"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this - that it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." - John Quincy Adams
*****************************
"The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. A student's perusal of the sacred volume will make him a better citizen, a better father, a better husband." - Thomas Jefferson
*****************************
"The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests." - Andrew Jackson
*****************************
"In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed." - Noah Webster
*****************************
(UC) "We have staked the future of American civilization upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." - James Madison
*****************************
(UC) "He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world." - Benjamin Franklin
*****************************
(UC) "It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ." - Patrick Henry
*****************************
"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles...to this we owe our free constitutions of government." - Noah Webster
*****************************
"Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?" - Thomas Jefferson
*****************************
"Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almight God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor." - George Washington
*****************************
"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited.... What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be." - John Adams
*****************************
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams
*****************************
Quotes From Our Founding Fathers on God and America
By Kooz - Posted on July 3rd, 2008
Tagged: Beet Juice Alert
• Religion
And yet nowhere in the actual founding instrument of this nation, the Constitution, is God even mentioned! You sound as if you'd like a theocracy in place here. Look at Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Moslem states that actually use a religious document as "their only law book" and you will find no utopia or paradise. You religious nuts are more dangerous to our secular institutions than terrorists are. Read the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Pete you may consider the Declaration of Independence some obscure scribblings that does not have a place in consideration when the subject of the Constitution is discussed, you're wrong and it is clearly true that a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
The Declaration of Independence states the reason for the rebellion and explains the just cause for doing so! Little things like our rights come from God, there's nothing like crossing pens with anti-Christian bigots.
You compare the Quran and sharia law with biblical law I doubt very much whether you have read either I suggest you check "Jihad Watch" and read Islam 101. You'll also be able to learn the difference between what Islam's sharia law believes vs. Christianity i.e. the Gospel.
Little things like our rights come from God
Actually it says, "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".
The phrase "their Creator" was purposely crafted in such a way that would apply to people of different religious (or non-religious) backgrounds. Not "from God" as you say.
.Who is the creator of which they speak?
From the totality of their writings it is clear who the founders considered to be the creator it certainly wasn't Gaia. I have a whole encyclopedia of quotations and letters from the founders in my desk and there is no doubt as to the creator that they spoke of was the God of Abraham.
You say our rights do not come from God then I ask you where do they come from, man? If that is your answer then you have no unalienable rights, we were originally a Christian nation and founded on those principles the liberal Ivy League colleges of today were originally Christian colleges devoted to Christ, to disregard the multitude of available information pointing to God as our Creator and hanging your hat on the supposedly anonymity of the word "creator" in my opinion is the epitome of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
There is no error, only the desire for one, but I thank you for your comment it gave me the opportunity to clarify.
John Jay
(America's first Supreme Court Chief Justice and Co-Author of the Federalist Papers)
October 12, 1816
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.
John Hancock
April 15, 1775
"In circumstances dark as these, it becomes us, as Men and Christians, to reflect that, whilst every prudent Measure should be taken to ward off the impending Judgements....All confidence must be withheld from the Means we use; and reposed only on that GOD who rules in the Armies of Heaven, and without whose Blessing the best human Counsels are but Foolishness--and all created Power Vanity;
Who is the creator of which they speak?
Whatever the individual believed. Because, above all, the founders believed in religious freedom. Jefferson said, "it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god." So are you to argue that Jefferson would have thought the person who believed in "no god" to not have the same rights as others?
there is no doubt as to the creator that they spoke of was the God of Abraham
Then why didn't they just say that? Nature created me. As such, it is my "creator". I have the same "unalienable rights" as someone who believes in twenty gods. Thomas Jefferson would agree.
You wrote that " The phrase "their Creator" was purposely crafted in such a way that would apply to people of different religious (or non-religious) backgrounds. Not "from God" as you say." However, Patrick Henry gives insight into the original intent of how Christianity functions in this regard. He said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." In short, Christianity is the umbrella that affords people of other faiths the feedom to worship here.
for the thoughts AP
Why then was there a concerted effort to stamp out out the indigenous faiths?
Why did the leaders send the indigenous children to church run schools and teach them to forget their faith and embrace the new faith?
