Another email from a creationist. (im 90% sure it's a copy and paste)
Offline Thomas Jefferson, as we all know, was a skeptic, a man so hostile to Christianity that he scissored from his Bible all references to miracles. He was, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation tells us, "a Deist, opposed to orthodox Christianity and the supernatural."
Or was he? While Jefferson has been lionized by those who seek to drive religion from public life, the true Thomas Jefferson is anything but their friend. He was anything but irreligious, anything but an enemy to Christian faith. Our nation's third president was, in fact, a student of Scripture who attended church regularly, and was an active member of the Anglican Church, where he served on his local vestry. He was married in church, sent his children and a nephew to a Christian school, and gave his money to support many different congregations and Christian causes.
Moreover, his "Notes on Religion," nine documents Jefferson wrote in 1776, are "very orthodox statements about the inspiration of Scripture and Jesus as the Christ," according to Mark Beliles, a Providence Foundation scholar and author of an enlightening essay on Jefferson's religious life.
So what about the Jefferson Bible, that miracles-free version of the Scriptures? That, too, is a myth. It is not a Bible, but an abridgement of the Gospels created by Jefferson in 1804 for the benefit of the Indians. Jefferson's "Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted From the New Testament for the Use of the Indians" was a tool to evangelize and educate American Indians. There is no evidence that it was an expression of his skepticism.
Jefferson, who gave his money to assist missionary work among the Indians, believed his "abridgement of the New Testament for the use of the Indians" would help civilize and educate America's aboriginal inhabitants. Nor did Jefferson cut all miracles from his work, as Beliles points out. While the original manuscript no longer exists, the Table of Texts that survives includes several accounts of Christ's healings.
But didn't Jefferson believe in the complete separation of church and state? After all, Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Baptists in Danbury, Conn., in which he cited the First Amendment's creation of a "wall of separation" between church and state, is an ACLU proof-text for its claim that the First Amendment makes the public square a religion-free zone. But if the ACLU is right, why, just two days after he sent his letter to the Danbury Baptists did President Jefferson attend public worship services in the U.S. Capitol building, something he did throughout his two terms in office? And why did he authorize the use of the War Office and the Treasury building for church services in Washington, D.C.?
Jefferson's outlook on religion and government is more fully revealed in another 1802 letter in which he wrote that he did not want his administration to be a "government without religion," but one that would "strengthen … religious freedom."
Jefferson was a true friend of the Christian faith. But was he a true Christian? A nominal Christian – as demonstrated by his lifelong practice of attending worship services, reading the Bible, and following the moral principles of Christ – Jefferson was not, in my opinion, a genuine Christian. In 1813, after his public career was over, Jefferson rejected the deity of Christ. Like so many millions of church members today, he was outwardly religious, but never experienced the new birth that Jesus told Nicodemus was necessary to enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Nonetheless, Jefferson's presidential acts would, if done today, send the ACLU marching into court. He signed legislation that gave land to Indian missionaries, put chaplains on the government payroll, and provided for the punishment of irreverent soldiers. He also sent Congress an Indian treaty that set aside money for a priest's salary and for the construction of a church.
Most intriguing is the manner in which Jefferson dated an official document. Instead of "in the year of our Lord," Jefferson used the phrase "in the year of our Lord Christ." Christian historian David Barton has the proof – the original document signed by Jefferson on the "eighteenth day of October in the year of our Lord Christ, 1804."
The Supreme Court ruled in 1947 that Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state "must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." Judging from the record, it looks like the wall some say Tom built is, in fact, the wall Tom breached.
The real Thomas Jefferson, it turns out, is the ACLU's worst nightmare.
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I call bullshit. Definitely looks like a cuntpaste.
You're asking for a lot on faith here, mate. Specifically, that any of this is true. What you're forgetting, is that faith is in short supply around here. Nice try, though.
