Founding Fathers...

[Farsight one]

I frequent another place where people consistently make the claim that the United State's founding fathers were not Christian. The claims range from some of the being non-Christian to all of them, and from being generic deists to being outright atheists.

This is something I have never heard before. As well, the people making this claim are also accepting such "documentaries" as the zeigeist video at face value. Therefore, I do not doubt that they earnestly believe this, but I do question their source.

Has anyone else heard this claim before?

I bring the question here to open it up to discussion in case there are dissenting opinions about it.

[goldenchild17]

I don't know for sure what to think yet. I think they had some very Christian ideas (obviously God is referred to in official documents). But I also believe there are some very masonic beliefs that they embraced and/or implemented. I don't believe freemasonry is consistent with true Christianity. And I do think some of them at least flirted with deistic thoughts.

[CatholicMax]

[quote name='Farsight one' post='1498424' date='Apr 13 2008, 03:57 AM']I bring the question here to open it up to discussion in case there are dissenting opinions about it.[/quote]
Yes I have however you should point out that (I believe it was) John Adams used federal money to purchase bibles for school text books and to send to the Natives.

Edit: I made a mistake it was Jefferson not Adams
[url="http://www.bibleinschools.net/"]http://www.bibleinschools.net/[/url]
[quote]While president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was elected the first president of the Washington, D.C., public school board, which used the Bible as a reading text in the classroom.



If men like Jefferson believed in biblical education, it is not difficult to understand why liberal groups like TFN are losing the battle to prohibit the Bible and its influence on Western civilization from being taught in public schools. Try as they might, they will succumb to a force far bigger than themselves.[/quote]

Edited April 13, 2008 by CatholicMax

[CatherineM]

I think that some were certainly Christian, but many were simply paternal. They were landowners, and slave owners. They were used to taking care of people and things. That can give people a different perspective on life.

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='Farsight one' post='1498424' date='Apr 13 2008, 04:57 AM']I frequent another place where people consistently make the claim that the United State's founding fathers were not Christian. The claims range from some of the being non-Christian to all of them, and from being generic deists to being outright atheists.

This is something I have never heard before. As well, the people making this claim are also accepting such "documentaries" as the zeigeist video at face value. Therefore, I do not doubt that they earnestly believe this, but I do question their source.

Has anyone else heard this claim before?

I bring the question here to open it up to discussion in case there are dissenting opinions about it.[/quote]

Most of the founding fathers were members of the Church of England. They were almost all, however, extremely deistic (Thomas Jefferson most of all). Most of the fathers (Adams and Washington, specifically) continued to attend services. They did this because under their deistic beliefs, the way to worship God is to live a good life, to be a good person. The only use for organized religion, then, was that it encouraged people to live and love their neighbors. This is a matter of historical fact; read "The Religion of the Founding Fathers" by David L. Holmes. He explains it...

[quote name='CatholicMax' post='1498516' date='Apr 13 2008, 02:15 PM']Yes I have however you should point out that (I believe it was) John Adams used federal money to purchase bibles for school text books and to send to the Natives.

Edit: I made a mistake it was Jefferson not Adams
[url="http://www.bibleinschools.net/"]http://www.bibleinschools.net/[/url][/quote]

This is ironic as Jefferson actually edited the Bible. He didn't believe in any of the miracles therein, and so he literally took scissors and cut out every quote in the New Testament with which he did not agree. He thought that, although Jesus had been a real man, the gospel writers had been mistaken and had skewed his teachings. Jefferson did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, he believed that Jesus was a normal human being, and that men after Jesus had raised him up in their own minds to a divine state.
As I said before, the fathers promoted organized religion only because it was a good tool to teach people to live good lives. Washington himself never received communion at his church. On communion Sundays he would leave the service early and so avoid the communion itself. One sunday his pastor's homily was a scathing rebuke against public figures who left service early on communion Sundays. Washington never went to church on a communion Sunday again.

Anyway, the founding fathers were not Christian, excepting perhaps Madison. Jefferson helped to found the University of Virginia, and the first members of the faculty were extremely deistic. Many of hte founding fahters attended the college of William and Mary, which in that time was known for its deistic and anti-Christian (heretical) ideals and teachings.

