Posted on 02/11/2019 2:55:52 PM PST by jazusamo
A letter on God and the Constitution written by George Washington is up for sale after spending decades in a private collection.
The letter to Richard Peters, speaker of the Pennsylvania Constitution, is signed Sept. 7, 1788, and praises God for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
Written a week after Washington told Alexander Hamilton that he would likely accept calls to assume the presidency, the letter came at a time when the Constitution was under attack. Some states wanted to hold a second Convention that may have undermined the Constitution.
“It would seem from the public Gazettes that the Minority in your State are preparing for another attack of the – now – adopted Government; how formidable it may be; I know not,” Washington wrote. “But that Providence which has hitherto smiled on the honest endeavors of the well meaning part of the People of this Country will not, I trust, withdraw its support from them at this crisis.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“No, none were atheists”
Meaning that you aren’t knowledgeable on the subject.
Ethan Allen and Thomas Young were both prominent in the Revolution. Allen as the leader of the Green Mountain Boys, Young as a committeeman with the Sons Of Liberty and an organizer of the Boston Tea Party.
Both were proud unbelievers and they collaborated on the book “Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man” published by Allen after Young’s death.
The opening chapter makes clear their opinion that belief in God is just superstition.
http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/allen-reason.html#1.2
SECTION I - OF REFORMING MANKIND FROM SUPERSTITION AND ERROR, AND THE GOOD CONSEQUENCES OF IT
The desire of knowledge has engaged the attention of the wise and curious among mankind in all ages which has been productive of extending the arts and sciences far and wide in the several quarters of the globe, and excited the contemplative to explore nature’s laws in a gradual series of improvement, until philosophy, astronomy, geography, and history, with many other branches of science, have arrived to a great degree of perfection.
It is nevertheless to be regretted, that the bulk of mankind, even in those nations which are most celebrated for learning and wisdom, are still carried down the torrents of superstition, and entertain very unworthy apprehensions of the BEING, PERFECTIONS, CREATION) and PROVIDENCE Of GOD, and their duty to him...
It is nevertheless to be regretted, that the bulk of mankind, even in those nations which are most celebrated for learning and wisdom, are still carried down the torrents of superstition, and entertain very unworthy apprehensions of the BEING, PERFECTIONS, CREATION) and PROVIDENCE Of GOD, and their duty to him...
Which indicates that while learned, here you are not a careful or a contextual reader but one forcing a conclusions, perhaps from someone else. For your proof text not only does not proclaim absence of deity, but only censures "very unworthy apprehensions of the BEING," but you take it out of context, for what you left out was what he proceeds to says, which clearly and repeatedly affirms the existence of Deity (from your source, emp. mine):
which lays an indispensable obligation on the philosophic friend an nature, unanimously to exert themselves in every lawful, wise, and prudent method, to endeavor to reclaim mankind from their ignorance and delusion, by enlightening their minds in those great and sublime truths concerning God and his providence? and their obligations to moral rectitude, which in this world, and that which is to come , cannot fail greatly to affect their happiness and well being...
The globe with its productions, the planets in their motions, and the starry heavens in their magnitudes, surprise our senses and confound our reason, in their munificent lessons of instruction concerning God, by means whereof, we are apt to be more or less lost in our ideas of the object of divine adoration, though at the same time every one is truly sensible that their being and preservation is from God.
It seems that mankind in most ages and parts of the world have been fond of corporeal Deities with whom their outward senses might be gratified, or as fantastically diverted from the just apprehension of the true God, by a supposed supernatural intercourse with invisible and mere spiritual beings, to whom they ascribe divinity, so that through one means or other, the character of the true God has been much neglected, to the great detriment of truth, justice, and morality in the world that mankind can be uniform in their religious opinions, or worship God according to knowledge, except they can form a consistent arrangement of ideas of the Divine character.
Although we extend our ideas retrospectively ever so far upon the succession,...it is nevertheless a perpetual and conclusive evidence of a God. -- For a succession of causes considered collectively, can be nothing more than effects of the independent cause, and as much dependent on it as those dependent causes are upon one another; so that we may with certainty conclude that the system of nature, which we call by the name of natural causes, is as much dependent on a self- existent cause, as an individual of the species in the order of generation is dependent on its progenitors for existence...
By extending our ideas in a larger circle, we shall perceive our dependence on the earth and waters of the globe which we inhabit, and from which we are bountifully fed and gorgeously arrayed; and next extend our ideas to the sun, whose fiery mass darts its brilliant rays of light to our terraqueous ball with amazing velocity, and whose region of inexhaustible fire supplies it with fervent heat, which causes vegetation, and gilds the various seasons of the year with ten thousand charms: this is not the achievement of man, but the workmanship and providence of God ...
or will any one deny the reality of nutrition by food, because we do not understand the secret operation of the digesting powers of animal nature or the minute particulars of its cherishing influence? None will be so stupid as to do it. Equally absurd would it be for us to deny the providence of God, by "whom we live, move, and have oar being," because we cannot comprehend it.
Need I continue? Rather than their opinion being that all belief in God is just superstition, Ethan Allen is an apologist for the existence of God, even if as a form of deism, and opposed to to Christ being God and to organized religion.
