What's up with the rebel flags?

[evansvillethompsongunner]

For those of you who keep saying that President Lincoln was "a man of faith"... I'd like to add that George W. Bush was too.

President GWB was still a progressive who traded away our freedoms and grew the Federal State. Teddy Roosevelt was also a man of faith. He ran as our first Progressive candidate for President.

We have to look at not only their faith, but also their politics. Ask one simple question: who's politics do they most resemble in their actions: Hamilton - or - Thomas Jefferson.

Our problems come from not following Jefferson - who was a man of "private" faith, and did not wear his faith on his sleeve. But, he had more impact on your freedom to practice the religion of your choice than any other person in this country. He was instrumental in removing the Anglican church as the favored religion of Virginia. Unfortunately, his letter to a Baptist church has been misused to limit your ability to worship at all (see Separation of church and state)

Private faith?

Thomas Jefferson was at most a deist, and most likely a downright atheist.

Gasp, shock!

Religion is not indicative of morality or politic or power.

Or, rather, it shouldn't be.

 

[jeremy]

Most of the founding fathers and Early Americans of that time were Deists, pagans, or atheists...

Shock gasp...

That is why most of them, or their families were sent to the colonies. That or they were criminals...

 

[photoshooter]

Private faith?

Thomas Jefferson was at most a deist, and most likely a downright atheist.

Gasp, shock!

Religion is not indicative of morality or politic or power.

Or, rather, it shouldn't be.

Athiest? No. His detractors colored him as such. He was very reserved on his religious views.

My own belief as I study TJ is that he was very aware that he would be a major historical figure in our nation, and wanted his actions and his words to speak for themselves in the realm of governance.

"All men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator...." leads me to believe that the charge of Atheism needs to be tossed out. The base level needs to be at Deist.

This is what we know of Mr. Jefferson's faith from his own pen:

I do not wish to trouble
the world with my creed, nor to be troubled
for them. These accounts are to be settled
only with Him who made us; and to Him
we leave it, with charity for all others, of
whom, also, He is the only rightful and competent
judge.—
To Timothy Pickering. Washington ed. vii, 211.
(M. 1821)

I am of a sect by myself,
as far as I know.—
To Ezra Stiles. Washington ed. vii, 127.
(M. 1819)

One of our fan-coloring

biographers, who paints small men as very
great, enquired of me lately, with real affection,
too, whether he might consider as
authentic, the change in my religion much
spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed
that they knew what had been my religion
before, taking for it the word of their priests,
whom I certainly never made the confidants
of my creed. My answer was, “say nothing
of my religion. It is known to my God and
myself alone. Its evidence before the world
is to be sought in my life; it that has been
honest and dutiful to society, the religion
which has regulated it cannot be a bad one”.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 55. Ford ed., x, 73.
(M. 1817)

We also know that when he died, he had several copies of a book in which he had written the words of Jesus. Family members reported him as as studying that book often.

He also is reported to have attended several churches on regular occasions, saw to it that his children were educated in Christianity.

He donated funds on many occasions to churches.

If anything, I'd say the TJ was religious, with a bent toward Jesus - judging from his life - but that his religious creed is not what he wanted to be remembered for. His deeds, his philosophy on government were his desired legacy, and he knew that his religion would be used by Christians and Non-Christians alike to cloud and obscure what he considered his true legacy to be.

 

[glockpatriot]

I thought about letting you do your own research, but I'll help you out. But I seriously suggest cracking some history books before engaging in discussions about history.

The Declaration of Independence was written before the American Revolution. It was directed at the King of England, and had nothing to do with American forts, of which there weren't any at the time it was written. They were all English. The Civil War took place more than eight decades later.

The South was fighting for state's rights. The federal government was coopting power the Constitution did not give it, in fact it was assuming powers specifically prohibited. You may see much discussion about exactly that today, because by waging a war for which it had no Constitutional basis, the federal government threw the document away, and ever since has increasingly treated as an obstacle, not the law of the land.

Factually, slavery was already dying in the South, desperately held on to by a few rich men. It was economically un-viable, and the vast majority of Southerners did not own slaves and in fact resented the institution because it deprived them of jobs and potential land ownership. Slavery was more popular among Northerners because slaves did not hold jobs the whites wanted. They held the same jobs many of today's illegal immigrants hold, and for the same reason... no one else would do the work. Cold hard facts are, slavery would have been dead in the South within a couple decades, and racism would not have been as rampant as it ended up being among a bitter and defeated people forced into a government no longer ruled by the Constitution, and which they wanted no part of. To this day, many Southerners view themselves as living in occupied territory. There is good reason so many military bases are in the South as compared to the rest of the country. It took some work to convince my wife and son that I was dead serious about not letting anyone know they are decendents of Abe Lincoln... they would not have been regarded kindly. My wife takes great pride in her heritage, it may distress her a tad that I share the common southern view that Abe Lincoln and his trampling of the Constitution makes him the true traitor.

