The Young Turks

I am sure many of you already know this but as a student and teacher of history I feel the need to explain the religious beliefs of the founding fathers (at least as well as we can decipher them based on the evidence.)

Often when arguments begin over religion and its place in our country or our culture's morality we hear statements like "This is a Christian nation!" or "Our forefathers founded this country on Christian principals."  These unsupported assertions apparently are supposed to make it ok to give large amounts of tax dollars to churches with little or no oversight or to legislate who can marry/sleep with/employ or pick up the social security checks of who.  Usually the non-religious crowd simply dismisses the "This is the way they did it 220 years ago so that is what we are gonna do now" for the obviously idiotic argument it is but there is an even better answer to this tactic.  You see what the Christian Right fails to realize is this country was NOT founded by Christians on Christian ideals.  If these people would spend a little less time studying the bible and Hilary Clinton's 1980s tax returns and a little more time studying the rich and fascinating history of this country they claim to love so much they might be shocked and horrified at what they would find.

They would learn this country was founded (for the most part) by men who would not have called themselves Christian, but Deists. To make a long Wikipedia entry short, Deists believe in a God but he is distant and impersonal.  He is NOT a Christian God.  Deists do not belief in things like miracles or revelations. In fact, Deists reject all religions based on books or writing claiming to be God's word (like the Qu'Ran or the Bible).  Deists believe God can only be understood and appreciated through logic and reason.  In retrospect this makes a lot of sense in the historical context of the time. 

The American Revolution (and the entire Age of Revolutions) was a product of the Enlightenment.  By definition the Enlightenment was the turning away from religion, superstition and tradition as a means of understanding the world and turning towards science and logic.  Much like the Republicans these last six years, the church had possessed essentially unchecked power and had abused it in ways that would make a Haliburton CEO blush.  Like American voters in the 2006 midterm elections, many Euros decided they need a change at the top (but here we mean the way high top) and changed religions.  This Reformation split European Christianity (yes, there are other kinds, African, Russian (Orthodox) and even Chinese!) initially into two pieces (Catholic and Protestant) but very quickly like an untended crack in a windshield it shattered the whole thing into too many sects to recall here. 

The realization that the Catholic church was not all that Christian in any meaningful philosophic ways (papal interests extended beyond God, Jesus and Mary to include taking millions of dollars in taxes from serfs whose level of material wealth was about the equivalent of an American homeless person to fathering children by numerous women to (allegedly) molesting boys to (allegedly) having sex with their own children to murder.  In fact, if even 10% of the stories of the popes are true they would make Bill Clinton look like an altar boy, which would be bad news for Bill if he ever found himself alone with a pope!)  But the straw that broke the camel that was Martin Luther’s back was something called indulgences which sounds like something you might get out of the freezer and is made by Haagen-Dazs but is actually a code word that meant “give me a pile of gold and I’ll tell God to let your mommy out of hell.” 

I digress but the point is about this time (the 16^th century) some of the brighter lights in Europe began to suspect that maybe having an old man take a break from inventing new forms of depravity to stumble out onto the balcony of his massive office with a gold roof to tell everyone what to believe was actually not the best way to find the truth.  This is the roots of the Enlightenment and no matter what your high school textbook said, the Enlightenment was directly opposed to organized religion (at least as it existed then). 

Now, to get to America, finally.  The men who made this country were (almost) all Enlightenment thinkers and mostly rejected Christian doctrine.  The men who founded our country were lot closer philosophically to the tenets of Universalism  than to, say, Tom Delay.  In fact, John Adams was a professed Universal.  This explains Jefferson possession of a Qur'an.  The Deists did not revile the teaching and ideas of other religions, they considered the lessons and morality of other faiths to be valuable in discovering God’s will they just rejected the infallibility of the details.  Particularly the hard to believe stuff (virgin births, people surviving trips through whale intestines, talking burning bushes, etc.)  To a Deists all religions would be valued for their ideas but rejected for their claims of unverifiable Holy truths.  Now for the specifics:

Thomas Jefferson-

"There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites" – Notes on the State of Virginia

Hmmm, kinda odd that a man many people belief to be a devout Christian calls the religion a superstition, huh?

Probably my favorite piece of evidence is the mudslinging from the Election of 1800.  Why did Adams supporters tell you not to vote for TJ?

Jefferson did not believe in Christianity!  Federalist pamphlets of the time "accused Jefferson of the heinous crimes of not believing in divine revelation and of a design to destroy religion and `introduce immorality'”  In 1800 a vote for Jefferson was a vote for the infidel.

Jefferson’s response to these attacks can be found on the walls of his monument (or Pagan idol) in D.C. "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."  He ain’t talking about King George, this is from a letter written to Benjamin Rush in response to the attacks of the clergy in the election.  He is talking about organized religion.

Jefferson’s refusal to issue Thanksgiving proclamations and his letter explaining this has twice been cited by the Supreme Court in Separation of Church and State decisions.

And of course, the Far Rights least favorite sentence in all of America history, from the Treaty with Tripoli (yeah, we fought a war against Tripoli)-

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion…”

Wow, that is so perfect a rebuttal to the “The United States of America was founded on the Christian religion” it has to be made up, right?  Except its from an official, ratified treaty and is perfectly preserved in the Congressional and Presidential archives, not to mention the Library of Congress.  And probably in Libya somewhere too.  This gives it a tad bit more credibility, as we shall see, than the “counterevidence.