[Socrates]

Most of the American founding fathers were Christian. It is clear they would not have agreed with the amoral radical secularism pushed by today's liberals, and recognized that Christian morality was necessary for a free republic.

John Adams and John Hancock:
"We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!" [April 18, 1775]

John Adams:
“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
• “[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
–John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved by Congress

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798

John Quincy Adams:
• “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"?
--1837, at the age of 69, when he delivered a Fourth of July speech at Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Charles Carroll - signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments." [Source: To James McHenry on November 4, 1800.]

Alexander Hamilton:
"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."

Patrick Henry:
“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” [May 1765 Speech to the House of Burgesses]

James Madison:
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” [1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia]

• I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare the unsatisfactoriness [of temportal enjoyments] by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way.
Letter by Madison to William Bradford (September 25, 1773)
• In 1812, President Madison signed a federal bill which economically aided the Bible Society of Philadelphia in its goal of the mass distribution of the Bible.

Thomas Jefferson:
“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”

George Washington:
“ It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” [speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779]

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian" [May 2, 1778, at Valley Forge]

[Mercy me]

As a note to what Socrates said, John Carroll was a practicing Catholic.

[aalpha1989]

Cool I can play that game, too. Let's grab random quotations and play games like protestants do with the bible!



"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose."
TJ



"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world geniuses, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
TJ



"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests."
TJ



"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."
TJ

"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it."
Still Tommyboy



"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
Jeff again



"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
TJ

I can go on and on with him. One of the most anti-clerical of the founding fathers. Hated the Catholic Church. But let's move on to someone else.

Franklin!
"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did."
Although this sounds Christian, it is hte cornerstone of Deistic belief. They believe the ONLY way to worship God is to act good.

". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."

??? and you say he was Christian? It's a historical fact that Franklin was deistic. Deal with it.

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."

again, classic deistic language. "Infinite Father" Is not just an innocent phrase to name the almighty. Deists in the enlightenment used such phrases (and Supreme Being, which appears in the declaration) all the time.

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
from poor richard's almanac

Should I really get into Thomas Paine? He was worse than Jefferson... in fact he lived in France during hte French revolution in order to write against the Catholic Church.

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."

"What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith."

"Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies."

"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. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

"The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar."

"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."

Ethan Allen
"I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not."

Treaty of Tripoli (signed by Adams)

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."




Basically, we can throw quotes around if you really want to, but that doesn't prove too much. your turn.

[Socrates]

[quote name='aalpha1989' post='1498958' date='Apr 14 2008, 12:21 AM']Cool I can play that game, too. Let's grab random quotations and play games like protestants do with the bible!
"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose."
TJ
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world geniuses, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
TJ
"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests."
TJ
"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."
TJ

"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it."
Still Tommyboy
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
Jeff again
"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
TJ

I can go on and on with him. One of the most anti-clerical of the founding fathers. Hated the Catholic Church. But let's move on to someone else.

Franklin!
"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did."
Although this sounds Christian, it is hte cornerstone of Deistic belief. They believe the ONLY way to worship God is to act good.

". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."

??? and you say he was Christian? It's a historical fact that Franklin was deistic. Deal with it.

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."

again, classic deistic language. "Infinite Father" Is not just an innocent phrase to name the almighty. Deists in the enlightenment used such phrases (and Supreme Being, which appears in the declaration) all the time.

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
from poor richard's almanac

Should I really get into Thomas Paine? He was worse than Jefferson... in fact he lived in France during hte French revolution in order to write against the Catholic Church.

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."

"What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith."

"Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies."

"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. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

"The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar."

"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."

Ethan Allen
"I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not."

Treaty of Tripoli (signed by Adams)

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
Basically, we can throw quotes around if you really want to, but that doesn't prove too much. your turn.[/quote]
Why all the vitriol? Does it upset you that many of the founding fathers were Christian?

