington and others knew and understood secrets of the Kabbalah. Unforunately, the false was mixed with in with the true in their understanding, laying the seeds for many of the problems we have now. This was probably bound to happen, because every new level has challenges commensurate to that level. The point is to transcend the current diffuculties in God's Love, not to seek to avoid them by downward transcendence, a path that never works anyway. By the way, is OSaba really a woman? If so, I have hope because the female of the species seems to be capable of learning from her mistakes better than the male. Is she is a woman, than there is hope that the maternal instinct might prevail in her. Bates A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians
-Caveat Lector- It's funny how the real revisionists, such as Steven Morris, Ph.D., love to use the dubious term, Deist when describing the founding fathers, yet you rarely hear the term used anywhere else. Let's use a more accurate term, Freemasons. The elite were corrupt then, as they are now. However, the fact remains, that from the early 1600s up until the time of the founding fathers and beyond, the majority of Americans were Christians and even the Supreme Court declared that America is a Christian nation. Morris also conveniently leaves out the other founders who were Christians, and that they were the majority. It was the Christians who smelled a rat during the creation of the Constitution. And as we know now, they were right. At 11:00 PM 2/21/02 , you wrote: -Caveat Lector- from - http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/march96/morris.html The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians By Steven Morris, Ph.D. The Christian Right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States, as part of their campaign to force their religion on others who ask merely to be left alone. According to this Orwellian revision, the Founding Fathers of this country were pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. Not true! The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New Testaments. Thomas Paine, pamphleteer whose manifestoes encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the War of Independence: I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of . . . Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all. [1] George Washington, first president: He seems to have had the characteristic unconcern of the 18th century Deist for the forms and creeds of institutional religion. Although he often referred to Providence as an impersonal force, remote and abstract, he never declared himself to be a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a Universalist who denied the existence of Hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. [2] John Adams, second president: Drawn to the study of law but facing pressure from his father to become a clergyman, he wrote that he found among the lawyers a noble air and gallant achievements but among the clergy, the pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces. [3] Late in life, he wrote, 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? [4] It was during Adams' presidency that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. This treaty with Tripoli was written and concluded by Joel Barlow during Washington's administration. [2] Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence: I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian. [5] He referred to the Revelation of St. John as the ravings of a maniac [6] and wrote, The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and preeminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained. [7] James Madison, fourth president and Father of the Constitution: Madison was not religious in any conventional sense. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. [8] During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition,