Ironically, I think that had the war not been fought, had Abe Lincoln followed the Constitution and allowed the Confederate states to seceed, the Union would be stronger now, and it would certainly be more free. We would not be looking at the distinct possibility of fighting a second civil war, we would not be seeing states trying to reassert rights they hold under the Constitution but will never regain in fact without resort to force. The South had no industrial or economic basis at the time, no way to stand on their own. They would have HAD to rejoin the Union, and we would today be living in a free land governed by Constitutional law.

Again, as I pointed out earlier, had the war been about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation would have freed all slaves. Instead, despite what Northern historians have re-written it to mean, it left the institution of slavery intact in the north. It was intended to weaken the South by depriving them of their slaves. Of course, the Southern economy was already a shambles, and slavery was a small portion of it, but the words sure do sound good, despite not meaning what people today think it did.

Rep'ed

 

[jsgolfman]

My understanding was he knew his Bible and read it often..I could be wrong but that is what I have been taught...

Do you know any different?

Try "Life of Lincoln" by William Herndon and "Facts and Falsehoods" by George Edmonds

 

[PatMcGroyne]

Hey, 360.

I missed the close-ups of bobble-head dollies of R. Lee Ermey and Geezis Kraist on the dash!! EEEEEE-Haaaa! Pat

 

[haldir]

Most of the founding fathers and Early Americans of that time were Deists, pagans, or atheists...

Shock gasp...

That is why most of them, or their families were sent to the colonies. That or they were criminals...

Don't overestimate the writings that we see today. I don't think it would surprise anyone that there has been a great desire by many historians to show the non-Christianity if not outright atheism of our founders. Photoshooter has already posted some information on Mr. Jefferson. The Father of our Country, Mr. Washington has similarly been written about by some, attempting to show him as an atheist. Jared Sparks the historian that amassed his writings wrote of his Christian beliefs. This was soon after the Generals's death, not hundreds of years later. His granddaughter wrote the following as well:

I should have thought it the greatest heresy to doubt his firm belief in Christianity. His life, his writings, prove that he was a Christian. He was not one of those who act or pray, "that they may be seen of men" [Matthew 6:5]. He communed with his God in secret [Matthew 6:6].

 

[evansvillethompsongunner]

Athiest? No. His detractors colored him as such. He was very reserved on his religious views.

My own belief as I study TJ is that he was very aware that he would be a major historical figure in our nation, and wanted his actions and his words to speak for themselves in the realm of governance.

"All men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator...." leads me to believe that the charge of Atheism needs to be tossed out. The base level needs to be at Deist.

This is what we know of Mr. Jefferson's faith from his own pen:

We also know that when he died, he had several copies of a book in which he had written the words of Jesus. Family members reported him as as studying that book often.

He also is reported to have attended several churches on regular occasions, saw to it that his children were educated in Christianity.

He donated funds on many occasions to churches.

If anything, I'd say the TJ was religious, with a bent toward Jesus - judging from his life - but that his religious creed is not what he wanted to be remembered for. His deeds, his philosophy on government were his desired legacy, and he knew that his religion would be used by Christians and Non-Christians alike to cloud and obscure what he considered his true legacy to be.

No, he was not a Christian. A deist, I might concede, but a Christian?
Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the most notable of our forefathers who blatantly opposed Christianity.

"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


"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


"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 [Clergymen] 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


"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


"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [Revelation], 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


"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


"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


"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


I mean, I could copy-paste all day.
The man's ideas of religion might be complex, but he certainly wasn't a Christian, whatever you should like to believe about the man, and wasn't supportive of any organized-religion. Hence his ability to take an even stance toward it - he himself had no strong feelings toward religion, but rather, against it.

 

[photoshooter]

No, he was not a Christian. A deist, I might concede, but a Christian?

I never said he was a typical Christian. I said he wasn't an atheist. The atheism was a political slander from the Hamiltonian/Federalist faction. Hamilton even started a publication whose main purpose was to slander TJ.