The truth is the fifty-two of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were Christian.
Citing the opinions of these four men (one of them quite obscure) does nothing to prove that the founding fathers as a whole were not Christian, or the that the American founding was an anti-Christian movement.
The overwhelming evidence is quite to the contrary, as my list of citations has shown (and it is hardly comprehensive).
The American founding fathers were a large and diverse group of men who did not all agree on political matters, much less theological. Charles Carroll (whom I cited) was a devout Roman Catholic (and cousin of Bishop Carroll of Baltimore).
James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" was not a Deist, but a devout Christian, who often emphasized the importance of religion.
Alexander Hamilton was likewise a devout Christian who formed the Christian Constitutional Society with the goals of "the support of the Christian religion" and "support for the United States."
John Adams, Chief Justices John Marshall and John Jay (also a [i]Federalist Papers[/i] author), Patrick Henry, Benjamin Rush, and Noah Webster were all Christian, not Deist.

The point is that the liberal propoganda that America was founded as a radical secularist state opposed to any religion or "religious morals" is blatantly false.

While the Treaty of Tripoli is often used by radical secularists to claim that America is un-Christian, it must be looked at in context. The phrase was used to assure Muslim Tripoly that the U.S. government was religiously neutral, and was not seeking a Christian crusade against the Muslims.

And if you're going to try to use peace treaties to prove America is not Christian, you might consider that the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which officially ended the American Revolutionary War, began with the following words: "In the Name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. . . ."

And you might also consider that John Adams wrote the following:
“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

•“[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
–John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved by Congress

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798

"I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen." December 25, 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Without Religion this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in polite Company, I mean Hell." [John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1817]

[Alycin]

I think that most of them were Christians but I'm unsure why this argument even exists anymore...

my favorite thing in the world to hear people say...

"The Constitution is BASED ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS"

It always makes me laugh hysterically. And then usually makes me sad, because there are quite a lot of Christians that make Christianity look like the religion for stupid people. Or maybe they are just louder. It's really unfair to educated and knowledgeable Christians.

I have several atheist friends who tell me that I am one of the only Christians they know who has managed to never make a statement in ignorance of historical fact to them when debating religion.

And I live in the bible belt, so this makes me sad.

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1501456' date='Apr 16 2008, 10:22 PM']Why all the vitriol? Does it upset you that many of the founding fathers were Christian?

The truth is the fifty-two of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were Christian.
Citing the opinions of these four men (one of them quite obscure) does nothing to prove that the founding fathers as a whole were not Christian, or the that the American founding was an anti-Christian movement.
The overwhelming evidence is quite to the contrary, as my list of citations has shown (and it is hardly comprehensive).
The American founding fathers were a large and diverse group of men who did not all agree on political matters, much less theological. Charles Carroll (whom I cited) was a devout Roman Catholic (and cousin of Bishop Carroll of Baltimore).
James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" was not a Deist, but a devout Christian, who often emphasized the importance of religion.
Alexander Hamilton was likewise a devout Christian who formed the Christian Constitutional Society with the goals of "the support of the Christian religion" and "support for the United States."
John Adams, Chief Justices John Marshall and John Jay (also a [i]Federalist Papers[/i] author), Patrick Henry, Benjamin Rush, and Noah Webster were all Christian, not Deist.

The point is that the liberal propoganda that America was founded as a radical secularist state opposed to any religion or "religious morals" is blatantly false.

While the Treaty of Tripoli is often used by radical secularists to claim that America is un-Christian, it must be looked at in context. The phrase was used to assure Muslim Tripoly that the U.S. government was religiously neutral, and was not seeking a Christian crusade against the Muslims.

And if you're going to try to use peace treaties to prove America is not Christian, you might consider that the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which officially ended the American Revolutionary War, began with the following words: "In the Name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. . . ."

And you might also consider that John Adams wrote the following:
“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

•“[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
–John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved by Congress

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798

"I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen." December 25, 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Without Religion this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in polite Company, I mean Hell." [John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1817][/quote]

I didn't intend to sound angry, sorry if I did. My intention was merely to show that out of context quotes don't really mean anything. Protestants do it all the time with the Bible and we rip 'em for it. Why should we do it with historical figures?

As for your references to liberal agendas, I don't see how they're relevent. I made no such claims, and have no such agenda. Just lookin' for historical accuracy.

I'll give you Carroll. But as for Henry and Adams, no. I believe Adams came back to orthodoxy in his old(er) age, but at the time of the revolutionary events he was diestic. Washington remained deistic his entire life. Henry went to France to write against the Catholic Church, organized religion. He's just a hothead in general.

