To: betty boop
Deists are not Creationists.
cre·a·tion·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kr-sh-nzm)
n.
Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible.
And Thomas Jefferson was a materialist in the full meaning in which I use it; someone who eschews supernatural explanation and doesn't believe in supernatural accounts.
To disprove the generalization that 'the Founding Fathers were Creationists" I need only to show that one was not. No Creationist would say the following...
"But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from god. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c."
Thomas Jefferson
To: USConstitutionBuff; Diamond; Coyoteman; Alamo-Girl
cre·a·tion·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kr-sh-nzm)
n.
Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible.
And Thomas Jefferson was a materialist in the full meaning in which I use it; someone who eschews supernatural explanation and doesn't believe in supernatural accounts.
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I don't know what dictionary you're using, USCB. But my humble little Webster's gives the definition of creationism thusly:
creationism...n (1880): a doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing.
In other words, the natural world had a supernatural beginning. It seems obvious to me that TJ did not eschew a supernatural explanation for the beginning of the Universe. Like many rationalists, perhaps he was not entirely comfortable with that understanding. On the other hand, I never heard him postulate a purely natural or material alternative explanation.
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