Why do atheists use the argument that our founding fathers were deists to say the country?

was not founded on religion.





Patrick Henry was the firebrand of the Revolution. Every school child knows his words: ``Give me liberty or give me death.'' But I will wager that you will not find in any current textbooks the circumstances in which he uttered these words: They were in a church in Richmond, Virginia, St. John's Church in Richmond Virginia March 23, 1775, and this is what he said: ``An appeal to arms and the God of Hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone.


There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle, sir, is not to the strong. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.''


Did your children ever bring home to you this full quote from Patrick Henry?


Was Patrick Henry a Christian? The following year, 1776, he wrote this: ``It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this great Nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians,'' or in today's vernacular, Judeo Christians, ``not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, peoples of other faiths have been afforded'' ..... ``freedom of worship here.''


Benjamin Franklin was said to be a deist; that is, he believed there was a God who created the Earth but then he just let the Earth and its inhabitants determine their destiny by how they related themselves to laws that he had established. Let me read to you something that Benjamin Franklin said. This was in 1787. We had a deadlocked convention.


It wasn't certain that after 11 years, we were going to be able to write a Constitution that would protect all of the rights, big States and little States and people, that we wanted to protect. And this is what he said: ``In the days of our conquest with Great Britain when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity to establish our Nation. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Do we imagine we no longer need his assistance?''


And then I love this quote: ``I have lived, sir, a long time.'' I believe he was 81 years old, the oldest member of the Constitutional Convention, revered Governor of Pennsylvania. ``I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, it is probable that a new nation cannot rise without his aid. We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that built it. I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to any business.''


That established a precedent that congress honored this morning when they opened this day and this Congress with prayer. They have a chaplain; so does the Senate. There is a chaplain of every religious persuasion, or many, including Muslims, who serve our military. As a matter of fact the only place today we cannot offer a prayer is in our schools. I have often asked myself the rationality of this.


Thomas Jefferson was also said to be a deist. Let me read what he says and see if you believe he was a deist: ``I am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our creator and, I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also.''


On slavery Jefferson wrote: ``Almighty God has created men's minds free. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.''


George Washington, the founder our country, a deeply religious person. We think of him often as commander of the Army. This is his quote: ``It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible.'' Boy, are we trying to do that? ``Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition,'' that is, the idea, ``that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.''


And in his prayer book, George Washington wrote this: ``Oh, eternal and everlasting God, direct my thoughts, words, and work. Wash away my sins in the emaculate blood of the lamb and purge my heart by the Holy Spirit. Daily, frame me more and more in the likeness of they son, Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time obtain the resurrection of the justified unto eternal life. Bless, O Lord, the whole race of mankind and let the world be filled with the knowledge of thee and thy son, Jesus Christ.''


John Adams, our second President and President of the American Bible Society, this is what he said: ``We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion.'' I wonder if maybe this can be a factor in our problems in Iraq. ``Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'' This by the second President of the United States.


John Jay, our first Supreme Court Justice, said ``Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.'' This from John Jay, the first Supreme Court Justice.


John Quincy Adams, also, like his father, President of the American Bible Society. As a matter of fact, I think it was he who said that he valued the presidency of the American Bible Society more than he valued the presidency of the United States. This is what he said: ``The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. From the day of the Declaration, the day'' the Founding Fathers ``were bound by the Laws of God, which they all acknowledged as their rules of conduct.''


And later Calvin Coolidge, ``Silent Cal.'' An interesting story is told of him. He was a man of few words. It was hard to get him to talk. He was sitting at dinner with a lady who said, ``I have a wager that I will get you to say three words tonight.'' And the only words he uttered that whole evening were ``You lose.''


Calvin Coolidge said this: ``America seeks no empires built on blood and forces. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.'' He later wrote: ``The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teaching would cease to be practically universal in our country.''


President Coolidge, they have ceased to be practically universal in our country. What now?


I think you see from these quotes from just a few of our Founding Fathers, and there are dozens of others I could have brought, that certainly our Founding Fathers were deeply religious people. They were not deists and athiests.