As far as I can see it's your word against mine and we're getting nowhere. I never meant to say that ALL the fathers were deistic (I even excluded Madison in a previous post), only that most of the key players were.

[ironmonk]

Most of the founding fathers where Christian. One only has to look at all the historical meetings of our founding fathers to see that they all prayed.

"Seperation of Church and State" is something Franklin said about the 1st Admendment where Congress shall not elect a denomination for the people.... that's it, nothing more. It never was meant to mean you can't pray in public, and it was never meant that if you work in government you can't pray or ask someone to pray.

The whole reason for the admendment was because in England, the people had to be whatever denomination the King was.

[quote]Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[/quote]

One can see the demographics of the Signers of The Declaration of Independence here:
[url="http://www.usconstitution.net/declarsigndata.html"]http://www.usconstitution.net/declarsigndata.html[/url]

The Framers:
[url="http://www.usconstitution.net/constframedata.html"]http://www.usconstitution.net/constframedata.html[/url]


Most of them are Christian.

God Bless,
ironmonk

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='ironmonk' post='1501548' date='Apr 17 2008, 01:06 AM']Most of the founding fathers where Christian. One only has to look at all the historical meetings of our founding fathers to see that they all prayed.

"Seperation of Church and State" is something Franklin said about the 1st Admendment where Congress shall not elect a denomination for the people.... that's it, nothing more. It never was meant to mean you can't pray in public, and it was never meant that if you work in government you can't pray or ask someone to pray.

The whole reason for the admendment was because in England, the people had to be whatever denomination the King was.
One can see the demographics of the Signers of The Declaration of Independence here:
[url="http://www.usconstitution.net/declarsigndata.html"]http://www.usconstitution.net/declarsigndata.html[/url]

The Framers:
[url="http://www.usconstitution.net/constframedata.html"]http://www.usconstitution.net/constframedata.html[/url]
Most of them are Christian.

God Bless,
ironmonk[/quote]

Thanks for the links-
Still, though, I'm not sure why you're talking about separation of Church and state. That's nothing I was arguing. I never brought it up. I don't know the fancy terms for fallacies and all that, but Soc definitely used one in trying to argue against me by bringing that up. I have no agenda, I'm trying to look at historical fact.

[Socrates]

[quote name='aalpha1989' post='1501547' date='Apr 16 2008, 11:50 PM']I didn't intend to sound angry, sorry if I did. My intention was merely to show that out of context quotes don't really mean anything. Protestants do it all the time with the Bible and we rip 'em for it. Why should we do it with historical figures?

As for your references to liberal agendas, I don't see how they're relevent. I made no such claims, and have no such agenda. Just lookin' for historical accuracy.

I'll give you Carroll. But as for Henry and Adams, no. I believe Adams came back to orthodoxy in his old(er) age, but at the time of the revolutionary events he was diestic. Washington remained deistic his entire life. Henry went to France to write against the Catholic Church, organized religion. He's just a hothead in general.

As far as I can see it's your word against mine and we're getting nowhere. I never meant to say that ALL the fathers were deistic (I even excluded Madison in a previous post), only that most of the key players were.[/quote]
You have done nothing to prove my quotations "out of context." If you make such a charge, the burden is on you to place them in "context." Neither have you given anything to back up your broad statements. What do you mean by "most of the key players"?
The "key players" in the revolution go far beyond Jefferson, Franklin, and Paine.

You are dead wrong about Patrick Henry. I even ran a search and could find absolutely nothing about him going to France to attack organized religion. I think you are confusing him with Thomas Paine or some other individual.

In fact, everything I could find on the matter said that Henry was a supporter of Christian religion, and opposed to the French Revolution. (and nothing about him going to France)
[quote]In declining health, Henry retired from the legislature at the end of 1790 and devoted himself to a busy law practice, winning cases in some of his most successful courtroom appearances. By the middle of the decade, however, his political allegiance took a surprising turn, [b]shaped in part by the bloody excesses of the French Revolution, which Henry attributed to the deism of its leaders.[/b][/quote]from [url="http://www.redhill.org/biography_detailed.html"]Patrick Henry Biography [/url]

[quote]After the war Henry's influence in the legislature tended to be sporadic because of his habit of leaving before the end of the session. [b]He astonished his contemporaries by advocating state support of religion [/b]and amnesty for Loyalists.

