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| Topic: When Will It Be Time to Cut Military Spending? | |
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Thomas Paine
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. |
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It's been time to cut the military for 100+ years now.
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Rome was an Empire. Ruled by Ceasar. Render into Ceasar, that which is Ceasar's. We are a REPUBLIC. With a Constitution Under God. and a resolute people. when we 'undivided' set our minds to something. God recriprocates. One Nation Under GOD. Actually, the US is more of an empire than a republic. (10,000+ military bases in other countries, occupying forces all around the world, dollar hegemony, etc) |
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Thomas Paine Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Interesting, You never acknowledge a point that proves your claims false, instead run to a different example. Love how you generalize a whole group then take a specific example to prove it. When that specific example is proven incorrect you run to the next. I assume you still believe Thomas Jefferson hated Christians and most founding fathers were anti-christian. Didn't you learn in school that you cannot impart onto a whole group based on the observations of one? You would need to substantially prove over 50% of the founding fathers were anti-christian to support your claim. Instead you took the one most people revere for his faith and tried to tear him down. I guess you thought that if you could disprove that one that it would automatically show the rest were not either. Would it be fair to you to characterize you based on my observations of Artlo? Of course not... You need to show specifically how over 50% of the founding fathers were against Christianity to support your claim. I have no idea how this even became an argument. It was an accepted fact up to about the mid 90s that our founding fathers built this country on Christian principles. No one ever thought they needed to prove they were Christian (there were a handful that were not) |
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Rome was an Empire. Ruled by Ceasar. Render into Ceasar, that which is Ceasar's. We are a REPUBLIC. With a Constitution Under God. and a resolute people. when we 'undivided' set our minds to something. God recriprocates. One Nation Under GOD. Actually, the US is more of an empire than a republic. (10,000+ military bases in other countries, occupying forces all around the world, dollar hegemony, etc) That would be the Government. Actual Governance in this Republic rests with the people... Most of which appear to have been sleeping through the elections for the last 40 years. |
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Thomas Paine Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Interesting, You never acknowledge a point that proves your claims false, instead run to a different example. Love how you generalize a whole group then take a specific example to prove it. When that specific example is proven incorrect you run to the next. I assume you still believe Thomas Jefferson hated Christians and most founding fathers were anti-christian. Didn't you learn in school that you cannot impart onto a whole group based on the observations of one? You would need to substantially prove over 50% of the founding fathers were anti-christian to support your claim. Instead you took the one most people revere for his faith and tried to tear him down. I guess you thought that if you could disprove that one that it would automatically show the rest were not either. Would it be fair to you to characterize you based on my observations of Artlo? Of course not... You need to show specifically how over 50% of the founding fathers were against Christianity to support your claim. I have no idea how this even became an argument. It was an accepted fact up to about the mid 90s that our founding fathers built this country on Christian principles. No one ever thought they needed to prove they were Christian (there were a handful that were not) Even his actions if he were a Christion he would have tried to set up a theocracy. They did their best to disempower religion despite the best efforts of the history revisionists most of the founding fathers were against religion. |
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Thomas Paine Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Interesting, You never acknowledge a point that proves your claims false, instead run to a different example. Love how you generalize a whole group then take a specific example to prove it. When that specific example is proven incorrect you run to the next. I assume you still believe Thomas Jefferson hated Christians and most founding fathers were anti-christian. Didn't you learn in school that you cannot impart onto a whole group based on the observations of one? You would need to substantially prove over 50% of the founding fathers were anti-christian to support your claim. Instead you took the one most people revere for his faith and tried to tear him down. I guess you thought that if you could disprove that one that it would automatically show the rest were not either. Would it be fair to you to characterize you based on my observations of Artlo? Of course not... You need to show specifically how over 50% of the founding fathers were against Christianity to support your claim. I have no idea how this even became an argument. It was an accepted fact up to about the mid 90s that our founding fathers built this country on Christian principles. No one ever thought they needed to prove they were Christian (there were a handful that were not) Even his actions if he were a Christion he would have tried to set up a theocracy. They did their best to disempower religion despite the best efforts of the history revisionists most of the founding fathers were against religion. Yes you have told me. But everything I look at, with the exception of the website you used, shows that he was a Christian. And the one that you are saying is an aberration was a direct proof that your statement was flat wrong. You quoted the same letter claiming that showed he was against Christianity. This is just like everything else you have shown me. I have proven your statements incorrect but you insist on believing them anyway. Now you are claiming the vast majority of his works are. Ok, prove it. |
