5 Founding Fathers Whose Skepticism About Christianity Would Make Them Unelectable Today

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/153727/5_founding_fathers_whose_skepticism_about_christianity_would_make_them_unelectable_today/

To hear the Religious Right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unlike many of today’s candidates, the founders didn’t find it necessary to constantly wear religion on their sleeves. They considered faith a private affair. Contrast them to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (who says he wouldn’t vote for an atheist for president because non-believers lack the proper moral grounding to guide the American ship of state), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (who hosted a prayer rally and issued an infamous ad accusing President Barack Obama of waging a “war on religion”) and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (whose uber-Catholicism leads him to oppose not just abortion but birth control).

There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth. The question is, could any of them get elected today? The sad answer is probably not.

Here are five founding fathers whose views on religion would most likely doom them to defeat today:

[hobbit709]

1. Here's some more on our Founding Fathers views

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

[rurallib]

5. thanks much for this link

[RevStPatrick]

2. Thomas Paine is my favorite one of those guys...

"He called the god of the Old Testament 'wicked' and the entire Bible 'the pretended word of God.' (There go the Red States!)"

The Jefferson Bible was one of the first items I downloaded onto my new Kindle, which I received as an "End of the Year Holiday Season Consumer Orgy" gift.

[rurallib]

4. I share your admiration for Paine

[freshwest]

9. So do I. He's the one I respect the most.

[Irishonly]

16. I love Paine

I have had people tell me that they think Jefferson's Bible is a conspiracy because he was a good evangelical. I tell them to take it up with historians and the Library of Congress.

[Stuart G]

3. Great Post...thanks for putting this up...K and R...nt

[mistertrickster]

6. Good article. This is why I read DU, for finds like this.

Keep 'em coming . . .

ThumbsUp!

[JDPriestly]

7. A number of the Founding Fathers including Washington and Benjamin Franklin

were Masons.

http://watch.pair.com/mason.html


http://bessel.org/foundmas.htm

There is some disagreement about just who was or was not a Mason, but a number of them were. This was especially true of the military leaders in the Revolution.

Washington and Benjamin Franklin were, for example, Masons.

The Bible on which George Washington and a couple of other presidents swore their oaths of office was a Bible from the St. John's Masonic Lodge in New York.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Inaugural_Bible

[hootinholler]

12. Washington led a ceremonial conerstone laying for the Capitol building

There are engravings of him in Masonic dress leading the ceremony.

[RevStPatrick]

18. Years ago, I worked in the building in Manhattan...

...that hosts the Masonic Lodge there, on 23rd street.
It was a telemarketing job or whatever, but one day at lunch I snuck upstairs to the upper floors where the lodge is.

Let me tell you, it was pretty cool!
They had a couple of the famous paintings of Washington in his Masonic garb, including this one, if I'm not mistaken:



or maybe it was this one (it was a long time ago):



And I'm sure they were the originals, not copies.

On another day during my lunch break, I went to the lodge and talked to a man who was about 90 years old. I asked him "So you guys run the world, right?" He laughed and asked me what my interest in Masonry was, and I said that I wanted to know who runs the world. He was very nice, and we talked for about a half hour, and as I left I said "You know, you never once denied that you guys run the world!" And he just chuckled again.

Years later, I found myself in a conversation with a Fundy type, and it was one of those crazy kind of conversations that is so easy to have with Fundies, and at some point I said "You know, George Washington was a Freemason."
He said, "You're a liar! No way was our founding father a Freemason."
"Um, yes, I was in the Manhattan lodge and I saw the painting of Washington in his apron with my own two eyes."
He kept on insisting that I was wrong, and I finally just shrugged and said "whatever..."

I don't really remember what this has to do with anything...

[Art_from_Ark]

33. That eye on Washington's apron

looks very similar to the eye on the back of the dollar bill.

[RevStPatrick]

34. Our currency is loaded with Masonic symbols.

The Great Seal, the eagle, the pyramid, the number 13... all kinds of other stuff.

[Art_from_Ark]

35. I didn't know that 13 was a Masonic number

Officially, the number 13 (as symbolized by stars, etc.) on US coins and currency is supposed to represent the original 13 states.

The pyramid-and-eye design on the back of the dollar bill, which has been around since 1935, is both intriguing and a little creepy.

[freshwest]

8. They'd try to string Thomas Paine up today, despite quoting him.

[ellisonz]

28. +1000

[Alcibiades]

10. Here's my favorite book on this subject

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minority-Skeptical-Founding-Fathers/dp/1566636752

Much of this seems cribbed from this book, though, to be fair, this is all stuff folks who were paying attention already knew.

