Our Founding Fathers

[BeachOfEden]

Auuhhh!! I get so tired of hearing ignorant far right Fundamental Protestants make statements claiming that our founding fathers or our nation was built on Evangelical far right Christianity or to be more prrecise..Fundamental Protestantism. All of you here are really smart about this stuff. One founding father was a deist and another was a Unitarian. Care to share interesting facts on all this? Thanks. When i get a collection of great replies maybe I will make an essey on this and place on MySpace!

 

Thanks!

BeacoOfEden

[des]

It's true. Lately I have seen Jefferson (yikes) with quotes with so many holes that it was nuts quoted as if he had been a Southern Baptist. They are, perhaps, forgetting the famed (or imfamous) "Jefferson Bible" (this deleted all the miracles, etc in the Bible-- or was this a tract to convert Indians?). Washington had a pew at the Episcopal church. I think it was Jefferson who believed that everyone would eventually become a Unitarian (perhaps he was right in Europe!).

 

OTOH, the Puritans were a more fundamentalist (or lets' say Calvinist) lot. They had a lot of influence on getting to America in the first place. I've often wondered if that's why we have such a strong conservative religious tradition here. All the conservatives left Europe and came here. :-) We're genetically more conservative. Somehow our little Prog Christian lot, well we are a wierd genetic mutation. ;-)

 

Here's a fun website with various quotes by Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin.

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

 

BTW, the above is a "free thinker site". Others have suggested that the term "deist" doesnt' really accurately explain the religious views of the founding fathers. I was unable to find a "neutral" site that would examine the claims really impartially. This Nation article is perhaps an attempt but the Nation is a pretty liberal magazine.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050221&s=allen

 

--des

Edited July 3, 2005 by des

[BeachOfEden]

Thanks Des! These were VERY helpful! I saved them all! Des, do you also know where I could find great esseys that explains the detials of the McCarthy ara of 50's hysterics? Much appreciated!