Quotes Beside the Point

Submitted by dennis middlebrooks (United States), Feb 18, 2008 at 12:07

Mitch, Jefferson was a Christian? Really? Is that why he referred to the Trinity as heresy and compared it to the birth of Minerva out of Jove's head in Roman mythology? Have you ever heard of the Jefferson Bible? It's his edited Bible with all the miracles cut out. He made it clear he believed Jesus was a man who preached an ethical code Jefferson admired. Not a Saviour, not a God.

None of the first six presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Quincy Adams) believed in the virgin birth, trinity or resurrection. Their references to God clearly reflected their deistic or Unitarian outlooks. This was the God of Reason, the Prime Mover. Not the God of Revelation. When they referred to religion, it was the religion of Voltaire, Paine, and other prominent deists.

Dishonest fudamentalists today know this but still try to pass off these God quotes as proof that America was fouded as a trinitarian Christian nation. No, it was not! That's why the term "Novus Ordo Seclorum" (New Order of the Ages) appeared on our currency from the beginning (in contrast to "In God We Trust", which was added in my lifetime). Christianity became the religion of Europe in the 4th century, C.E. How many democracies were there in Europe in the 1.400 years that elapsed up to 1776? Why was there still slavery in Christian nations (incluidng the USA) until the last half of th 19th Century?

Please explain why there is not a sIngle reference to God, Jesus, or Christianity in the text of the Constitution, and why there is an explicit prohibition against religious tests, which would alow atheists or pagans to hold office (as Washington approvingly acknolwledged). Please explain why, for decades after the Constitution was drafted, the Christian clergy was its fiercest critics, denouncing it as a heretical, godless document (which it was!), and its drafters as heathens (which many were). Please explain the repeated efforts of fundamentalist Christians in the 19th Century to amend the Constitution to include references to Jesus as Saviour?

While you're at it, explain why both Jefferson and Madison opposed paid chaplains in the Congress and why Jefferson refused to declare a Day of Thanksgiving as president. Mitch, you would love the Constitutiion of the Confederate States of America. God is mentioned ight in the preamble. A lot of good it did them.

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