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A little refresher about the views of those who helped shape our infant nation. Don't shoot the messenger; I just want people to sit down and think for a minute before they try to rewrite history. I sat down and put this together after listening to some idiots in my family spewing hate which they based on the pretense that the US was founded for/by Christians... I simply don't tolerate hate. It is another reason I am SO GLAD this election (well, most of it) is over because I don't have to watch/listen to attack ads any more. Well, at least for two more years!
Ben Franklin - Deist - “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758
"God heals, and the doctor takes the fees."
"How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."
George Washington - born to Episcopalians, self-described Deist - “Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their [not our?] religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society.” George Washington Letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained”
John Adams - Unitarian - “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” John Adams, Treaty of Tripoly, article 11
"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."
"Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws."
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people."
Thomas Jefferson - Deist - “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination." Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
James Madison - Deist and primary author of the US Constitution - “In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.” “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” James Madison, April 1, 1774
James Monroe - Deist
John Quincy Adams - Unitarian
Thomas Paine - Agnostic -"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human ... inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection”
“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”
Patrick Henry - very devout Episcopalian - "I know not what others may choose but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death."
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?"
"I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion."
"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
Samuel Adams - Congregationalist, and second cousin to John Adams - "As neither reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience." -- The Rights of the Colonists, 20 November 1772
"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the Earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"
Abraham Lincoln - Deist to Atheist, depending on the source; officially had "no religion" - “My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.” Lincoln in a letter to Judge J.S.Wakefield, after the death of Willie Lincoln
“He was an avowed and open infidel, and sometimes bordered on Atheism...He went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard.” John T.
Stuart, Lincoln's first law partner
The diversity of our country is its strength! We all come from different places, cultures, and backgrounds, and this fact improves our ability to adapt and overcome adversities TOGETHER. I am not trying to offend anyone, if you've read this to the end, I just want you to THINK about the history we've witnessed this week, because no matter your beliefs, it WAS an historic election... about appreciating the perspective of those you may disagree with... and about using those differences to our advantage to forge the best path!
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It's often a man's mouth broke his nose...
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