Jefferson reminds me of religious studies prof I had back at Ball State. That Prof, Dr. Carl Andry was very much about following the words of Christ - not the church that grew out of the ministry started by the man Jesus.

THAT idea is similar to the impression I get of TJ's personal views. BUT, he went to great lengths to not reveal his political affiliation.

And, for the record, the quotes we've both cited don't prove either way his religious affiliation. I know many Christians that debate many of the issues you cited through TJ quotes.

I think it safe to say that he was a man with religious beliefs. He understood and advocated Natural Law (Mankind has rights- granted by "nature" or, rather as it was understood at the time, by God), and wanted to keep his religious beliefs private so that we wouldn't justify one version of religious thought over another (as the English did with the Anglican Church)

 

[haldir]

Letter To Dr. Benjamin Rush.

Washington, April 21, 1803.

DEAR SIR,
In some of the delightful conversations with you in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other. At the short interval since these conversations, when I could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has been under my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Dr. Priestley his little treatise of "Socrates and Jesus Compared." This being a section of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of reflection while on the road and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to arrange in my mind a syllabus or outline of such an estimate of the comparative merits of Christianity as I wished to see executed by someone of more leisure and information for the task than myself. This I now send you as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. And in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations and calumnies. I am moreover averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public, because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith which the laws have left between God and himself. Accept my affectionate salutations.

Th: Jefferson


Syllabus of an Estimate of the
Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus,
Compared with Those of Others.

In a comparative view of the Ethics of the enlightened nations of antiquity, of the Jews and of Jesus, no notice should be taken of the corruptions of reason among the ancients, to wit, the idolatry and superstition of the vulgar, nor of the corruptions of Christianity by the learned among its professors.

Let a just view be taken of the moral principles inculcated by the most esteemed of the sects of ancient philosophy or of their individuals; particularly Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus.

I. Philosophers.

1. Their precepts related chiefly to ourselves, and the government of those passions which, unrestrained, would disturb our tranquillity of mind.[Note] In this branch of philosophy they were really great.
2. In developing our duties to others, they were short and defective. They embraced, indeed, the circles of kindred and friends, and inculcated patriotism, or the love of our country in the aggregate, as a primary obligation: towards our neighbors and countrymen they taught justice, but scarcely viewed them as within the circle of benevolence. Still less have they inculcated peace, charity and love to our fellow men, or embraced with benevolence the whole family of mankind.
II. Jews.
1. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief in one only God. But their ideas of him and of his attributes were degrading and injurious.
2. Their Ethics were not only imperfect, but often irreconcilable with the sound dictates of reason and morality, as they respect intercourse with those around us; and repulsive and anti-social, as respecting other nations. They needed reformation, therefore, in an eminent degree.
III. Jesus.
In this state of things among the Jews, Jesus appeared. His parentage was obscure; his condition poor; his education null; his natural endowments great; his life correct and innocent: he was meek, benevolent, patient, firm, disinterested, and of the sublimest eloquence.

The disadvantages under which his doctrines appear are remarkable.

1. Like Socrates and Epictetus, he wrote nothing himself.
2. But he had not, like them, a Xenophon or an Arrian to write for him. I name not Plato, who only used the name of Socrates to cover the whimsies of his own brain. On the contrary, all the learned of his country, entrenched in its power and riches, were opposed to him, lest his labors should undermine their advantages; and the committing to writing his life and doctrines fell on unlettered and ignorant men, who wrote, too, from memory, and not till long after the transactions had passed.
3. According to the ordinary fate of those who attempt to enlighten and reform mankind, he fell an early victim to the jealousy and combination of the altar and the throne, at about thirty-three years of age, his reason having not yet attained the maximum of its energy, nor the course of his preaching, which was but of three years at most, presented occasions for developing a complete system of morals.
4. Hence the doctrines he really delivered were defective as a whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible.
5. They have been still more disfigured by the corruptions of schismatizing followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines he taught, by engrafting on them the mysticisms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into subtleties, and obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an impostor.
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, a system of morals is presented to us which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man.
The question of his being a member of the Godhead, or in direct communication with it, claimed for him by some of his followers and denied by others, is foreign to the present view, which is merely an estimate of the intrinsic merits of his doctrines.

1. He corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of His attributes and government.
2. His moral doctrines, relating to kindred and friends were more pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers, and greatly more so than those of the Jews; and they went far beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants and common aids. A development of this head will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all others.
3. The precepts of philosophy, and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.
4.He taught, emphatically, the doctrines of a future state, which was either doubted or disbelieved by the Jews, and wielded it with efficacy as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct.

