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To: betty boop; kosta50; metmom; Alamo-Girl; xzins; James C. Bennett; caww; boatbums
But I do get a bit hot about atheists! The "public atheists" seem devoted to undermining the very structure and fabric of American society.... In effect, I see them as a threat to national security....

Apparently you have zero understanding of the Principles and Foundations of our Country.

Our founding fathers were deists and a few Unitarians. They didn't believe in the Bible or the God of the Bible.

Adams, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

Jefferson, "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

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814

"Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself." -Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, Feb. 1800

Benjamin Franklin, ". . . 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 thorough Deist." .

"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. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both here (England) and in New England."

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." -in Poor Richard's Almanac

"I looked around for God's judgments, but saw no signs of them." .

"In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."

"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" (Priestley's Autobiography)

Thomas Paine, "The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.''

"What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith." .

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion."

Ethan Allen, Revolutionary War Hero "I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not." preface, Reason the Only Oracle of Man

Lincoln, His former law partner, William Herndon, said of him after his assassination: "[Mr. Lincoln] never mentioned the name of Jesus, except to scorn and detest the idea of a miraculous conception. He did write a little work on infidelity in 1835-6, and never recanted. He was an out-and-out infidel, and about that there is no mistake." He also said that Lincoln "assimilated into his own being" the heretical book Age of Reason by Thomas Paine.

Lincoln's first law partner, John T. Stuart, said of him: "He was an avowed and open infidel, and sometimes bordered on atheism. He went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I have ever heard."

Supreme Court Justice David Davis: "He [Lincoln] had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term-- he had faith in laws, principles, causes and effects."

I could go on for page after page but I hope that is enough to give you the flavor of their 'belief' betty boop.

This Country was founded on Atheist principles, diametrically opposed to religious principles.

2,997 posted on 06/12/2011 1:12:11 PM PDT by LeGrande ("life's tough; it's tougher if you're stupid." John Wayne)
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To: LeGrande; betty boop; metmom; Alamo-Girl; xzins; caww; boatbums
Apparently you have zero understanding of the Principles and Foundations of our Country.

In classical style - an atheist has to lie or cherry pick a quotation to make their point -

Adams, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

Full quote : Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company—I mean hell.

Note how the atheist must twist the quote to make it say what Adams didn't mean. Adams clearly appreciated religion, even if he often questioned its promotion (he didn't like the zeal of minister Bryant or Cleverly, his former teacher.

As for the rest of the 'quotes', further research would uncover similar misquotations, twisting and fabrications of context to support their 'claim' while ignoring the overwhelming number of other quotations from these same people that show that these people certainly were not atheists, nor that this country was founded on Atheist principles as lg now tries present as so-called truth.

Poorly done lg

2,998 posted on 06/12/2011 1:33:31 PM PDT by Godzilla (3-7-77)
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To: LeGrande; Alamo-Girl; kosta50; metmom; xzins; James C. Bennett; caww; boatbums
Apparently you have zero understanding of the Principles and Foundations of our Country.

Oh really?

How do you know this: "Our founding fathers were deists and a few Unitarians. They didn't believe in the Bible or the God of the Bible"?

This is definitely news to me. Why should they not believe in the God of the Bible, since the God of the Bible is the self-same Creator acknowledged in the DoI as the source of man's unalienable rights?

You can cherry pick the literature to your heart's content, tearing items out of context as it suits you.

But what you cannot do is rewrite American history to fit your reimagined, "culturally-updated" version of it. America is what it is, unique among nations. And what it is, is a Christian nation philosophically, i.e., without taking the doctrines of sectarian religious belief into effect.

The Framers to a man — whatever their sectarian differences — believed that we are a nation under God.

If you don't understand that, you do not understand America.

JMHO, FWIW

3,001 posted on 06/12/2011 1:56:38 PM PDT by betty boop (We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through, the eye. — William Blake)
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