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To: pissant
Sounds like a Christian to me, and an intellectual one at that.

Do you even read what you post? This letter is a prime (and infamous) example of what Jefferson meant when he described himself as Christian yet still rejected the virgin birth, Jesus as the Son of God, etc.

For instance (from your post - bold added by myself):

I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. If I had time I would add to my little book the Greek, Latin and French texts, in columns side by side. And I wish I could subjoin a translation of Gosindi's Syntagma of the doctrines of Epicurus, which, notwithstanding the calumnies of the Stoics and caricatures of Cicero, is the most rational system remaining of the philosophy of the ancients, as frugal of vicious indulgence, and fruitful of virtue as the hyperbolical extravagances of his rival sects.

If you have actually read books about Jefferson, as well as his own writings, you'd know that his views on Jesus Christ are very well known.

113 posted on 11/29/2004 12:30:06 PM PST by gdani
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To: gdani

You are correct that Jefferson had little empathy for the teachings of the Churches, who often extracted things from the bible that were not there. Being opposed to such liberties with Christ's teachings does not make one a non-Christian. Admit it.


135 posted on 11/29/2004 12:58:35 PM PST by pissant
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