Let me add a word from Paine, seeing as you seem to have other candidates (be wary of atheist sites which "convert" deists into atheists).
n his polemic against the institutions of religion, The Age of Reason, Paine said this early on:
"As several of my colleagues and others of my fellow-citizens of France have given me the example of making their voluntary and individual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do this with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man communicates with itself.
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life." Age of Reason, Part First, Section 1 (emp. mine)
“Need I continue?”
Please do. It’s entertaining to see someone trying to turn Ethan Allen and his mentor Thomas Young into “apologists for the existence of God”.
Unless your idea of “God” is nature and reason alone, a position which Allen spends his book defending amidst his attacks on Moses, revealed religion, eternal punishment for sin, God speaking creation into existence, and anything else that his unaided reason alone couldn’t come up with.
I suspect that Allen would be surprised that anyone could miss his point since it’s right there in his title: “Reason: The Only Oracle of Man”. “Only” excludes everything other than reason, such as biblical revelation. But then he does surround his religion of nature proclamations with flowery, biblical sounding subordinate clauses, which apparently serves to fool the easily misled.
As for Thomas Paine whom you brought up... he, like Allen and Young, was a big fan of the Goddess Reason... his blast against biblical religion being his ‘The Age of Reason’... and after his brief sojourn in the American colonies he lit out for the land of Reason, Revolutionary France. Where he invented his own religion, Theophilanthropism... kind of an oddball New Agey cult that Oprah Winfrey might find agreeable.
Meaning that Ethan Allen and his mentor Thomas Young are indeed “apologists for the existence of God,” contrary to the very thing that you asserted, which was "There were also few prominent atheists. Ethan Allen is one who comes to mind. And thus you choose to oppose," and thus opposed the statement, "“No, none were atheists.”
I suspect that Allen would be surprised that anyone could miss his point since it’s right there in his title: “Reason: The Only Oracle of Man”. “Only” excludes everything other than reason, such as biblical revelation.
Which is consistent with deism which is indeed a belief in the existence of a supreme being, albeit a watchmaker God who thus is not the oracle for man, but the source of the reason that is. In contrast to deism is atheism - a distinction you yourself had made but which you impose upon the likes of Allen - which is disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. Indeed, “Need I continue?”
And nor was i arguing that deism was Christian (it is not), which is a different argument. You simply cannot make deism to be Christian nor atheism to be deism no matter how much you may want to make the likes of Allen into atheist. It's that simple.
But I like some of your other posts that I have seen on this pro-God (not simply deist) forum. Grace and peace thru Jesus the Lord (http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/).
Unless your idea of “God” is nature and reason alone,
That is simply not what they are arguing, but that reason leads to the conclusion that there is a creator, to which nature testifies, but not being the creation, for the Creator is its cause. Since they believe that there is a Creator, but not as involved in actively guiding or interfering with man or some other aspects of the God of the Bible, thus they consider Biblical conceptions of him to be idolatry.
The laws of nature having subjected mankind to a state of absolute dependence on something out of it, and manifestly beyond themselves ...this sense of dependency, which results from experience and reasoning on the facts, which every day cannot fail to produce, has uniformly established the knowledge of our dependency to every individual of the species who are rational, which necessarily involves, or contains in it, the idea of a ruling power, or that there is a God, which ideas are synonymous.
The globe with its productions, the planets in their motions, and the starry heavens in their magnitudes, surprise our senses and confound our reason, in their munificent lessons of instruction concerning God, by means whereof, we are apt to be more or less lost in our ideas of the object of divine adoration, though at the same time every one is truly sensible that their being and preservation is from God.
the character of the true God has been much neglected, to the great detriment of truth, justice, and morality in the world that mankind can be uniform in their religious opinions, or worship God according to knowledge, except they can form a consistent arrangement of ideas of the Divine character.
From hence we are authorized from reason to conclude, that the vast system of causes and effects are thus necessarily connected , (speaking of the natural world only,) and the whole regularly and necessarily dependent on a self-existent cause: so that we are obliged to admit an independent cause ,
As far as we understand nature, we are become acquainted with the character of God, for the knowledge of nature is the revelation of God.
there could be no proportion, figure, or motion, without wisdom and power; wisdom to plan, and power to execute, and these are perfections, when applied to the works of nature, which signify the agency or superintendency of God...for motion implies a mover as much as creation does a creator.
And from hence arises our obligations to love and adore God, because he provides for, and is beneficent to us.
Equally absurd would it be for us to deny the providence of God, by "whom we live, move, and have oar being," because we cannot comprehend it.
as we learn from the works of nature an idea of the power and wisdom of God, so from our own rational nature we learn an idea of his moral perfections.
As creation was the result of eternal and infinite wisdom, justice, goodness, and truth, and effected by infinite power, it is like its great author, mysterious to us.
We are certain that God is a rational, wise, understanding Being, because he has in degree made us so, and his wisdom, power, and goodness is visible to us in his creation, and government of the world.
If creation is from God, it is not actually God. And thus Allen is a deist, not an atheist. I really should not have to show more.
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