Posted on 08/25/2008 1:53:04 PM PDT by LS
All, my new book will be released on September 4. We are already getting heavy media, and if things hold, I will be on "Hannity's America" and "BOOK TV" soon. I'll keep everyone updated.
Among the lies are:
*Mikhail Gorbachev, not Ronald Reagan, ended the Cold War
*Harry Truman dropped the atomic bomb on Japan to impress the Soviets, not to accelerate the end of the war
*Thanksgiving derived from Indians saving the English from starvation
*The Great Depression was caused by business failures, and FDR got us out of the Depression
And many more. I looked at 15-20 college U.S. history textbooks for the material and prefaced every "lie" with several specific quotations from the textbooks that our kids are using.
Oh, and the most common image of the 20th century---aside from the a-bomb and FDR?
The KKK.
Yep. That's how these textbooks see 20th century America.
Awesome!
Hopefully you include, “The Founding Fathers were all deists, not Christians”?
Wonder how few students would be able to ID which member of Congress was a recruiter for the Klan and bonus points if they can ID his political party.
Looks like a stand up Home Run!
God bless you bro for getting the truth out to such a wide audience and taking on and working to break the strangle hold the radical left/marxist have on our education system.
BUMP!!!
Congratulations, Larry! God bless you.
Freeper Author Alert — Book Club Ping.
Good job Doc ! When can we purchase and where ??
I really appreciated your Patriot’s History (kept one, and gave one to my brother) and am looking forward to this one as well.
It would be just as much a lie to claim they were all Christian and inspired by Christianity as it would be to claim they were all Deists and inspired by Deism and the Natural rights of man.
Our founders were a mixed bunch, and the influence of Deism and the natural rights of man was of primary importance; as was the idea of Christianity and the equality of mankind that it entails.
GAL 3:28”There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Why would we want to deny that Franklin (for example) was a Deist according to his own autobiography? What could be gained from such a denial of the Historic record?
What about the separation of church and state lie?
Sounds interesting.
Sounds interesting.
You can talk Deism with respect to Jefferson and MAYBE Franklin. After that you run out of examples.
Recently on FR I started a discussion on how communism was eviscerated in an encylopedia for children published in 1968 — see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2062318/posts , post 16. I wonder if college textbooks today provide as much accurate information about communism.
Philada March 9. 1790He has long since (as he indicated he would) found the answer to the question regarding the divinity of Christ, Jesus.
Reverend and Dear Sir,
I received your kind Letter of Jany 28, and am glad you have at length received the Portraits of Govr Yale from his Family, and deposited it in the College Library. He was a great and good Man, and has the Merit of doing infinite Service to your Country by his Munificence to that Institution. The Honour you propose doing me by placing in the same Room with his, is much too great for my Deserts; but you always had a Partiality for me, and to that it must be ascribed. I am however too much obliged to Yale College, the first learned Society that took Notice of me, and adorned me with its Honours, to refuse a Request that comes from it thro' so esteemed a Friend. But I do not think any one of the Portraits you mention as in my Possession worthy of the Place and Company you propose to place it in. You have an excellent Artist lately arrived. If he will undertake to make one for you, I shall chearfully pay the Expence: But he must not long delay setting about it, or I may slip thro' his Fingers, for I am now in my 85th Year's and very infirm.
I send with this a very learned Work, (as it seems to me) on the antient Samaritan Coins, lately printed in Spain, and at least curious for the Beauty of the Impression. Please to accept it for your College Library. I have subscribed for the Encyclopedia now printing here, with the Intention of presenting it to the College; I shall probably depart before the Work is finished, but shall leave Directions for its Continuance to the End. With this you will receive some of the first Numbers.
You desire to know something of my Religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it: But I do not take your Curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few Words to gratify it. Here is my Creed: I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing Good to his other Children. That the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever Sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity: tho' it is a Question I do not dogmatise upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble. I see no harm however in its being believed, if that Belief has the good Consequence as probably it has, of making his Doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the Believers, in his Government of the World, with any particular Marks of his Displeasure.
I shall only add respecting myself, that having experienced the Goodness of that Being, in conducting me prosperously thro' a long Life, I have no doubt of its Continuance in the next, tho' without the smallest Conceit of meriting such Goodness. My Sentiments in this Head you will see in the Copy of an old Letter enclosed, which I wrote in answer to one from a zealous Religionist whom I had relieved in a paralitic Case by Electricity, and who being afraid I should grow proud upon it, sent me his serious, tho' rather impertinent, Cautions. I send you also the Copy of another Letter, which will shew something of my Disposition relating to Religion.
With great and sincere Esteem and Affection, I am, Dear Sir, Your obliged old Friend and most obedient humble Servant
B Franklin
For myself, I can testify to also having found that answer regarding His divinity...but in this case, well prior to my death.
And that is, as my personal witness and nothing more, that He lives. That of Him and through Him all men might be saved from evil, if they will come unto Him and take His yoke upon themselves and repent and accept Him. He has been resurrected these two thousand years and sits at the right hand of God and will return to this earth one day to judge the "quick, and the dead, and the sons of men," with love, justice, and mercy.
I look forward to that day, whether I see it in this life or the next.
Thomas Paine.
And there is nothing “maybe” about Franklin; he was a Deist (and said so himself). But indeed as you pointed out, only a few of the founders (although they were among the best of them) were actual Deists. However almost all the founders were influenced by the idea of the Natural rights of man, which grew from the Deist movement.
Franklin, maybe. Jefferson himself claimed to be Christian, he just believed the true Biblical doctrine had been twisted by the Church for reasons of politics and power.
Letter To Dr. Benjamin Rush (April 21, 1803) :
In some of the delightful conversations with you in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.
----
Letter to Charles Thomson (January 9, 1816) :
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.
So Franklin admits that he has doubts about the divinity of Jesus the Christ and you think this means he was a Christian and not a Deist? He also gave no indication that he thought of the Bible (New Testament at least) as anything more than the “best” moral guide.
In his autobiography Franklin said...
“My parents had early given me religious impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the Dissenting way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns several points as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of the Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of the sermons which had been preached at Boyle’s Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them. For the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to be much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”
But concluded that he thought Deism, even if true, was a philosophy of little practical use.
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