Our Country Wasn't Founded By Christians or to be Christian

When will conservatives wake up and realize there is nothing conservative about denying the rights of a minority?

They are supposed to be the defenders of Jefferson, Washington, and Adams no?

Well, Jefferson wrote his own Bible (commonly known as the Jeffersonian Bible Source), which the Bible specifically states in the very last verse in Revelation the horrors of the crime of altering the “word of God” in any way. (Revelation 22: 18-22: "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.") He changed the entire Bible around and essentially made it, in his mind, believable and more philosophical not theological. Why is this heretical act ignored? Why does any modern right wing Christian support Thomas Jefferson, I've often wondered? The contradictions are endless beyond even theology (for example by the time of his Presidency he supported an estate tax and a progressive tax on the rich to prevent a plutocracy, changing his views from earlier in his life that are often used now to represent his ideology, yet it changed.)

George Washington once refused to go inside a relative’s wedding because it was being held inside a church. At his death bed he refused a “man of God” from entering the room, wanting nothing to do with it. Yes, he played the statesmen and wasn’t public about his disgust for the Church, but in private letters and conversations he truly despised them .The most basic of Washington biographers note this. Much more on Washington Below.

(Side tidbit: He also grew hemp, had the largest Whiskey distillery in America at one point, and took the opiate tincture Laudanum daily. In fact it’s near fact his famous portrait on the one dollar bill is while he was under tremendous influence of opiates because of tooth pain. Jefferson, of course, grew hemp too. He wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence on Hemp paper. He even smuggled seeds for hemp/marijuana strains out of China at the risk of death. I would ask any person who supports our founders openly, why they would advocate the criminalization of what a person consumes)

John Adams was a Unitarian, not a Deist as many have falsely claimed. In the records of John Adams letters to Thomas Jefferson he had this to say: "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.” Source: [Letter to Thomas Jefferson (3 September 1816), published in Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (UNC Press, 1988), p. 488.]

Some founders were straight up Atheists (and the raunchy kind at that)! Benjamin Franklin belonged to the Hellfire Club. Surely this well documented fact is proof enough he had no belief in God. If you aren't familiar with the Hellfire Club, I'd sum it up in three words, secret ritualistic orgies. (Source)

Oh, and whatever happened about all the liberty talk before the election my sons and daughters of liberty…? How many of you even understand the philosophy of liberty and the, actually, HUGE nuances between republic representative governments and democracy? Our founders deplored democracy. John Adams wrote to John Taylor in 1814, "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty." And Adams was the Federalist! He was anti-republican and the politics of Jefferson, and even they both agreed on this! Can anyone find a personal letter by a founding father speaking well or praising democracy? I'd like to see it.

Going further, anyone who supports a foreign war to spread democracy to another country is so in violation of what our founders believed it’s outrageous. Our founders did, still quite radical, assist France in it’s near simultaneous revolution ridding the country of their Monarchy. Thomas Paine was an honorary French Member of Parliament in fact, and spent most of his life after independence in France. There is certainly questions and decent arguments that could be made about this intervention, but it’s nothing like what we’re in now. This first intervention was warning to all of the founders who survived to see it though, that it was an absolutely horrid idea. We helped spawn Napoleon, without us he never would've come to power. He was friends with some of the founding fathers who felt betrayed when he showed his true self.

(Another fun fact: Napoleon wasn't short. It was a myth that spread. He was 5'7" inches. Small today yes, but the average Frenchman was 5'5"... he was actually taller than most. Funny how most things you learn through word of mouth are generally wrong. This is wise to keep in mind.) (Source)

Sorry but this distorting of our history needs to stop. We know now through personal letters and journals what they truly thought. Stop cherry picking quotes they said in public to appease people who were in near rebellion. It's truly naive or ignorant to try and re-write the beliefs of people who are dead. In fact it is immoral.

Now please stop acting like non-believers are usurpers. It's not factual nor very Christian.

Happy Holidays and a late Merry Christmas.

Written by R.R.
12/30/10

Updated 1/04/11:

More specifically on Washington:

His own words:

"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition ... In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States."
-- George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793, in Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, Vol 1. p. 497, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.
-- George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom, also James A Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief


Here's what Jefferson had to say about Washington's beliefs in his journal:

"Dr. Rush told me (he had it from Asa Green) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice."
-- Thomas Jefferson, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572.

"I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did."
--Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, February, 1800, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572

Claude Blanchard wrote this about the rumors he heard about Washington and what he witnessed:

"There was a clergyman at this dinner who blessed the food and said grace after they had done eating and had brought in the wine. I was told that General Washington said grace when there was no clergyman at the table, as fathers of a family do in America. The first time that I dined with him there was no clergyman and I did not perceive that he made this prayer, yet I remember that on taking his place at the table, he made a gesture and said a word, which I took for a piece of politeness."
Commissary-General Claude Blanchard, writing in his journal, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 23

And finally, the person who might know better than anyone:

"In regard to the subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say that General Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am the parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant. I have been written to by many on that point, and have been obliged to answer them am as I now do you."
-- The Right Reverend William White, the first bishop of Pennsylvania, friend of Washington and bishop of Christ's Church in Philadelphia, which Washington attend for about 25 years when he happened to be in that city, in a letter to Colonel Mercer of Fredericksberg, Virginia, on August 15, 1835, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 27