Why do atheists use the argument that our founding fathers were deists to say the country?
They use it to make a baseless point and to undercut the true reason and basis of why America was founded.
Reply:seperation of church and state. that proves their lies worked. creation of a national religion and this lie of the federal courts that changed history are so easily interchanged. Report It

Reply:and nowhere did I say it is a christian nation. I said founded on religion. and you leftists keep trying to say "seperation of church and state" means the country is not founded on religion. so in that intire line of argument you have 0 truths. Report It

Reply:Most were not deists, but Christians who did not want a national religion i.e. the Church of England. The only deist that I know of is Thomas Paine though some have argued Jefferson was as well.
Reply:It's just flowery language designed to communicate with the common folk. As always, actions speak louder than words. Actions - no religious test to hold office, no establishment of religion, Jefferson's great - statute for religious liberty, his advocacy of the 'wall of separation between church and state.' Our founders lived through religious tyranny and wanted it to stop. They still had to speak to people raised in religious thought patterns.





John Adams himself, the second president you cite, wrote jefferson that religion was only for the simple minded and that he looked forward to a day when americans would abandon the foolishness of religion.





Some of our founders were 'deeply religious.' Many were not. And they all agreed to get religion out of public life, for they'd learned from the horror of europe's religious wars and inquisitions what it looks like if you don't.
Reply:Because it's easier than admitting that the founding fathers were gun-carrying, tax-hating businessmen and that most of them smoked like chimneys.
Reply:ANd on and on and on. Blah blah blah. Borrrrring.
Reply:Interesting commentary...our forefathers were secularists, not deists. That is why they created the separation of church and state. Though they all believed in God, they knew that religiosity has no place in the governing of a country.
Reply:How did you manage to get all that in your question? I tried that once and it wouldn't let me do it. Do you honestly think somebody's going to read all that?
Reply:It is not only atheists who maintain that, for instance, Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. Anyone truly interested in the real story of our founders finds this an interesting subject, no matter their religious beliefs. It's enough to address Jefferson here, as your other two examples will render similiar comparisons to support the fact that they were indeed Deists. Jefferson is acknowledged as being Deist by every reputable historian without a religious agenda. They get to this place not by cherry picking quotes, as you have done, but by studying all of his writings exhaustively. The founders constantly debated religion and the place it should hold in this country's Constitution. In the end, had the founders wished to make clear that their dream was for this to be a Christian country, they had every opportunity to do so. But they did not do so. Here are interesting quotations and observations about Thomas Jefferson that do little but oppose your theory. It should be enough, though, for you and others to understand that this was an ongoing debate and conversation among the founders that ended with a secular Constitution, to the betterment of us all.





In spite of Christian right attempts to rewrite history to make Jefferson into a Christian, little about his philosophy resembles that of Christianity. Although Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, there exists nothing in the Declaration about Christianity.





Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of the god of deism (the term "Nature's God" used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson sought to organize his thoughts on religion. He rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus (see The Jefferson Bible) leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.





Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.


-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814





You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.


-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819





I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.


-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789





History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.


-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.





In the 17th and 18th centuries, Deism was denoted by five major doctrines.


1) The existence of God


2) The obligation to worship God


3) the ethical requirements of such worship


4) the need for repentance


5) The need for reward and punishment both in this life and in the one to follow





I've never really understood why there are some who are so hellbent on rewriting history to support false notions. History speaks for itself, if one is willing to actually learn ALL about it, and not just that which comforts them.
Reply:No one cares about your long rant.





Separation of church and state has nothing to do with atheism by the way... It is because we're a voting country, and if we kept the church in politics then there would be no vote because we would have to follow the rule of god, and the point of coming here for religous freedom would be dead!
Reply:dude...i zoned in the middle of that
Reply:I am not atheist but answer this.. Why is it that every christian believes that america was built on the christian religion? can you show me anywhere in the DOI that it mentions a christian god? to save you the trouble which you need to go and read the dec of indep. but the only thing in it that has anything about a god states "in natures law and natures god". now if you want to argue that what religion is a nature based religion to say????
Reply:deism means you believe in god. But they were not christians.