AP, it doesn't surprise me that Patrick Henry said that. He and James Madison were often on opposing sides of the argument.
Another excellent answer Pete!
So, now citing quotes from founding fathers makes someone a religious nut? Yeah, great answers Pete…you just discredited the views are founding dads had regarding God and the greatness of this country. What a genius. I suppose had you called George Washington or Thomas Jefferson a religious nut for saying such things….they would have smote you.
By the way, separation of church and state isn’t in the Constitution. It was referred to by Thomas Jefferson in a personal letter to the Danberry Baptists.
How can you read all these quotes and then try to pretend that God didn’t have a role in their writing of the Constitution and our country’s laws?
You are obviously a product of a liberal education where they conveniently forget to teach what our founders said about such matters.
I. Thomas Jefferson:
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
- letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787
"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests." - to John Adams, 1803
"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind." - to Carey, 1816
"Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself." -in his private journal, Feb. 1800
"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it." - to Carey, 1816
"The priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, are as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore." - to Story, Aug. 4, 1820
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814
II. George Washington
Historian Barry Schwartz writes: "George Washington's practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian... He repeatedly declined the church's sacraments. Never did he take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary... Even on his deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and expressed no wish to be attended by His representative." [New York Press, 1987, pp. 174-175]
Paul F. Boller states in is anthology on Washington: "There is no mention of Jesus Christ anywhere in his extensive correspondence." [Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 14-15]
I won't go into the religious beliefs of the others you have quoted. You can find selective quotes of just about anything you want during any man's long lifetime.
from over 200 years ago.
Good thing they didn't allow their own personal beliefs to dilute the meaning of our Constitution.
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! Kooz, thanks . Our
nation has acknowledged God these 200 years. Now apparently we don't
need Him any more. Our founding dads wrote volumonously about Him. "An
Omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good.
He can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath
he can restrain. -- Let me invoke every individual, in whatever sphere
of like he may be placed, to feel a personal responsibility to God and
his country for keeping this day holy, and for contributing all in his
power to remove our actual and impending calamities."
James Buchanan.
Washington, Dec. 14, 1860.
When some other religion is in the news.
God is alive and well in each of us.
some people just do not realize that people from other cultures and ethnic backgrounds are comming to these United States daily, and not every one of them believe in Christiainity.
But because these diverse cultures and ethnical societies bring their own beliefs, the sanctity of our forefather's assumed belief in a Christian God is threatened and America as a culture is going to just roll over and die.
So whenever someone has a brainfart in a private conversation pertaining to anything other than a Christian -dominated Government, and a zealot gets wind of it, it's time to stock up on MRE's and head to Yellowstone.
As it is offering an opinion.
If we discuss the opinion and not the person, conversation takes place.
I have been amused for some time with the statement, Christian God.
How many Gods are there in a monotheistic faith?
So, you guys are all calling our founding fathers religious nuts and zealots. Very well, your arguement is not with me...but with those who founded our country. Can you honestly say that America is better since its removal of God from public life?
Pete, I would have been impressed had you known these quotes from personal study as I did...but, since you only googled them....then cut and paste them here (probably without reading all of them) I still have no respect for you.
our founding fathers didn't allow their personal beliefs to dilute the meaning behind the Constitution, whereas you'd rather manipulate information about some judge in England passing an opinion about Sharia Law then presume that the end is near because of it, especially seeing you didn't even have your facts straight.
Talk about credibility issues.
Can you honestly say that America is better since its removal of God from public life? It's the lack of respect and fear, neither have anything to do with believing in God. Altho most Christian beliefs resort to moral obligations of good versus evil, it's the lack of respect of the children towards their parents because the onus of discipling your children went from the parents to your government.
No one is calling them "religious nuts and zealots". I may call you a religious nut but not them, and I will match you quote for quote on anything you throw up here about their allegiance to Jesus Christ or any Christian creed.
It's pretty clear that most of those gentlemen were not as religious (in your understanding of that word) as you would have them. They were the heirs of the Enlightenment (look that word up) and were really very revolutionary in their thinking. They rejected, for the most part, conventional spiritualism and allegiance to any organized church or creed or God. They were rationalists. John Locke and Rousseau were some of their guiding lights. Look them up while you're at it.