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Thomas Paine Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Interesting, You never acknowledge a point that proves your claims false, instead run to a different example. Love how you generalize a whole group then take a specific example to prove it. When that specific example is proven incorrect you run to the next. I assume you still believe Thomas Jefferson hated Christians and most founding fathers were anti-christian. Didn't you learn in school that you cannot impart onto a whole group based on the observations of one? You would need to substantially prove over 50% of the founding fathers were anti-christian to support your claim. Instead you took the one most people revere for his faith and tried to tear him down. I guess you thought that if you could disprove that one that it would automatically show the rest were not either. Would it be fair to you to characterize you based on my observations of Artlo? Of course not... You need to show specifically how over 50% of the founding fathers were against Christianity to support your claim. I have no idea how this even became an argument. It was an accepted fact up to about the mid 90s that our founding fathers built this country on Christian principles. No one ever thought they needed to prove they were Christian (there were a handful that were not) Even his actions if he were a Christion he would have tried to set up a theocracy. They did their best to disempower religion despite the best efforts of the history revisionists most of the founding fathers were against religion. Yes you have told me. But everything I look at, with the exception of the website you used, shows that he was a Christian. And the one that you are saying is an aberration was a direct proof that your statement was flat wrong. You quoted the same letter claiming that showed he was against Christianity. This is just like everything else you have shown me. I have proven your statements incorrect but you insist on believing them anyway. Now you are claiming the vast majority of his works are. Ok, prove it. He may have been tactfull at one time or another to make a crazy uncle in the attic happy but over all the founding fathers were men of reasone many of them deists or free massons or both. They had the power to make this country any way they wished and if they were christians washington would be like Rome and woman wouldnt vote and we never would have sent a man to the moon. darwin would have been burned at the stake etc etc. I am so glad the founding fathers saw fit to sperate church and state. Its a pitty the religouse right would change all that if they could. Shame on them, its so un american. |
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Thomas Paine Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Interesting, You never acknowledge a point that proves your claims false, instead run to a different example. Love how you generalize a whole group then take a specific example to prove it. When that specific example is proven incorrect you run to the next. I assume you still believe Thomas Jefferson hated Christians and most founding fathers were anti-christian. Didn't you learn in school that you cannot impart onto a whole group based on the observations of one? You would need to substantially prove over 50% of the founding fathers were anti-christian to support your claim. Instead you took the one most people revere for his faith and tried to tear him down. I guess you thought that if you could disprove that one that it would automatically show the rest were not either. Would it be fair to you to characterize you based on my observations of Artlo? Of course not... You need to show specifically how over 50% of the founding fathers were against Christianity to support your claim. I have no idea how this even became an argument. It was an accepted fact up to about the mid 90s that our founding fathers built this country on Christian principles. No one ever thought they needed to prove they were Christian (there were a handful that were not) Even his actions if he were a Christion he would have tried to set up a theocracy. They did their best to disempower religion despite the best efforts of the history revisionists most of the founding fathers were against religion. Yes you have told me. But everything I look at, with the exception of the website you used, shows that he was a Christian. And the one that you are saying is an aberration was a direct proof that your statement was flat wrong. You quoted the same letter claiming that showed he was against Christianity. This is just like everything else you have shown me. I have proven your statements incorrect but you insist on believing them anyway. Now you are claiming the vast majority of his works are. Ok, prove it. He may have been tactfull at one time or another to make a crazy uncle in the attic happy but over all the founding fathers were men of reasone many of them deists or free massons or both. They had the power to make this country any way they wished and if they were christians washington would be like Rome and woman wouldnt vote and we never would have sent a man to the moon. darwin would have been burned at the stake etc etc. I am so glad the founding fathers saw fit to sperate church and state. Its a pitty the religouse right would change all that if they could. Shame on