[xchrom]

11. oh i don't think any of this is a surprise to DUers -- but it is

fun to poke at the painful obviousness of it all.

[MisterP]

15. another great one is S.J. Barnett's "Idol Temples and Crafty Priests" on the roots of

a lot of the 18th-century Freethought movement

[Irishonly]

17. Thank you

I just ordered it.

[Alcibiades]

32. It's a good read

Acessible and readable. Brooke Allen does an excellent job of reclaiming the Founders as members of the Enlightenment, one of the most important historical tasks facing intellectually honest Americans.

If only we could now go out and inform folks about what "the Enlightement" actually was.

[Populist_Prole]

13. K&R to read later

[AnotherMcIntosh]

14. J C couldn't get elected today. Too many CINOs.

[Corruption Winz]

19. I'm a non-believer and it's sad what American politics have boiled down to...

Not worrying about the financial books or the law books, focused on a book of fairy tales that simply doesn't matter in any way.

Sad.

[Festivito]

20. WRONG. If they were Republicans, they could be elected.

It's not about the beliefs, it's about the ability to read a PR script -- provided one supports the 1%.

Reagan did not attend church, yet he was made into a Christian icon by the PR media and beat the ultra-religious Jimmy Carter.

Doom? Ha! The opposite of doom for some.

Christians are not stupid followers, ... as though we should get rid of some Americans to be picked by some small self-aggrandized group. They are fooled by the constant barrage of radio, TV and newspapers picking a choosing stories, false Christians touting the latest message of the highest bidder and not of the highest ideals.

That's the same as everyone else, well, everyone except those reading DU. Stupid or not, DU readers tend to know a little more truth, and fewer PR lines. But, still, we fall for stuff.

Sorry, for the rant.

[FedUp_Queer]

21. Fantastic

When I tell people this is not a "christian nation," they are shocked and don't believe me. When I tell them that the Treaty of Tripoli states this fact in no uncertain terms....

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

Or this...

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." (The inscription inside the Jefferson Memorial.) Jefferson wrote this in a letter to Benjamin Rush where he praises the lack of a state religion and, in fact, equates the clergy with purveyors of tyranny over the mind of man.

Another great book about our SECULAR Republic is: http://www.amazon.com/Godless-Constitution-Against-Religious-Correctness/dp/039331524X

DISCLAIMER: NOT AN ADVERTISEMENT. I HAVE NO FINANCIAL STAKE. JUST A REALLY GOOD BOOK I READ.

[a2liberal]

22. K&R (n/t)

[Jack Rabbit]

23. Recommended, but with a mild dissent

I am a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, and my personal views on God bear a strong resemblance to Deism.

For an explanation, let Dr. Michio Kaku be your guide.

Spinoza's God, to which Dr. Kaku refers, is co-extensive with the universe. This is properly called "pantheism."

This is presented to show that this strain of thought is alive and well today, not "a theological system of thought that has fallen out of favor."

While I do not believe Mr. Paine would be elected because he had a habit of stating his views with more than a dash of red pepper, the others I believe would at least stand a chance in spite of their skepticism toward Christianity. Granted, the religious right would be opposed.

[BlueJazz]

24. What a wonderful thread !

I savor each word.

[Gore1FL]

25. Strange that Franklin didnt make the top 5

or that the article didn't got the extra mile and make it 6.

[MannyGoldstein]

27. +1

Dr. Franklin believed that Jesus was not divine (but greatly admired his philosophy).

[HuckleB]

26. Thanks for sharing!

[ellisonz]

29. I've become a John Adams man over the last few years. n/t

[ScottLand]

30. Isn't Thomas Paine the guy Glenn Beck said he was just like?

I can't imagine what the connection could be? Did Paine have a tendency to puddle up?

[Larry Ogg]

31. Ironically, not only would the religious right reject the founding fathers and their beliefs...

They would also reject the one they claim to be followers of, i.e. Christ.

Anyone who has read the story will remember that religious leaders and followers were given a choice. They could spare the life and set free a serial killer psychopath who had no conscience at all, or they could spare the life and set free the pure symbol of conscience, i.e. the one they called Christ.

The moral of the story is that when given a choice, you can bet that the diminished and lacking conscience of right wingers will invariably choose to give evil a free rain, while opposing good deeds and work of conscience.

After much research, I have come to the conclusion that those who are Anti-conscience are, in religious terminology, the Antichrist.

[Tx4obama]

36. K&R. Was fixin' to post this and seen that it's already on DU.

Good article!