Deism: the belief in a God based on natural religion only, or belief in religious truths discovered by people through a process of reasoning, independent of any revelation through scripture or prophets.
Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man.
A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible
The primary leaders of the founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists including:
George Washington
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
Thomas Paine
Ethan Allen
James Monroe
Thomas Jefferson believed Jesus was an inspired moral teacher, but not divine. He called the Trinity: “Incomprehensible jargon” and “metaphysical insanity.”
Benjamin Franklin wasn’t sure if Jesus was God or not, but said he didn’t plan to spend time worrying about it.
Thomas Paine called Christianity: “a fable, which, for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.”
taken in part from:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html
I suggest, for good reading, pick up a copy of Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason”.. it’s an amazing book.
That and the Treaty of Tripoli was, and i quote
‘Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.’
part of what was read aloud was
‘ Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.’
So article 11 lays to rest the intent of the so called founding fathers. They intended for a separation of church and state, and we struggle with that today, even now. They were educated and of course, knew what happens to a christian state having studied christian europe- the dark ages.
I get what you are saying here Capella. Planet_Guardian, I understand your point also. It gets tiresome to fathom the grip that Christianity has on this nation. I must say though, that when people attempt to reshape history by propagating a falsehood, then I have a problem. When Christians and your basic uninformed citizen declare that the U.S.A was founded by Christian believers, there is something afoot that I don’t like: lies. The second worst part is that the lies are believed to be true. The first worst part is that the lies had to have originated from somewhere. You know, the facts are the facts. Why do people choose to ignore them or cover them up.
How much of what we learned in school is true (our history at least). Some of it for sure was attributed to inadequecy of the facts and other times I am sure there were omissions of the facts. The same could be said of the Bible. It is a book. Editted, published and distributed for thousands of years. If it isn’t fallible then those that handle it transcription surely are.