them, its so un american. Who said anything about wanting to change it. That is yours assumption of what they want. But you still haven't proven it. You are still giving a blanket statement that I can easily refute. Most of his writings that I have seen have been very much in favor of Jesus and Christianity. Like I said, with the exception of that one website, everything I have seen he is usually saying how great of a character Jesus had and it would be best to emulate him. So, apparently you read those statements and come away with a different conclusion. It wasn't only one letter I read either... Personally, I think your beliefs about what he wrote is an attack on his character. You need to prove that he genuinely was against Jesus and Christians by using his documents. Not someone else interpretation of them. Thought I already proved to you a couple times that is a very bad idea. Go to the source. Because, what I have read that he has written, is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. |
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Thomas Paine Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Interesting, You never acknowledge a point that proves your claims false, instead run to a different example. Love how you generalize a whole group then take a specific example to prove it. When that specific example is proven incorrect you run to the next. I assume you still believe Thomas Jefferson hated Christians and most founding fathers were anti-christian. Didn't you learn in school that you cannot impart onto a whole group based on the observations of one? You would need to substantially prove over 50% of the founding fathers were anti-christian to support your claim. Instead you took the one most people revere for his faith and tried to tear him down. I guess you thought that if you could disprove that one that it would automatically show the rest were not either. Would it be fair to you to characterize you based on my observations of Artlo? Of course not... You need to show specifically how over 50% of the founding fathers were against Christianity to support your claim. I have no idea how this even became an argument. It was an accepted fact up to about the mid 90s that our founding fathers built this country on Christian principles. No one ever thought they needed to prove they were Christian (there were a handful that were not) Even his actions if he were a Christion he would have tried to set up a theocracy. They did their best to disempower religion despite the best efforts of the history revisionists most of the founding fathers were against religion. Yes you have told me. But everything I look at, with the exception of the website you used, shows that he was a Christian. And the one that you are saying is an aberration was a direct proof that your statement was flat wrong. You quoted the same letter claiming that showed he was against Christianity. This is just like everything else you have shown me. I have proven your statements incorrect but you insist on believing them anyway. Now you are claiming the vast majority of his works are. Ok, prove it. He may have been tactfull at one time or another to make a crazy uncle in the attic happy but over all the founding fathers were men of reasone many of them deists or free massons or both. They had the power to make this country any way they wished and if they were christians washington would be like Rome and woman wouldnt vote and we never would have sent a man to the moon. darwin would have been burned at the stake etc etc. I am so glad the founding fathers saw fit to sperate church and state. Its a pitty the religouse right would change all that if they could. Shame on them, its so un american. Who said anything about wanting to change it. That is yours assumption of what they want. But you still haven't proven it. You are still giving a blanket statement that I can easily refute. Most of his writings that I have seen have been very much in favor of Jesus and Christianity. Like I said, with the exception of that one website, everything I have seen he is usually saying how great of a character Jesus had and it would be best to emulate him. So, apparently you read those statements and come away with a different conclusion. It wasn't only one letter I read either... Personally, I think your beliefs about what he wrote is an attack on his character. You need to prove that he genuinely was against Jesus and Christians by using his documents. Not someone else interpretation of them. Thought I already proved to you a couple times that is a very bad idea. Go to the source. Because, what I have read that he has written, is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. In 1760, at age 16, Jefferson entered The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, and for two years he studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy under Professor William Small, who introduced the enthusiastic Jefferson to the writings of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton.[12] Jefferson biographers state he was influenced by deist philosophy while at William & Mary, particularly by Bolingbroke.[13][14] Terminology Jefferson used in the United States Declaration of Independence, such as "Nature's God", is typical Deist terminology, but was also often used by non-Deist thinkers like Francis Hutcheson (Presbyterian) and Cicero (Roman), both of whom influenced Jefferson's thinking.[15][16] St. Thomas Aquinas (Catholic) also used similar terminology when referencing natural law in his writings as well.[citation needed] Important tenets of most deists were the denial of the Trinity and of miracles. Though he had a lifelong esteem for Jesus' moral teachings, Jefferson did not believe in miracles, nor in the divinity of Jesus. In a letter to deRieux in 1788, he declined a request to act as a godfather saying he was unable to accept the doctrine of the Trinity "from a very early part of my life".[17][ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_religion |
