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I was looking for something on Jefferson's materialism but I found this:

The Exaltation of a Reasonable Deity:
Thomas Jefferson’s Critique of Christianity

...Jefferson molded and absorbed these various ideologies (among others) and elevated God to the stature of Rational Creator. As many enlightened reformers of his age rejected God and Christianity alike, Jefferson found a way to justify belief. By simplifying religion and remaining aloof to exclusivistic tendencies, Jefferson produced a rational theology that, although was at times considered outlandish, was not unique or radical. It may not have exactly fit the bill of orthodox traditionalism, but Jefferson stood amongst powerful company in his perception of a reasonable Deity. For instance, several of the Founding Fathers held an accepted belief in general principles of religion. As Ben Franklin noted in a letter to Ezra Stiles in 1790:

Here is my creed. I believe in One God, the 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 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.¹²

[snip]
Jefferson wrote to John Adams concerning his natural perspective of God:

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a new view of the Universe, in its [sic] parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its [sic] composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it’s distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles … it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion … We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in it’s course and order.

The irony of Jefferson being used to imprecate design is palpable.

Cordially,

Nor was that my purpose, only to expose as a naked lie the very idea that someone who REWROTE the Bible was a Biblical literalist in regards to Genesis; i.e. a Creationist.

Franklin was a Deist, he believed that the universe was created; as do I. Neither of us could accurately be called a Creationist.

That is all.

I believe in everything Jefferson said in the following, also without appeal to Revelation (which neither I nor Jefferson believed in)...

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a new view of the Universe, in its [sic] parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its [sic] composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it’s distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles … it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion … We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in it’s course and order.

But you see as a Scientist, I do NOT mistake my 'FEELINGS' (said in a Dr. Savage'ian sneer)for empirical data. I share with Franklin and Jefferson the belief that the universe was created; but I don't think that this philosophical point can be sufficiently propped up with shoddy mathematics in order to somehow make it a science.

The irony of Jefferson being used to imprecate design is palpable.

Simply marvelous, Diamond. Thank you ever so much for tracking down the definitive views of TJ and Ben regarding Creator and creation....