I personally resent your comment that I have not known this stuff from "personal study". I have spent a lot of time in my life reading this shit. You are the one not deserving of respect. You're just plain ignorant about history, philosophy, and even theology, Kooz.
I remember when some posters bitched about too many threads about the smoking bans. Some suggested those threads be put into a group, so as not to be tedious for people to read if they weren't interested. I'd suggest the same about all these religion pushing threads - and yes, a few posters have begun to seem like zealots & fanatical in their quest to 'enlighten' disbelievers or doubters. I do believe there is a group designated for religious threads. Of course, people can choose to not read them, as was suggested about smoking ban threads. I've learned which posters here to ignore - I know what their thread will be about before I even read it, so I dont bother (there are three). A waste of my time & breath to discuss any of them, because if you disagree or debate something they say, they accuse you of being a Christian hater.
I remember when some posters bitched about too many threads about the smoking bans. Some suggested those threads be put into a group, so as not to be tedious for people to read if they weren't interested. I'd suggest the same about all these religion pushing threads
Then:
I do believe there is a group designated for religious threads.
Now why would you phrase it like that when you not only know full well that there is such a group, but you go out there yourself and post on their comments?
What's the point of taking your advice and taking their 'religious' threads and putting them into a separate group if the very people who suggest they do just that will still go out there and bother with it?
A waste of my time & breath to discuss any of them
Yet that still doesn't stop you from tracking down every last 'religious' posting and commenting on it -
You're talking the talk but not walking the walk.
I have read a LOT about Thomas Jefferson on many topics. His religious beliefs were quite controversial in his day. His political opponents accused Jefferson of being an atheist. Jefferson always denied this. What he was, was an agnostic.
Jefferson believed in a supreme being, but he didn't believe that any one religion had a monopoly on how to worship that supreme being. Jefferson believed that Jesus was a wonderful person, but that the religions dedicated to following him, and ALL organized religions for that matter, were severely flawed. Jefferson said, after praising Jesus for his staunch stance against violence and in favor of always forgiving sinners. "We should all be of one religion...doers of good and eschewers of bad".
Jefferson was the consistent conscience of the founding fathers when it came to religious tolerance. On his gravestone he ordered this message: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson...Author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Religious Freedom for the State of Virginia...and Father of the University of Virginia." No mention of being the nation's first Secretary of State...no mention of being the nation's second ever Vice President...no mention of being the nation's third ever President. Of the three things for which Thomas Jefferson wanted most to be remembered, one was writing a law to protect religious freedom.
Jefferson was centuries ahead in his thinking to that of many Americans today. He also said, "It matters not to me if my neighbor believes in no god, one god, or many gods. It neither picks my pocket nor steals my money." We are a nation founded, at least partially, to be a beacon of tolerance where all may practice their religion freely, or where some may choose to be agnostic or atheist without suffering discrimination. The danger is not in too little religion. The danger is in too little religious freedom, and too little religious tolerance!
The post below is entirely cut/pasted from the LA Times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs5-2008jul05,0,7730914.sto...
By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 5, 2008
Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper -- alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin.
In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his "wee little book" of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."
He called the book "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus.
"I have performed the operation for my own use," he continued, "by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter, which is evidently his and which is as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dunghill."
The little leather-bound tome, several facsimiles of which are kept at the Huntington Library in San Marino, continues to fascinate scholars exploring the powerful and varied relationships between the Founding Fathers and the most sacred book of the Western World.
The big question now, said Lori Anne Ferrell, a professor of early modern history and literature at Claremont Graduate University, is this:
"Can you imagine the reaction if word got out that a president of the United States cut out Bible passages with scissors, glued them onto paper and said, 'I only believe these parts?' "
"He was a product of his age," said Ferrell, whose upcoming book, "The Bible and the People," includes a chapter on the Jefferson Bible. "Yet, he is the least likely person I'd want to pray with. He was more skeptical about religion than the other Founding Fathers."
In Jefferson's version of the Gospels, for example, Jesus is still wrapped in swaddling clothes after his birth in Bethlehem. But there's no angel telling shepherds watching their flocks by night that a savior has been born. Jefferson retains Jesus' crucifixion but ends the text with his burial, not with the resurrection.
