“No, none were atheists”
Meaning that you aren’t knowledgeable on the subject.
Ethan Allen and Thomas Young were both prominent in the Revolution. Allen as the leader of the Green Mountain Boys, Young as a committeeman with the Sons Of Liberty and an organizer of the Boston Tea Party.
Both were proud unbelievers and they collaborated on the book “Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man” published by Allen after Young’s death.
The opening chapter makes clear their opinion that belief in God is just superstition.
http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/allen-reason.html#1.2
SECTION I - OF REFORMING MANKIND FROM SUPERSTITION AND ERROR, AND THE GOOD CONSEQUENCES OF IT
The desire of knowledge has engaged the attention of the wise and curious among mankind in all ages which has been productive of extending the arts and sciences far and wide in the several quarters of the globe, and excited the contemplative to explore nature’s laws in a gradual series of improvement, until philosophy, astronomy, geography, and history, with many other branches of science, have arrived to a great degree of perfection.
It is nevertheless to be regretted, that the bulk of mankind, even in those nations which are most celebrated for learning and wisdom, are still carried down the torrents of superstition, and entertain very unworthy apprehensions of the BEING, PERFECTIONS, CREATION) and PROVIDENCE Of GOD, and their duty to him...
It is nevertheless to be regretted, that the bulk of mankind, even in those nations which are most celebrated for learning and wisdom, are still carried down the torrents of superstition, and entertain very unworthy apprehensions of the BEING, PERFECTIONS, CREATION) and PROVIDENCE Of GOD, and their duty to him...
Which indicates that while learned, here you are not a careful or a contextual reader but one forcing a conclusions, perhaps from someone else. For your proof text not only does not proclaim absence of deity, but only censures "very unworthy apprehensions of the BEING," but you take it out of context, for what you left out was what he proceeds to says, which clearly and repeatedly affirms the existence of Deity (from your source, emp. mine):
which lays an indispensable obligation on the philosophic friend an nature, unanimously to exert themselves in every lawful, wise, and prudent method, to endeavor to reclaim mankind from their ignorance and delusion, by enlightening their minds in those great and sublime truths concerning God and his providence? and their obligations to moral rectitude, which in this world, and that which is to come , cannot fail greatly to affect their happiness and well being...
The globe with its productions, the planets in their motions, and the starry heavens in their magnitudes, surprise our senses and confound our reason, in their munificent lessons of instruction concerning God, by means whereof, we are apt to be more or less lost in our ideas of the object of divine adoration, though at the same time every one is truly sensible that their being and preservation is from God.
It seems that mankind in most ages and parts of the world have been fond of corporeal Deities with whom their outward senses might be gratified, or as fantastically diverted from the just apprehension of the true God, by a supposed supernatural intercourse with invisible and mere spiritual beings, to whom they ascribe divinity, so that through one means or other, the character of the true God has been much neglected, to the great detriment of truth, justice, and morality in the world that mankind can be uniform in their religious opinions, or worship God according to knowledge, except they can form a consistent arrangement of ideas of the Divine character.
Although we extend our ideas retrospectively ever so far upon the succession,...it is nevertheless a perpetual and conclusive evidence of a God. -- For a succession of causes considered collectively, can be nothing more than effects of the independent cause, and as much dependent on it as those dependent causes are upon one another; so that we may with certainty conclude that the system of nature, which we call by the name of natural causes, is as much dependent on a self- existent cause, as an individual of the species in the order of generation is dependent on its progenitors for existence...
By extending our ideas in a larger circle, we shall perceive our dependence on the earth and waters of the globe which we inhabit, and from which we are bountifully fed and gorgeously arrayed; and next extend our ideas to the sun, whose fiery mass darts its brilliant rays of light to our terraqueous ball with amazing velocity, and whose region of inexhaustible fire supplies it with fervent heat, which causes vegetation, and gilds the various seasons of the year with ten thousand charms: this is not the achievement of man, but the workmanship and providence of God ...
or will any one deny the reality of nutrition by food, because we do not understand the secret operation of the digesting powers of animal nature or the minute particulars of its cherishing influence? None will be so stupid as to do it. Equally absurd would it be for us to deny the providence of God, by "whom we live, move, and have oar being," because we cannot comprehend it.
Need I continue? Rather than their opinion being that all belief in God is just superstition, Ethan Allen is an apologist for the existence of God, even if as a form of deism, and opposed to to Christ being God and to organized religion.
Let me add a word from Paine, seeing as you seem to have other candidates (be wary of atheist sites which "convert" deists into atheists).
n his polemic against the institutions of religion, The Age of Reason, Paine said this early on:
"As several of my colleagues and others of my fellow-citizens of France have given me the example of making their voluntary and individual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do this with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man communicates with itself.
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life." Age of Reason, Part First, Section 1 (emp. mine)