Thomas Jefferson hates wingers

[DalvaThree]

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

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But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

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What is it men cannot be made to believe!

-Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, April 22, 1786. (on the British regarding America, but quoted here for its universal appeal.)

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Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

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Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

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I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")

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I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789

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They believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.

-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

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Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

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The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

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Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

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In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

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If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

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You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819

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As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819

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Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820

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To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820

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Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.
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I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

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And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

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It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it , and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825

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All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (in the last letter he penned)

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[rqstnnlitnmnt]

1. what an amazing mind

that's my man!

[brainshrub]

2. We need to reclaim the Founding Fathers.

They were great men. Yes, many owned slaves... but they were the original American Liberals.

Conservatives back in 1776 were called "Monarchists."

[DalvaThree]

3. TJ owned slaves but he also knew slavery was wrong and actually

put forth some bills to limit it in the new territories...

[flyingfysh]

13. TJ couldn't free his slaves

He was in too much debt. The banks held mortgages on the slaves.

[anarchy1999]

4. Very nice, welcome to DU!

n/t

[htuttle]

5. Here's another

You hear a lot from wingers about how the system of common law upon which our legal system is based comes from Christianity.

Here's what Jefferson thought about that:

From Jefferson's letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, from Monticello, February 10, 1814.

"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law. . . This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it."

". . . if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

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

[sw04ca]

6. Good old Jefferson...

I like these quotes (because they agree with my prejudices of course! :D), but you know, I just can't stand Thomas Jefferon. His ideas on foreign policy and most especially economics really bothered me.

[DalvaThree]

7. He was against the Hamiltonian debt and the huge standing army

Adams and Hamilton created.

[sw04ca]

10. He was also against...

the Industrial Revolution.

[Microdot]

8. He was pretty cool I guess, but...

It kind of bothered me when I found out he sent the navy to attack Tripoli.

[htuttle]

11. Well, they were trying to charge rent for use of the Mediterranean Sea

And they seized and boarded ships that wouldn't pay. The way I see it, it was basically the old pirate game, with one side trying to catch the other, etc...

On the topic of this thread, it's worth looking at the peace treaty signed with the 'Barbary States' to settle those issues:

"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 Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan 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."

[newyawker99]

16. Hi Microdot!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[superconnected]

9. seen it before, usually it's just used for athiest fodder against

christians.

If you want to decide Christianity is the problem with the right wing you'll be missing their real motives which have nothing to do with being good christians and everything to do with looting america of it's money and it's children. The fundie politicians(and I'm beginning to believe some democratic ones) don't care about killing americas kids as long as they create wars so their base support get's it's defense contracts.

That has nothing to do with christianity. Christianity is being used as a tool and for real Christians it isn't working.

Let's just call the fundie gov what it really is, blood thirsty greedy monsters who don't care who get's killed as long as they line their pockets. Oh and as anti-christian as lucifer, while of course claiming to be Christian.

because anything else, is ignoring the reality and it aint Christianity that's bad and causing the problems here, it's far worse than that.

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. It's not CHRISTIANS that are the problem, though.

It's Christianity. Or, to be more precise, organised religion and the abuses thereof. Not to mention the authority given to a collection of writings of spurious and doubtful origin and veracity, which have been used for centuries to justify everything from slavery to genocide. Organised religion has nothing to do with god, nor with Jesus; it is a social control mechanism, nothing more, nothing less.

Addendum on edit: Jefferson himself had no problem with Jesus; he thought that the moral precepts of the Gospels were wonderful. His issues were with Saint Paul (and, really, what we have now is more "Paulism" than "Christianity") and with things like the virgin birth and the resurrection.

[superconnected]

14. actually quite a few organized religions are fine

Ie the UCC. Remember Christianity has many many different organizations off shooting from it.

but if you want to lump them all into the bad ones, which you're doing anyway, continue without me.

If these people actually practiced Christianity there would be no killing. Got that, though shalt not kill. Turn the other Cheek - christian, replaced eye for an eye- old testament pre christian.

Thou shalt not steal, lie, etc. also would make great improvements, if someone would follow it. Instead we get athiests chanting leviticus and deuteronomy which were pre Christian and what christ was to have set us free from. Funny thing is it's what the fundies chant to.

But the truth is, it aint Christianity. They're practicing anti-christian value and caling it christianity. And they've got people going along with them because they don't know what christianity is.

But hey, don't attack the right wing and their values, go after christians. How perfect for the right wing.

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. You seem to have not read what I said.

Or if you did read it, you failed to understand it. Notice I said "it's not Christians that are the problem".

And NO organisation of human beings is free of corruption, sadly. Human nature. "For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God"...you've heard that one before, right?

And, you know, you don't get to decide what Christianity is. One who believes in the divinity of Jesus, his sacrifice on behalf of mankind, resurecction and gift of salvation is a Christian, like it or not, which includes fundamentalists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, et cetera.

[superconnected]

18. yes I scanned your post and didn't read it right

[DalvaThree]

17. Yep you are exactly right

Jefferson put together his own version of the Bible - called 'The Jefferson's Bible' which you can buy on Amazon. He cut out all the supernatural stuff. He wanted just the philosophy of Jesus, whom he saw as a Deist figure.

Do you think TJ could even get elected president today?

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. Probably not...

but then Abraham Lincoln might not be able to either (he was also pretty much a Deist).

[DalvaThree]

20. kick