Stripping miracles from the story of Jesus was among the ambitious projects of a man with a famously restless mind. At 71, he read Plato's "Republic" in the original Greek and found it lackluster.
Ever the scientist, he inoculated his wife, children and many of his slaves against smallpox with fresh pus drawn from infected domestic farm animals, according to Robert C. Ritchie, W.M. Keck Foundation director of research at the Huntington Library.
"For a lot of people, taking scissors to the Bible would be such an act of desecration they wouldn't do it," Ritchie said. "Yet, it gives a reading into Jefferson's take on the Bible, which was not as divine word put into print, but as a book that can be cut up."
Jefferson, a tall vigorous man who preferred Thucydides and Cicero to the newspapers of his day, was not the only 18th century leader who questioned traditional Christian teachings.
Like many other upper-class, educated citizens of the new republic, including George Washington, Jefferson was a deist.
Deists differed from traditional Christians by rejecting miraculous occurrences and prophecies and embracing the notion of a well-ordered universe created by a God who withdrew into detached transcendence.
Critics of the time regarded deism as an ill-conceived attempt to reconcile religion with scientific discoveries. For rationalists in the Age of Enlightenment, deism was one of many efforts to liberate humankind from what the deists viewed as superstitious beliefs.
Jefferson was a particular fan of Joseph Priestley, a scientist, ordained minister and one of Jefferson's friends. Priestley -- who discovered oxygen and invented carbonated water and the rubber eraser -- published books that infamously cast a critical eye upon biblical miracles. Jefferson was particularly fond of Preistley's comparison of the lives and teachings of Socrates and Jesus.
Discussions and letters between Jefferson and another friend, Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, led Jefferson to compile his "wee little book." In a letter to Rush on April 21, 1803, Jefferson said his editing experiment aimed to see whether the ethical teachings of Jesus could be separated from elements he believed were attached to Christianity over the centuries.
"To the corruption of Christianity I am indeed opposed," he wrote to Rush, "but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself."
Therefore, Ritchie said, "for Jefferson, the Bible was a book that could be made and unmade."
The Jefferson Bible remained largely unknown beyond a close circle of relatives and friends until 1904, when its publication was ordered by Congress. About 9,000 copies were issued and distributed in the Senate and the House.
Today several editions of the Jefferson Bible are available through booksellers. A few online versions exist, including one on the website of the Jefferson Monticello, www.monticello.org/library/links/jefferson.html.
The Puritans were chased out of Europe because they were too conservative for the times and were hounded for the view they held.
The early leaders of the U.S. were Free Masons, Christians, or other thoughts.
Here's some other quotes from Jefferson;
"THOMAS JEFFERSON ON CHRISTIANITY & RELIGION"
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm
Which leads us right back around to other historical events.
The U.S. government and churches conspired to forcefully change the faith, the language, the culture of the indigenous people of this land and to this day, the U.S. government has not taken steps to mend its ways.
There is still religious discrimination. No, there are no laws, per se, there are hindrances in the form of rules and regulations surrounding sites considered to be sacred.
All the founding father quotes and arguments back and forth, and history still shows the pattern of deliberate actions taken by a government influence by one faith, to force others to conform.
it is part of the historical record and still haunts many today.
"Genevieve Williams lies in failing health in her daughter's small house on the Tulalip Reservation, haunted by powerful memories.
She sees herself as a little girl. Marching everywhere in a line. Scrubbing floors on her hands and knees. Being forced to stand silent for hours in a dark hall. Watching children get strapped for speaking their native language.
"I got to know that strap," she said. "Everybody knew what that strap was for, hanging inside the door."
It was especially bad for girls who wet the bed. Dresses pulled up and underwear pulled down, they were beaten. "We all had to line up and watch."
At age 85, Williams bears witness to a dark and unfinished chapter in American history: the Indian boarding school era."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004161238_boardingschoo...
These are examples of why church and state must be separate.
If you are having noise problem you can always invest in a sound proof project. Also, you can get a memory foam mattress and relax so much that you will probably never hear any disturbing sounds around you.