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Yeah, the Anti’s are decidely sour-pusses.

Anyway, here is some serious analysis. Did you know that Lincoln wrote and published a book whose thesis was that Jesus Christ was not divine? And yet, Mitt declare Jesus is divine but he can’t be president. Geez, talk about a double-standard!

With regard to Lincoln’s religious views, he was widely known for being an “infidel,” i.e., a non-believer. As a young man, Lincoln read the writings of Thomas Paine, a well-known critic of Christianity and the Bible. It was common knowledge among Lincoln’s friends and neighbors that he agreed with Paine. One of Lincoln’s close friends said he accepted the theory of evolution. John Stuart, one of Lincoln’s law partners, said Lincoln “went further against Christian belief and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard; he shocked me” (William Herndon with Jesse Weik, Life of Lincoln, New York: Fawcett Publications, 1961, reprint of 1888 edition, p. 349; Tripp, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, p. 184). Years before he entered the political arena, Lincoln wrote a manuscript that argued against Christ’s divinity and rejected the inspiration of the Bible. Perhaps it’s revealing that when Lincoln ran for president in 1860, twenty of the twenty-three ministers in his hometown opposed his candidacy.

Lincoln’s defenders point to his presidential speeches in which he mentioned God and expressed gratitude for God’s blessings. But Bill Clinton did the same thing. Clinton regularly attended church, talked about reading the Bible, mentioned God in many of his speeches, and signed the Defense of Marriage Act. Yet, would anyone argue that therefore Clinton was a Christian president? John F. Kennedy mentioned God in some of his speeches, was known to read the Bible on occasion, and carefully cultivated the image of a devoted family man. But would anyone seriously assert that Kennedy was a Christian president?

Lincoln’s public speeches that expressed belief in God were intended to satisfy religious Republicans and were usually written by his Secretary of State, William Seward. When Judge James M. Nelson asked Lincoln about his overtly religious (and now famous) Thanksgiving Message, Lincoln replied, “Oh, that is some of Seward’s nonsense, and it pleases the fools.” Judge Nelson later said the following about Lincoln’s religious views in a letter to the Louisville Times in 1887:

In religion, Mr. Lincoln was about of the same opinion as Bob Ingersoll [an agnostic and ardent critic of the Bible], and there is no account of his ever having changed. He went to church a few times with his family while he was President, but so far as I have been able to find out, he remained an unbeliever. Mr. Lincoln in his younger days wrote a book, in which he endeavored to prove the fallacy of the plan of salvation and the divinity of Christ. (In Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1995, reprint, p. 137)

Lincoln’s original drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address contained no references to God. The references to deity that now appear in those documents were inserted at the suggestion of others in order to make them more politically appealing. It should also be noted that Lincoln never so much as mentioned Jesus in any of his speeches or writings.

Lincoln’s defenders also note that Lincoln was known for reading the Bible. But Lincoln rejected the Bible’s divine inspiration and viewed it only as a book of practical advice. Lincoln read Aesop’s Fables just as much as he read the Bible. William Herndon, Lincoln’s long-time friend and one of his law partners, said Lincoln rejected the Bible as a revelation from God:

As to Mr. Lincoln’s religious views. . . . He was, in short, an infidel . . . a theist. He did not believe that Jesus was God, nor the Son of God. He was a fatalist and denied the freedom of the will. Mr. Lincoln told me a thousand times, that he did not believe the Bible was the revelation of God, as the Christian world contends. (William Herndon, Life of Lincoln, p. 28)

C. A. Tripp commented on Lincoln’s Bible reading as follows:

On the other hand, later as president he was known to read the Bible (rather more than before) and would not infrequently quote words and phrases from it. Both these images—his Bible reading and borrowings from it—caused a few casual observers to believe he had become a convert, or at least that he came to lean more than he ever had before toward conventional beliefs. Far from it. Consistently through life . . . Lincoln was greatly disinclined toward prayers or praying or preachers; least of all we he ever prone to believe in, or to petition help from, any personal God. (The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, p. 189)

Orville Browning, who socialized often with the Lincolns at the White House, said,

I have seen him reading the Bible but never knew of his engaging in any other act of devotion. He did not invoke a blessing at table, nor did he have family prayers. . . . (in Tripp, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, p. 185)

Browning noted that even when Lincoln’s favorite son Willie was dying a slow, painful death, and another son, Tad, was seriously ill, not once did he see Lincoln pray or express any hope for divine intervention. This is not surprising, given the fact that when asked specifically if he believed in an afterlife, Lincoln said, “when we die, that is the last of us” (in Tripp, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, p. 80).

