Jesus of Jupiter
The Nation has an article on our constitution that’s pretty good. Focuses a lot on the non-Christianity of some founding fathers, particularly Jefferson:
Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the teachings of Jesus had undergone. “The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded [Christianity] with absurdities and incomprehensibilities” that it was almost impossible to recapture “its native simplicity and purity.” Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New Testament put an intolerable strain on credulity. “The day will come,” he predicted (wrongly, so far), “when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” The Revelation of St. John he dismissed as “the ravings of a maniac.”
I wonder if he’d be disappointed with our progress?
I’m starting to share his views on Calvin, though I’m in no position to judge their adherence to the Bible.
personally, i think Jefferson was da bomb. but that’s my opinion.
Lot of people don’t realize that many of the framers weren’t Christians. Or least Christians as we think of them today. When the slobs say “This nation was founded on Christian principles,” I say “No, it was founded on common sense, by people who didn’t want religion in government. They didn’t want a theocract any more than they wanted a monarcy.”
Jean Cauvin [John Calvin] was a French lawyer before wandering into theology and read the Bible with the view of justifyiing his “case”, as lawyers are wont to do.
That he left out anything that weakened his view is par for the course with a lawyer.
Many of them were Deists. I don’t see how people can defend that view as more rational than Christianity; Deists still believe in an inexplicable Grand Power.
Furthermore, a lot of them had contempt mainly for the Catholic church, not religion or Christianity per se.
Finally, the separation of church and state is meant equally to keep gov’t out of religion, as it is religion out of gov’t. As with many things, the Founding Fathers hedged their bets, by being ambivalent on religion’s place: they refer to The Creator, for example, and refer to God on our federal money. Not the actions of people who wanted God out of the equation entirely.
I would say it’s more rational because it’s more accepting of science and logic than traditional religion that take their ancient stories above all (of course, there are many traditional religious believers that do accept science and reasoning to some extent).
Most of them were pretty approving of Christianity, at least for the public, I agree.
As far as I know, “In God We Trust” was added to our money around the time of the Civil War. Plus, “The Creator” is not in any document that forms a foundation for our government. It was left out when creating our system of government.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the
powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature’s ****God**** entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their ****Creator***** with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…
What’s your point? I think you may have missed what I was saying.
Sorry. I can’t check this as often as I used to. I didn’t miss your point. Mine is
that God appears in the document that announced the colonies’intention to form their
own government.
Ok, but I’m well aware of that. I don’t see the need to point it out.
I know. Again, my apologies if I appeared snide. Perhaps if I’d only used three asterisks on each side of the words I wished to highlight.
I only wished to reiterate that the Founding Fathers were of two minds on the subject in some ways.