1. I think he should cite his sources. I am not apt to believe anything a theist says. (I have done my homework.)
2. Who cares what Thomas Jefferson thought?? He is just another caveman compared to the educated human of today.
i find his separation of church and state remarks funny. using a government building for a religious meeting is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from implementing religious laws into our society.
This is definitely plagiarism. More specifically, plagiarism of D. James Kennedy's WorldNetDaily Exclusive Commentary on June 19, 2002 titled "Thomas Jefferson: Deist or Christian?" That article is essentially full of it.
It begins by stating Jefferson was a student of scripture who attended church regularly and was an active member of the Anglican Church and served on his local vestry. These are half-truths. Jefferson did attend church regularly, if "church" is understood to include the churches of nearly all sects. He was primarily concerned with the ethical system of Jesus and probably went to all of the various churches to learn of the different interpretations of them. Jefferson seems to have thought that the rituals, superstition, etc. in Christianity to be without merit.
Jefferson was also a vestryman. That's absolutely true. The inference from that truth, however, isn't true. In this time period, the vestry was a county court, collected and imposed parish taxes, handled a welfare system, and so on. You had to be a vestryman to gain certain political powers in this time period. Bishop William Meade, on page 191 of volume 1 of "Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia," published in 1857, stated that "Even Mr. Jefferson and [George] Wythe, who did not conceal their disbelief in Christianity, took their parts in the duties of vestryman, the one at Williamsburg, the other at Albermarle; for they wished to be men of influence."
Bishop William Meade was absolutely correct in stating that about Jefferson. Jefferson did not conceal his disbelief at all. He loved the ethical teachings of Jesus but not the religion that surrounded those teachings. In fact, he consistently ridiculed the religion that surrounded Jesus' teachings. To demonstrate this, I shall quote from a few of his statements and tie them all together to show Jefferson's theological views. (Some quotes may not seem relevant, but they are, so don't skip them.)
In a letter to Richard Price, penned on January 8, 1789, he stated "I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism [note: used as a synonym for wickedness, not for the philosophical position of atheism] and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshiped by many who think themselves Christians."
In a letter to Samuel Kercheval, sometime in 1810, he stated: "... [A] short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ."
In a letter to John Adams on October 12, 1813, he wrote: "We must reduce our volume [The Jefferson Bible] to the simple evangelists, select even from the very words of Jesus, paring off the amphiboligisms [double-speak] into which they [Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John] have been led by forgetting often or not understanding what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."
In a letter to Thomas Law on June 13, 1814, he stated: "If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? [Note: used to refer to the philosophical position of atheism, not as a synonym for wickedness.] It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those who act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God."
In a letter to John Adams on July 5, 1814, about a month after the previous letter I quoted, he wrote that "The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticism of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence."
In a letter to Charles Thomson on January 9, 1816, he stated "[The Jefferson Bible] is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw."
In a letter to John Adams on August 15, 1820, he stated: "To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise ... without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence."
Now, allow me to tie all of these together.
Jefferson thought reason greater than revelation, superstition, and dogma. Jesus' ethical teachings were the greatest, and were put foward in such a way that everyone could understand, and that they were not founded on revelation, superstition, or dogma but on the power of reasoning. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, and Condorcet were, to him, atheists and also some of the most virtuous men on Earth and they, like Jesus, grounded their ethical systems on the power of reasoning, not on revelation, superstition, and dogma.
He thought the universe was created by a God comprised of matter and energy that granted everyone the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness according to the dictates of their own conscience rather than forcing them to pursue certain goals against the dictates of their own conscience. In other words, he believed in a god that was not Yahweh, the god of Christianity. He believed the existence of a god could be demonstrated through reason without reliance on revelation, superstition, and dogma, just as ethics could be.
He thought Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John had accidentally twisted the teachings of Jesus into something unrecognizable--hence the reason their views are stripped from The Jefferson Bible--and the church continued the mutilation of Jesus' teachings by adding more superstition and dogma to secure power for itself, which to Jefferson was an institutionalized form of Platonic demonism that fundamentally opposed Jesus' teachings.