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Thomas Paine Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Interesting, You never acknowledge a point that proves your claims false, instead run to a different example. Love how you generalize a whole group then take a specific example to prove it. When that specific example is proven incorrect you run to the next. I assume you still believe Thomas Jefferson hated Christians and most founding fathers were anti-christian. Didn't you learn in school that you cannot impart onto a whole group based on the observations of one? You would need to substantially prove over 50% of the founding fathers were anti-christian to support your claim. Instead you took the one most people revere for his faith and tried to tear him down. I guess you thought that if you could disprove that one that it would automatically show the rest were not either. Would it be fair to you to characterize you based on my observations of Artlo? Of course not... You need to show specifically how over 50% of the founding fathers were against Christianity to support your claim. I have no idea how this even became an argument. It was an accepted fact up to about the mid 90s that our founding fathers built this country on Christian principles. No one ever thought they needed to prove they were Christian (there were a handful that were not) Even his actions if he were a Christion he would have tried to set up a theocracy. They did their best to disempower religion despite the best efforts of the history revisionists most of the founding fathers were against religion. Yes you have told me. But everything I look at, with the exception of the website you used, shows that he was a Christian. And the one that you are saying is an aberration was a direct proof that your statement was flat wrong. You quoted the same letter claiming that showed he was against Christianity. This is just like everything else you have shown me. I have proven your statements incorrect but you insist on believing them anyway. Now you are claiming the vast majority of his works are. Ok, prove it. He may have been tactfull at one time or another to make a crazy uncle in the attic happy but over all the founding fathers were men of reasone many of them deists or free massons or both. They had the power to make this country any way they wished and if they were christians washington would be like Rome and woman wouldnt vote and we never would have sent a man to the moon. darwin would have been burned at the stake etc etc. I am so glad the founding fathers saw fit to sperate church and state. Its a pitty the religouse right would change all that if they could. Shame on them, its so un american. Who said anything about wanting to change it. That is yours assumption of what they want. But you still haven't proven it. You are still giving a blanket statement that I can easily refute. Most of his writings that I have seen have been very much in favor of Jesus and Christianity. Like I said, with the exception of that one website, everything I have seen he is usually saying how great of a character Jesus had and it would be best to emulate him. So, apparently you read those statements and come away with a different conclusion. It wasn't only one letter I read either... Personally, I think your beliefs about what he wrote is an attack on his character. You need to prove that he genuinely was against Jesus and Christians by using his documents. Not someone else interpretation of them. Thought I already proved to you a couple times that is a very bad idea. Go to the source. Because, what I have read that he has written, is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. In 1760, at age 16, Jefferson entered The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, and for two years he studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy under Professor William Small, who introduced the enthusiastic Jefferson to the writings of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton.[12] Jefferson biographers state he was influenced by deist philosophy while at William & Mary, particularly by Bolingbroke.[13][14] Terminology Jefferson used in the United States Declaration of Independence, such as "Nature's God", is typical Deist terminology, but was also often used by non-Deist thinkers like Francis Hutcheson (Presbyterian) and Cicero (Roman), both of whom influenced Jefferson's thinking.[15][16] St. Thomas Aquinas (Catholic) also used similar terminology when referencing natural law in his writings as well.[citation needed] Important tenets of most deists were the denial of the Trinity and of miracles. Though he had a lifelong esteem for Jesus' moral teachings, Jefferson did not believe in miracles, nor in the divinity of Jesus. In a letter to deRieux in 1788, he declined a request to act as a godfather saying he was unable to accept the doctrine of the Trinity "from a very early part of my life".[17][ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_religion Um, ok, did you read what you just wrote? That is WAY different than what you are claiming. In the writings I saw of Jefferson, he clearly reveres and respects Jesus. The letter I quoted he was defending Jesus from attacks of others. Being a Diest - if that is true (after all its wikipedia) doesn't mean he is anit-christian as you claim. A diest believes a God but isn't sure of the nature. He could have easily believed in God and was questioning whether or not He should believe in Jesus as well. And based on what I read. I believe that to be more likely. that is very far from being anti-christian. You still haven't proven he is anti-christian. |
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I lime how he used the same wiki I did where Jefferson calls himself a christian.
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Dreams only happen when your asleep.