In a letter responding to claims that Lincoln had converted to the Christian faith, Herndon said,

Not one of Lincoln’s old acquaintances in this city [Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Illinois] ever heard of his conversion to Christianity by Dr. Smith or anyone else. It was never suggested nor thought of here until after his death. . . . I never saw him read a second of time in Dr. Smith’s book on Infidelity. He threw at down upon our table—spit upon it as it were—and never opened it to my knowledge. (In Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 134)

Jesse Fell, an early Lincoln biographer who interviewed Lincoln at length, characterized Lincoln’s religious views in the following terms in 1870, five years after Lincoln’s death:

On the . . . character and office of the great Head of the Church, the atonement, the infallibility of the written revelation, the performance of miracles, the nature and design of present and future rewards (as they are popularly called), and many other subjects, he held opinions utterly at variance with what are usually taught in the Church. I should say that his expressed views on these and kindred topics were such as, in the estimation of most believers, would place him outside the Christian pale. (In Herndon, Life of Lincoln, p. 351)

Only toward the very end of his life may Lincoln have begun to take religion seriously, and even then there is doubt about the depth and genuineness of his alleged conversion. In 1892 the Chicago Herald summarized Lincoln’s religious beliefs as follows:

He was without faith in the Bible or its teachings. On this point the testimony is so overwhelming that there is no basis for doubt. In his early life Lincoln exhibited a powerful tendency to aggressive infidelity. But when he grew to be a politician he became secretive and non-committal in his religious belief. . . . It must be accepted as final by every reasonable mind that in religion Mr. Lincoln was a skeptic.

Lincoln’s own wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, told Herndon that “Mr. Lincoln had no faith and no hope in the usual acceptation of those words” (Herndon, Life of Lincoln, p. 352). She added that Lincoln “was never a technical Christian” (Herndon, Life of Lincoln, p. 352).

Your attempts to paint Linclon as an unbeliever is shameful. And not even a link.

First you people trash Reagan, saying he is no different than Romney, now you have moved on to Linclon.
Nice try, but not gonna fly!

Lincoln’s relationship with God is a subject highly debated by historians. Some say Lincoln was an unbeliever, or at least a skeptic, of Christianity. Many say he was a “deeply religious” man that daily sought God’s guidance.

Many books have been written on the subject. When one reads Lincoln’s presidential speeches, filled with his pleas to the American people to seek God’s aid and guidance, and demonstrative of his own dependence on God’s mercy, it is difficult to comprehend any scholar that would see Lincoln as anything but a man that sincerely depended on God.

The primary reason for this debate over whether or not Lincoln was a man of faith can be summed up in two words: William Herndon. Herndon was Lincoln’s young law partner while Lincoln lived in Springfield. He shared a law office with Lincoln for many years. To make a long story short, Herndon wrote a biography of Lincoln many years after Lincoln was assassinated, and in it he proclaimed Lincoln an “infidel.”

There is little doubt that Lincoln, as a young man, went through a period of doubt as to the validity of Christianity. But he changed. (Herndon could never understand this.) There is some debate as to when this change took place, and to what extent it went. His wife said that he “was never a technical Christian.” But what she meant about “technical” Christian is in doubt. In that day, “born again” was not a commonly used, or understood, phrase. It is likely she found his relationship with God lacking due to his reluctance to join any specific church.

It is true that Lincoln never did join a church, although he attended church services regularly while President. The reason he gave for never joining a church was that he could never be satisfied with all the dogmas and creeds that the denominational churches of his day required. On this subject Lincoln wrote:

“When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Savior’s condensed statement of the substance of both law and Gospel, ‘Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and thy neighbor as thyself’ that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.”

One of Lincoln’s earliest statements on the subject of his faith came in 1846:

“That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular....I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, or scoffer at, religion.” [July 31, 1846]

Mrs. Lincoln stated that after the demise of their son Willy in early 1862, her husband drew much closer to God. No doubt. Many of Lincoln’s presidential speeches are superb examples of a man seeking God. Below is one of Lincoln’s many proclamations, as president, for a national day of fasting and prayer. Few ministers of the gospel could have done better:

“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scripture, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch (sic) as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” [March 30, 1863]

The following is from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. This address is widely recognized as one of the world’s greatest speeches. Unlike modern day presidents, Lincoln did not have a “speech writer” to put together inspiring statements for him to read to the people. What he usually did with major documents, such as the inaugurals, was write out the complete text himself, and then submit it to a few trusted friends for comment. He rarely made anything other than minor changes as a result of these criticisms.

http://members.tripod.com/~greatamericanhistory/gr02004.htm