Henry served as governor again from 1784 to 1786 but declined to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787. An ardent supporter of state rights, he led the Virginia opposition to ratification of the federal Constitution, losing the vote by a small margin. His hostility to centralized government and to measures favoring commercial interests led him initially to protest the Federalist program of the Washington administration. [b]As the years passed, however, his fear that the radicalism of the French Revolution would infect the nation brought him to support the Federalist party.[/b] Just before his death, on June 6, 1799, he was elected to the state legislature as a Federalist.[/quote][url="http://www.americanrevolution.com/PatrickHenry1.htm"]http://www.americanrevolution.com/PatrickHenry1.htm[/url]

In fact, Henry wrote a rebuttal to Paine's infamous tract "Age of Reason," which had attacked the Bible.

As to the exact nature of Washington's Christianity, this continues to be debated, however, it is known and recorded that Washington did pray to Christ:
[quote]"O Most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ, my merciful and loving Father; I acknowledge and confess my guilt in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on Thee for pardon and forgiveness of my sins, but so coldly and carelessly that my prayers are become my sin, and they stand in need of pardon.”
"I have sinned against heaven and before Thee in thought, word, and deed. I have contemned Thy majesty and holy laws. I have likewise sinned by omitting what I ought to have done and committing what I ought not. I have rebelled against the light, despising Thy mercies and judgment, and broken my vows and promise. I have neglected the better things. My iniquities are multiplied and my sins are very great. I confess them, O Lord, with shame and sorrow, detestation and loathing and desire to be vile in my own eyes as I have rendered myself vile in Thine. I humbly beseech Thee to be merciful to me in the free pardon of my sins for the sake of Thy dear Son and only Savior Jesus Christ who came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Thou gavest Thy Son to die for me.”[/quote][George Washington; from a 24 page authentic handwritten manuscript book dated April 21-23, 1752 William J. Johnson George Washington, the Christian (New York: The Abingdon Press, New York & Cincinnati, 1919), pp. 24-35.]

I was originally writing concerning the OP in which it was claimed that the founders were not Christian. Such claims are commonly made by radical secularists who want all traces of religion removed from American public life.
If you're "just looking for historical accuracy," you might try to first get your own historical facts straight.

Edited April 18, 2008 by Socrates

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1502224' date='Apr 17 2008, 10:22 PM']You have done nothing to prove my quotations "out of context." If you make such a charge, the burden is on you to place them in "context." Neither have you given anything to back up your broad statements. What do you mean by "most of the key players"?
The "key players" in the revolution go far beyond Jefferson, Franklin, and Paine.

You are dead wrong about Patrick Henry. I even ran a search and could find absolutely nothing about him going to France to attack organized religion. I think you are confusing him with Thomas Paine or some other individual.

In fact, everything I could find on the matter said that Henry was a supporter of Christian religion, and opposed to the French Revolution. (and nothing about him going to France)
from [url="http://www.redhill.org/biography_detailed.html"]Patrick Henry Biography [/url]

[url="http://www.americanrevolution.com/PatrickHenry1.htm"]http://www.americanrevolution.com/PatrickHenry1.htm[/url]

In fact, Henry wrote a rebuttal to Paine's infamous tract "Age of Reason," which had attacked the Bible.

As to the exact nature of Washington's Christianity, this continues to be debated, however, it is known and recorded that Washington did pray to Christ:
[George Washington; from a 24 page authentic handwritten manuscript book dated April 21-23, 1752 William J. Johnson George Washington, the Christian (New York: The Abingdon Press, New York & Cincinnati, 1919), pp. 24-35.]

I was originally writing concerning the OP in which it was claimed that the founders were not Christian. Such claims are commonly made by radical secularists who want all traces of religion removed from American public life.
If you're "just looking for historical accuracy," you might try to first get your own historical facts straight.[/quote]

You're right about Henry; I was confusing him with Paine. As soon as I saw that I hit myself.

Anyway as for the rest I don't really have the resources with me so either it's a stalemate or you may claim victory.