You got your history wrong. Badly. I called you on it. Unless you’re trying to say that Jefferson was a proto-Soviet.
You can’t pick and choose the Jefferson you want to use. You have to use the whole Jefferson. (Just like you can’t cherry pick the Bible. You have to reconcile the whole thing.)
Speaking of cherry picking the Bible. Go google “Jefferson Bible”. Old TJ pulled out the parts of the Bible he thought were valuable and threw away most of the stuff we would identify as “religious”, i.e., supernatural.
If you really want to get your Church knickers in a knot, go read “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine. Both Jefferson and Paine were attacked as atheists during their lifetimes and afterwards. The two thinkers and writers most responsible for providing the impetus for freeing the Colonies from the Church of England and the State of England were thought to be atheists. Funny thing that.
I am not posessed of any “Church knickers” - haven’t breen inside one in over ten years. Your mental image of who you are speaking to, along with it’s inherent prejudice is showing.
The proposition that “You must use the whole Jefferson” is the most intellectually vapid and frankly laughable idea I’ve heard in a long time. Are we then to accept only the statements of those with whom we agree 100% of the time?
Jefferson was also a proponent of public education, which I think has shown itself to be a rather bad idea. It’s given you the crop of voters that put the Usurper in power.
Jefferson also advocated frequent revolution:
“”God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure.”
You think that’s a good idea too?
The fact is, that true intellectual (and social and political) growth come from honoring those time-tested principles which show themselves to play out well in actual use. Each generation should be growing from this improved perspective.
Our Founders said many things that were brilliant and many that were stupid. They had, however, the good sense to codify the best of their ideas into a Constitution that has not been improved on to this day. Thus we live by rule of law. (Or at least we used to, until about sixty years ago.)
You’re correcting my history? I asked (another poster) to show where *in the Constitution* the phrase “Separation of Church and State” was used. I wasn’t aware that the writings of Presidents were canonized into law. Thank God they’re not! (Think Jimmy Carter!)
Now, your comment on the Bible. Your statement may reflect the view of some denominations of Biblical Literalists, but it is hardly mainstream theology. While the whole of the Bible is written for your edification, only specific portions of it are addressed directly to you, as a modern man.
I am well aware of the controversy surrounding the “deism” of some of the Founders, as well as the influence of Freemasonry on their thinking. The truth is, only a nation inspired by natural law can recognize that its citizens are free to exercise their religious nature, which, in the case of the US has always been Christian, but not to the exclusion of others. (Except, of course, when the “others” have the total destruction of our way of life as their goal.)