Incidentally, this quote gets a lot worse for your fBush supporters.  TJ continues-

“…as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of {Muslims}; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any {Islamic} nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Thomas Jefferson, making Republicans look like fools for more than two centuries with no sign of slowing down.

Finally (although first chronologically), the “proof” of TJ’s Christianity.  The word God in the declaration.  But far more important are the absence of the words “Jesus”, “Christ”, or “Christianity”.   Deists believe in God, just not Christianity.  The phrase is actually “nature’s God”.  Does that sound like Christianity to you?  Peruse through any Catholic or organized Christian church document you can find and see if the Christian God is called “nature’s God.”  No, in thier worldview nature is God's, not the other way around

The omissions in the Declaration are the proof.  Think for a second.  Who gave man his “certain, inalienable rights”?  Our creator did.  Not Jesus or the Christian God.  Read some historical documents from the time, if someone believes in Jesus they are not shy about putting his name in their abut 20 or 30 times. 

Actually, a Christian member of the Constitutional Congress proposed shoving the standard two or three dozen references to Christ into the Constitution and was loudly voted down.   The Constitution contains one reference to religion, that specifically denouncing the state support of a religion.

George Washington-

Almost everyone thinks the original G-Dub was as pious as our current, far inferior version.  The reason they think this is the widely read and influential Life of Washington by Mason Weems.  This is also where the Cherry Tree story comes from and every other Washington tall tale you have ever heard.  In the process of deifying GW, Weems didn’t bother to do any actual research, simply collecting stories he had heard and making up the rest.  Weems Washington is a devout, god-fearing ideal Christian but this probably has a lot more to do with Weems  (did I mention he was a minister) than Washington.

Christians point out that GW was a Vestryman for the local church but they fail to realize the Vestrymen were also the local judges and this was a political position.  He did attend church as a Vestryman but never took communion according to both the church’s ministers.  In fact, one of ministers (a Rev. Abercrombie) said, apparently anticipating the centuries long confusion and wanting to do his part to clear things up, “Washington is a Deist.”  Yeah I can see how that is easily misinterpreted to mean  “George Washington was the greatest and most devout Christian of all time and therefore Massachusetts must stop gay people from getting’ hitched.”

In what would certainly be strange behavior for a devout Christian, GW failed to mention Jesus a single time in the thousands of surviving letters we have from the man (unlike the latest G-Dub whom drops Jesus name like a rock band uses the name of whatever city they are playing in that night.)  If he was a Christian he was an extraordinarily bad one.

Then there is this.  In his first Inaugural GW goes to great lengths to avoid mentioning anything that might be confused with actual Christianity using instead  “"Great Author," "Almighty Being," "invisible hand," and "benign parent of the human race," but apparently could not bring himself to speak the word "God" ("The United States in 1787," 1787 The Grand Convention, New York W, W, Norton & Co., 1987, p. 36).”

Madison- The Father of the Constitution had this to say:

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

Benjamin Franklin- In between inventing everything, being funny, drinking constantly and seducing old fat women, Franklin got a chance to look into the matter and explained,:

". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a through Deist."

Yes, I see how the Christian Conservatives have been confused by the ambiguity here.

This is pretty good stuff too.

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here [England] and in New England."

Lastly his Christian friend Dr. Priestley lamented, “"It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers"

Thomas Paine- He is a lost cause even to the Evangelicals.  His The Age of Reason was a sort of handbook for revolutionary Deists.

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church. "

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. "

Now they are just piling on.

John Adams-

I am kind of tired of writing but suffice to say he wrote, "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" which would kinda bother me if I was a Pope or Reverend or something.

Near as I can tell Hamilton was a Christian which makes sense since he wanted a King, was obsessed with wealth wealthy and powerful people, openly professed disdain for the working class and outright despised the poor and was considered to be an insufferable, snobby $*%&# by everyone who knew him.  He was the first American conservative.

Hamilton’s desire for a King would lead one to believe he was a Christian, actually.  You see the primary support for the Feudal system and Monarchy was Christianity.  At the end of the day the King was the King because God said so.  (Its called Divine Right of Kings).  When people began applying reason and not religion to political theory it undermined this system and changed it.  Think about Christian terminology.  Its feudalism.  You have a “Lord” you owe allegiance to.  In fact, you better pledge you loyalty and accept your servitude not only to him, but to his son too.  In return he will protect you and, eventually, reward you.  This is Feudalism.  The King was just a step or two down the hierarchy from God and Jesus.  Once the religious justification was removed, the whole system collapsed.  Therefore the Founding Fathers didn’t create our Democratic system and, oh by the way, happened to be Deists, they were able to conceive of this new system only because they were Deists.  Christianity had built political submission right into its very structure.  The throwing off of the church was a necessary step to the throwing off of the government.

The “evidence” for these men’s Christianity has one or more of three major flaws.  It is written or said by someone else.  It is recorded by people who did not or barely know them (Washington’s grandson, for example), often by people living two generations later (during the Second Great Awakening when everyone really was Christian and retroactively decided everyone they liked had always been!).  Or it is simply hearsay.  For example, every single one of the men listed above was reported to accept Jesus on their deathbed.  These reports all come years later from someone’s best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend or the like.  Their, now go find yourself a right wing Christian Coalition conservative and have fun.