Bump
The founders believed in a creator. Those who abhor the studies into the supernatural (in favor of honoring their gods in politics) fail in Aristotle’s encouragement, who said it is the highest calling of the human mind.
I think studies into the supernatural have been elevated to such levels, because it gives us all a chance to argue, discuss and compare our lofty theories, without that pain in the butt need or ability to prove any of it.
Yes, but the issue is confused by the context of the times. That is, that European nations proclaimed that their nations and their kings were appointed by God, and as such, to disagree with the king was also heresy.
So, with all due respect to God, the founding fathers wanted no pretense that the US constitution was written in heaven. As Lincoln later said, that it was “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
This in no way disparages God, in fact just the opposite. It takes away the use of God’s name from the vanity of secular law. This is no small thing, as it is said that “those who enjoy sausage and the law should never see either being made.”
With this idea behind the constitution, the people can feel free to create, change or amend the US constitution and US laws, without offending heaven. If heaven is offended, then it is up to heaven to say so, not some smarmy Episcopalian leftist priest.
This is far more respectful of God than proclaiming that He directs your hand in creating zoning ordinances and mandating the minimum size of bikini swimsuits, and all who say otherwise are heathens.
>>The founders believed in a creator. Those who abhor the studies into the supernatural (in favor of honoring their gods in politics) fail in Aristotle’s encouragement, who said it is the highest calling of the human mind.
“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 the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.”
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820
“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.”
—Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
“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 upon fables and mythologies”
—Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Dr. Woods).
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.”
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814,
“The common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.”
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Major John Cartwright, June 5, 1824
“That form [of self-government] which we have substituted for that which bound men under the chains of monkish ignorance and superstition restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.”
—Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, 1826.