It can be inferred, then, that when Jefferson voted for the freedom of religious clause in the first amendment, which he explained to the Danbury Baptists as erecting a wall of separation between Church and State, the two main reasons for why he voted to erect that wall: (1) to protect Americans from the pernicious effects of the Church, an institutionalized form of demonism that opposed Jesus' teachings (refer to the letter of 1789 I quoted, written two years before ratifying the amendment); and (2), to enforce what he perceived to be the God-given freedom for every individual to pursue life, liberty, and happiness according to the dictates of peoples' own consciences. When Jefferson's views are put forward so bluntly and honestly, there's absolutely no way to argue "freedom from religion" was not included in the first amendment's religion clause. "Freedom of religion" is found in one of the two reasons while "freedom from religion" is found in both of the reasons.
Jefferson did write that he didn't want a "government without religion." He was not using the word religion in the sense of institutionalized religion though. He was basically saying "I don't want the government to be comprised of only irreligious people, people of all religious persuasions should be allowed to participate in the running of the country." He also wanted a government that strengthened religious freedom--the ability for all citizens to follow their own consciences and reasoning on theological subjects. The only way to strengthen religious freedom was to deny the government itself the role of being a religious arbiter, thus preventing one church or another from using the power of government to coerce Americans to one religious ideology over another.
Jefferson most certainly was not a true friend of the Christian faith. He was a friend to Jesus' ethical system but not upon Christianity, that superstructure that scaffolded superstition and dogma over and above Jesus' ethical system. He wasn't a friend to any kind of "faith" at all. Faith was essentially rebranded dogma, from his perspective.
About the letter that states "In the year of our Lord Christ," D. James Kennedy said that "Jefferson used" it. That's completely false. Anyone who actually reads the letter will see that there are two handwritings. One handwriting style is elegant, small, uniformly sized, etc. and that handwriting is interspersed with another handwriting style that is sloppy, large, and not uniformly sized. Jefferson's handwriting was the sloppy handwriting. Anyone with common sense will see that Jefferson was merely using a template written by someone else. (Picture below) It doesn't follow that because Jefferson used a template written by a Christian that Jefferson himself was a Christian. To argue that Jefferson wrote "in the year of our Lord Christ" is to argue that Jefferson used two completely different handwritings alternating from one to the other on a bit-by-bit basis or to admit that you haven't actually looked at the letter yourself. You are either admitting your own stupidity or your own ignorance if you use this letter as proof of anything about Jefferson's views.
(Image Found On: http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9447.htm)
In conclusion, Thomas Jefferson was a Deist who thought Jesus was a wise and ethical person but utterly despised faith, superstition, dogma, revelation, and considered the church the Anti-Christ and an institutionalized form of Platonic demonism. The REAL Thomas Jefferson is D. James Kennedy's worst nightmare.
Stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes!
YES YES, "Thomas Jefferson was a Deist who thought Jesus was a wise and ethical person but utterly despised faith, superstition, dogma, revelation, and considered the church the Anti-Christ and an institutionalized form of Platonic demonism. The REAL Thomas Jefferson" ....
and most of the Founding Fathers were basicly "Atheists" and true hereos of humanity.
It just kills me that the general public doesn't know this, and the huge blessing of seperation of church and state. The poor people of the mideast never had such luck. Dissent is silenced. The basic TV and general education in America sucks and must be fixed.
Thomas Jefferson and his gang were not "Cavemen", and were certainly innately smarter than most people living today.
.... one of the names of my many rock bands was 'THOMAS JEFFERSON' !
It is the atheists who will bring peace to the world, if that's possible. I consider Jesus as an early pioneer of atheist thought, and look what the fundy's did with that ...... ask a wise buddhist.
Atheism Books.