"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession."
-Spoken by Abraham Lincoln,
One of the most common statements from the "Religious Right" is that they want this country to "return to the Christian principles on which it was founded".
However, a little research into American history will show that this statement is a lie. The men responsible for building the foundation of the United States had little use for Christianity, and many were strongly opposed to it. They were men of The Enlightenment, not men of Christianity. They were Deists who did not believe the bible was true.
When the Founders wrote the nation's Constitution, they specified that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." (Article 6, section 3) This provision was radical in its day-- giving equal citizenship to believers and non-believers alike. They wanted to ensure that no single religion could make the claim of being the official, national religion, such as England had. Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention religion, except in exclusionary terms. The words "Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, and God" are never mentioned in the Constitution-- not once.
Most of the Founders were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God, (Nature's God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. Some people speculate that if Charles Darwin had lived a century earlier, the Founding Fathers would have had a basis for accepting naturalistic origins of life, and they would have been atheists. Most of them were stoutly opposed to the bible, and the teachings of Christianity in particular.
" The second President of the United States was John Adams, lawyer and diplomat. He wrote:
" As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
The third president of the United States was Thomas Jefferson. He had been the author of the Declaration of Independence . He Wrote:
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
.We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication ."
George Washington was a Deist like his colleagues. He was a Freemason. "His mention of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian....
If the Christian Right Extremists wish to return this country to its beginnings, so be it... because it was a climate of Freethought. The Founders were students of the European Enlightenment. Half a century after the establishment of the United States, clergymen complained that no president up to that date had been a Christian.
The Founding Fathers would turn in their graves if the Christian Extremists had their way with this country.
The contents of this Post can be found in it's entirety and is a reblog by permission from Our Founding Fathers
The owner of this blog takes no credit for the words herein contained in this Post...
;)
;)
Wow! And I thought that the masonic movement (based on the bible) was instaumental in the founding of our country.