 

[haldir]

Thomas Jefferson, as we all know, was a skeptic, a man so hostile to Christianity that he scissored from his Bible all references to miracles. He was, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation tells us, "a Deist, opposed to orthodox Christianity and the supernatural."

Or was he? While Jefferson has been lionized by those who seek to drive religion from public life, the true Thomas Jefferson is anything but their friend. He was anything but irreligious, anything but an enemy to Christian faith. Our nation's third president was, in fact, a student of Scripture who attended church regularly, and was an active member of the Anglican Church, where he served on his local vestry. He was married in church, sent his children and a nephew to a Christian school, and gave his money to support many different congregations and Christian causes.

Moreover, his "Notes on Religion," nine documents Jefferson wrote in 1776, are "very orthodox statements about the inspiration of Scripture and Jesus as the Christ," according to Mark Beliles, a Providence Foundation scholar and author of an enlightening essay on Jefferson's religious life.

So what about the Jefferson Bible, that miracles-free version of the Scriptures? That, too, is a myth. It is not a Bible, but an abridgement of the Gospels created by Jefferson in 1804 for the benefit of the Indians. Jefferson's "Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted From the New Testament for the Use of the Indians" was a tool to evangelize and educate American Indians. There is no evidence that it was an expression of his skepticism.

Jefferson, who gave his money to assist missionary work among the Indians, believed his "abridgement of the New Testament for the use of the Indians" would help civilize and educate America's aboriginal inhabitants. Nor did Jefferson cut all miracles from his work, as Beliles points out. While the original manuscript no longer exists, the Table of Texts that survives includes several accounts of Christ's healings.

But didn't Jefferson believe in the complete separation of church and state? After all, Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Baptists in Danbury, Conn., in which he cited the First Amendment's creation of a "wall of separation" between church and state, is an ACLU proof-text for its claim that the First Amendment makes the public square a religion-free zone. But if the ACLU is right, why, just two days after he sent his letter to the Danbury Baptists did President Jefferson attend public worship services in the U.S. Capitol building, something he did throughout his two terms in office? And why did he authorize the use of the War Office and the Treasury building for church services in Washington, D.C.?

Jefferson's outlook on religion and government is more fully revealed in another 1802 letter in which he wrote that he did not want his administration to be a "government without religion," but one that would "strengthen … religious freedom."

Jefferson was a true friend of the Christian faith. But was he a true Christian? A nominal Christian – as demonstrated by his lifelong practice of attending worship services, reading the Bible, and following the moral principles of Christ – Jefferson was not, in my opinion, a genuine Christian. In 1813, after his public career was over, Jefferson rejected the deity of Christ. Like so many millions of church members today, he was outwardly religious, but never experienced the new birth that Jesus told Nicodemus was necessary to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Nonetheless, Jefferson's presidential acts would, if done today, send the ACLU marching into court. He signed legislation that gave land to Indian missionaries, put chaplains on the government payroll, and provided for the punishment of irreverent soldiers. He also sent Congress an Indian treaty that set aside money for a priest's salary and for the construction of a church.

Most intriguing is the manner in which Jefferson dated an official document. Instead of "in the year of our Lord," Jefferson used the phrase "in the year of our Lord Christ." Christian historian David Barton has the proof – the original document signed by Jefferson on the "eighteenth day of October in the year of our Lord Christ, 1804."

The Supreme Court ruled in 1947 that Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state "must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." Judging from the record, it looks like the wall some say Tom built is, in fact, the wall Tom breached.

The real Thomas Jefferson, it turns out, is the ACLU's worst nightmare.

By Dr. James Kennedy

 

[HICKMAN]

Nope, that is a modern politically correct assumption.

It stands for 'States Rights', and in reality that is what the war was fought over.....

Slavery was a minor part of it, it was just what the press (even then) stuck to and it sticks to this day, no matter the proof otherwise.

Yup, I guess people don't bother to know the history or know that there were black Confederate soldiers.

Maybe understand that the history books given in schools are written by the WINNERS of the war.... guess that means you get to tell the story however you want.

Funny how people over look the Union enlisting people straight off of ships and sending them to fight their war...

I guess since I was born in Georgia I actually learned a little on the subject.

YouTube - Black Heroes Of The Confederacy: 50,000 Volunteer For The South

YouTube - Black Confederates honors

YouTube - Black Confederate