Christopher D. Green wrote:
Paul Brandon wrote:
At 1:26 PM -0500 12/10/04, Christopher D. Green wrote:
(And some American evangelists spend a good deal of time trying to *deny* that Thomas Jefferson and several other of the "Founding Fathers" were deists of pretty much this same ilk.)
Actually Jefferson was more more a Unitarian/Universalist than a Deist.
Franklin on the other hand was probably closer to a closet atheist; Washington simply couldn't stand being in a church.
I am not an expert on this topic (nor do I have the inclination to become one). My opinion on this matter derives primarily from Chapter 2 of Bruce Kuklick's _A History of Philosophy in America_ (Oxford, 2001).
But because I'm a sucker for almost any scholarly debate, especially with an historical angle to it, I went searching around on the web and found this very interesting, short, well-annotated argument that Jefferson was, in fact, a deist (and that this may not have been very far from certain kinds of Unitarianism, so our "debate" may be moot).
If your library has a copy of his edition of the Bible, check out his introductory essay. His own words seem to make him a bit more than a Deist. I've also read (sorry, I didn't keep track of the reference) that he was also influenced by the work of one of the early Unitarians.
And yes, his reading of the Old Testament soured him a bit on Judaism. As a Bar Mitzvah boy myself, I know that there's a lot that's bloody in there.
--
"No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -H. L. Mencken
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * * http://www.mnsu.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
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