Jefferson continues to be a controversial character, years after his death.
I'm not sure the quotes back up the body of the essay, though I believe the general thrust to be correct.
quite the character he was...
Many people believe that our founding fathers were all fundamentalist Christians and actually, this is a popular misconception. David McCallough's book "The Founding Father's" discusses the religious beliefs of the founding fathers in detail. The Continental Congress was composed of several atheists and many agnostics.In fact Thomas Jefferson was obviously among the agnostics. The founding fathers did not hold the general populace in high regard. They felt that if the governmental writings did not evoke "God" the common folk would see no reason to pay them any mind, and there would be rioting in the streets. Jefferson's writings reveal that he believed the new republic to be very tenuous and felt that cloaking the documents in a mandate from the divine would make sure that the general population was more easily lead.
It is the religous organizations in this country have done a good job of convincing us that our forefathers were all fundamentalist Christians. The facts simply don't support this contention