To cut the Military...hahaha...will never happen cos the U.S see themslves as the peace maker of the world. protecting the interests in what ever country the have got the almighty dollar invested. The US companies make to much money out of the so called peace operations. Do you really think any country will decrease. Get a life. its only going to get bigger and bigger to where it will be the employement ever. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. |
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I lime how he used the same wiki I did where Jefferson calls himself a christian. They did not set up a theocracy so how could he realy be a christian? He does not believe in the trinity verry unchristian lke. Distortions of history occur in the minds of many Christians whenever they see the word "God" embossed in statue or memorial concrete. For example, those who visit the Jefferson Memorial in Washington will read Jefferson's words engraved: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man." When they see the word "God" many Christians see this as "proof" of his Christianity without thinking that "God" can have many definitions ranging from nature to supernatural. Yet how many of them realize that this passage aimed at attacking the tyranny of the Christian clergy of Philadelphia, or that Jefferson's God was not the personal god of Christianity? Those memorial words came from a letter written to Benjamin Rush in 1800 in response to Rush's warning about the Philadelphia clergy attacking Jefferson (Jefferson was seen as an infidel by his enemies during his election for President). The complete statement reads as follows: "The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they [the clergy] 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: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me. . ." Jefferson aimed at laissez-faire liberalism in the name of individual freedom, He felt that any form of government control, not only of religion, but of individual mercantilism consisted of tyranny. He thought that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry. If anything can clear of the misconceptions of Jeffersonian history, it can come best from the author himself. Although Jefferson had a complex view of religion, too vast for this presentation, the following quotes provide a glimpse of how Thomas Jefferson viewed the corruptions of Christianity and religion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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?") -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They [the clergy] 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole history of these books [the Gospels] 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, August, 6, 1816 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Priests...dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live. -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Correa de Serra, April 11, 1820 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. 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) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliography (click on an underlined book title if you'd like to obtain it): Merrill D. Peterson, ed, Thomas Jefferson Writings, (The Library of America,1984) O.I.A. Roche, ed, The Jefferson Bible: with the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas Jefferson, (Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1964) Dickinson W. Adams, ed, et al, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series (Princeton University Press, 1983) Lester J. Cappon, ed, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Vol. 2, (The University of North Carolina Press, 1959) Alf J. Mapp, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity, (Madison Books, 1987) Julian P. Boyd, ed, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, (Princeton University Press 1950--) A.A. Lipscomb, Albert E. Bergh, eds. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1903-1904) ------ http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm |
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Just because you are Christian doesnt mean you want to set up a theocracy wow. It merely means you believe in Jesus. Many christians didn't have faith in the church etc thus new religions were formed. They wanted people to be able to practice any religion they wanted. Our country was founded by people trying to escape religious persecution.
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Yep...
Still is today. Lots of Muslims came here to escape such persecution in the countries they came from. |
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Just because you are Christian doesnt mean you want to set up a theocracy wow. It merely means you believe in Jesus. Many christians didn't have faith in the church etc thus new religions were formed. They wanted people to be able to practice any religion they wanted. Our country was founded by people trying to escape religious persecution. For Further evidence I pointed out that they deliberatly did not create nor ever wish this country to be a theocracy. If I was not clear on this my appologies. One person pointed out the "In god we trust" on the dollar. It would probably show some maturity to read the whole thread and see were it is going before silly comments are made. |
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Wow you don't have any logic do you? He said he was a Christian. You said if he was a Christian why didn't he start a theocracy. I said just because he is a christian doesn't mean he wanted a theocray.
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Wow you don't have any logic do you? He said he was a Christian. You said if he was a Christian why didn't he start a theocracy. I said just because he is a christian doesn't mean he wanted a theocray. |
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Hey don't try to spin things just because your logic is flawed. Not to mention he said he was a Christian. You can be against the church and still be Christian. The church has a history of being corrupt. They wrote decided what would and wouldn't be in the bible. They taught only what they wanted taught. I am not claiming he loved the church or even liked it. I am claiming he believed in Jesus which is the most basic definition of being a Christian. He claimed he was Christian and others have pointed out how he wrote how he believed in Jesus. Just admit you were wrong and move on.
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