Posted on 12/25/2008 9:13:44 PM PST by restornu
In Joseph Smith's day some of the most prominent Americans were disgusted with the creeds of Christendom. Thomas Jefferson said:
I [Jefferson] am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the preachers . . of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said or did.
They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man of which Jesus, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. . . . It is the speculations of crazy theologians which have made a Babel out of religion (Saul K. Padover, Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, 1939, pp. 122-123).
Writing to S. Hales in 1818, Jefferson wrote: "The truth is that Calvinism has introduced into the Christian religion more new absurdities than its leaders had purged it of old ones" (Ibid., p. 219).
On Jefferson's monument in Washington, D.C., is inscribed: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." If his complete quotation were on the monument it would bring out the fact that Jefferson was speaking against the dergy of his day (Ibid., p. 119).
Benjamin Franklin, replying to a letter from Ezra Styles, president of Yale, said shortly before his death:
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left it to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes (Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin, 1941, p. 777).
The first great work expressing the deistic feeling in America was Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, considered to have generated the greatest stir of any book of its day. It made clear that Paine was not an atheist as some claimed, but a deist because of the tyranny and bigotry he found in the existing churches (Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, 1793, p. 287).
Speaking of the period in America between 1670 and 1830, renowned theologian Paul Tillich has said, "First among the educated classes, then increasingly in the mass of industrial workers, religion lost its 'immediacy,' and it ceased to offer an unquestioned sense of direction and relevance to human living" (Roland N. Stromberg, Religious Liberalism, 1954, p. 1).
Carlyle has said of the Colonial Period: "An age fallen languid and destitute of faith and terrified of skepticism" (Ibid., p. ix).
Of this time Carl L. Becker has said, "What we have to realize is that in those years God was on trial" (Ibid., p. 1).
On another occasion, Thomas Jefferson said:
The impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, have established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the earth (Peter H. Odegard, Religion and Politics, 1960, p. 110).
It is also true that in Colonial America only about 5 percent of the population belonged to any church and that those who did come to America for religious reasons did not come here initially to seek freedom of religion except for themselves. This is certainly an indictment against religion in Joseph Smith's day.
Peter Odegard also maintains this position:
Nowhere in the old world at the beginning of American colonization was there anything like religious toleration. . . . It is sad but not surprising to recall that even the religious dissenters who found refuge in America were, with notable exceptions, no more disposed toward toleration than the oppressors of the old world Obid., p. 9).
Historian William Warren Sweet says, "The rise of an intense anticlericalism was another cause of opposition to the churches." Further he relates: "The United States began as a free and independent nation with organized religion at a low ebb" (William Warren Sweet, Religion in the Development of American Culture, 1952, p. 92.).
Many of the sources you cite would have been just as disgusted with Joseph Smith’s creeds.
Joseph Smith did not have a creed!
Jefferson also thought the Bible just didn't measure up so he “edited” it into The Jefferson Bible, keeping only what he approved of, getting rid of miracle and such.
Jefferson harbored much more than just an antipathy toward the clergy.
LoL.
Beware of false prophets.
I think the attitude of Thomas Pain could also be simular.
But inspite of what the founders attitudes were towards the various religions of the day I believe our Constitution was Divinely Inspired!
I suppose then the amendments to it are also?
I submit to no religion.
Including yours.
Are you talking about Obama?
:)
Thanks for the post. Who would have thought that turning the other cheek would be required because of free, Americans who all believe they are “real” Christians?
Christians are not door-mats. Suggest you read C.S Lewis' quotations on war, etc., he does a good job of explaining why we have to fight and win at times.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
The majority of the population was calvinist at the time of the revolution — including the puritans, the presybeterians dutch reformed, german reformed, french Huguenot and Swedish churches.
CTR, indeed.
I believe I have asked you before, and do so now again, to remove me from your CTR ping list.
I cannot understand why you would post such a thread on Christmas, of all days.
Joseph Smith came from what was later known as the burnt over district.
They had religious awakenings in New York that were very widespread and very shallow. The churches created had all kinds of wierd heresies. They caught on quickly and just as quickly died away.
Hence the term burnt over district.
Some of the founding fathers may have been deists, but I doubt they were polytheists.
Jefferson was a religious man, but it was his own religion. I would hardly place a bunch of trust in what he thought. It would be like someone believing Rev Wright had some special insight into the Bible because he preached 30 years. He preached error, but preached none the less.
Here on FR, we seem to get entertainment from reading what Jefferson thought about religion, and then in the next breath, say he was a deist, or even atheist. He read the Bible, quoted Scriptures, and even had Scriptures carved on some of his landmarks and statues. That doesn't make him a Biblical scholar. He believed what Jefferson believed and left out the rest. He wasn't a pagan, but was hardly an authority on Spiritual things. I can't understand why people choose to quote him.
religious tolerance
The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others
Let me get this straight. You post an article which attempts to discredit the influence of Christianity in America's history and would propagate the idea that being free means more and more people naturally develop a distaste for Christianity -- and you do this in the name of religious tolerance?
"The practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others?"
That would let you fit right in, among our leftist universities and their leftist professors.
Merry Christmas. Do you like your pretzels soft or crispy?
The LDS have creeds but they use different terms for it which amount to the same thing. Ezra Taft Benson’s “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet” is an example of this.
that you’d post something so divisive, immediately after Christmas should cause all of us great pause for your motives
what exactly are your motives here?
no one said they were.
creeds are a human affirmation of Biblical principles.....eg the Trinitarian nature of God.
please repaste the creed below and detail what it is that is not scripturally supported
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I cannot understand why you would post such a thread on Christmas, of all days.
Please spell out your motives and purposes for posting this article, restornu. ~ unspun
religious tolerance
The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others
Sorry for puffing up your feathers!
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