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So when caught in a bare faced lie, you retreat and then attack a straw man argument?

I never denied that the majority of the Founding Fathers were Christians, or denied the influence of Calvin in specific or Christianity in general. That is a straw-man that you set up.

However I still take issue with your statement that the Founding Fathers were Creationists. Jefferson was a Materialist, and decried any hint of the supernatural as the product of a corrupt or ignorant mind. Deists believe the world was created (I am a Deist) but they are most certainly NOT Creationists by any stretch of the imagination. And being a Christian and being a Creationist is hardly synonymous; just as being an Atheist and subscribing to the theory of evolution through natural selection are not synonymous.

And I can stomach much; as evidenced by my tolerance for your incorrect generalizations, logical fallacies, and your straw man arguments.

Cordially,

So when caught in a bare faced lie, you retreat and then attack a straw man argument?

Ah, I love polemics! :^)

Seems to me you and Diamond are defining key terms differently. Actually, USCB, Diamond has long-standing usage and understandings to back him up. There is no way that TJ was a "materialist" in the sense that word has acquired in recent times. And neither was Locke -- as Diamond has already pointed out.

Christians and Deists both believe that God created the Universe. The essential difference between them is that Christians believe that God's creative activity continues in the Universe, and Deists do not. Both, however, are creationists, for both believe that God created the world. (That is the definition of a creationist.) TJ believed this; Franklin believed this. Indeed, these men took divine creation so for granted that they referred to the Creator as their justification for separation from the British Crown, as we see in the DoI. For the Creator created men as having unalienable rights, which the British Crown was violating. Both TJ and Ben apparently believed that human nature itself is a gift of God that not even a king has the right or power to tamper with, limit, or infringe.

I think perhaps you simply regard the word "creationist" as a term of opprobrium -- which may be the reason why you refuse to apply it to yourself, a self-proclaimed deist. Perhaps you picked up this attitude or habit from the general Kultursmog that we are all breathing in today.... Just remember that it was Marx who first made it fashionable to hold "creationists" in contempt. And his "scientific materialism" was something never encountered by any of the Founders.

So when caught in a bare faced lie, you retreat and then attack a straw man argument?

What bare-faced lie? That Christians in the 18th Century believed in Biblical Creation?

And being a Christian and being a Creationist is hardly synonymous;

At the time of the Founding it most certainly was. For example, Webster's 1824 Dictionary defines CREATURE, n.

1. That which is created; every being besides the Creator, or every thing not self-existent. The sun, moon and stars; the earth, animals, plants, light, darkness, air, water, &c., are the creatures of God.

A current definition of Creationism:

cre·a·tion·ism
Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible.

Now, if you have evidence that the vast majority of founders who were Christians did not believe exactly this, then please adduce it, and explain the difference between their literal belief in Biblical Creation and a literal belief in Biblical Creation of any modern Creationist. Otherwise, I would appreciate it if you would kindly refrain from accusing me of bald-faced lies and logical fallacies.

I think it is an anachronistic interpretation to import the modern meaning of the term materialism as it is today back to Jefferson and Locke. If that makes me a liar in your mind, so be it.

Cordially,