| Sailor Steve |
11-13-11 03:05 PM |
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Originally Posted by 1480
(Post 1786653)
The proof that I pointed out was for Platapus, sorry.
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I know. But his treaty says it plainly in writing, and you didn't counter that at all.
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The point I was trying to make is that people are influenced by what they are taught, their experiences and the like. My question therefore is why did they mention God if they were attempting a completely secular movement?
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Because they spoke in the language of the time, and as I've said twice now "Nature and Nature's God" was a favored phrase of the Enlightenment and of Deism, and "Creator" implies that they did believe in something, but the leaders mostly denied the divinity of Christ, and in writing.
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John Adams belonged to the Unitarian church. Unitarianism is a, Christian theological movement, therefore Christian.
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And specifically denied the Trinity, which made him a heretic.
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An aside: reason I picked out flaws in TJ is that you originally brought him up. He was very contradictory in his thoughts.
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Yes he was. Brilliant but conflicted.
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When you speak of context of "Creator" here we have Jefferson's original version of that line:
Adams original version:
Somewhere somehow it got changed to "their Creator."
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And neither one mentions God. They did believe in a creator, but Jefferson specifically denied Christ, and Adams agreed with him.
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When we say God is a spirit, we know what we mean, as well as we do when we say that the pyramids of Egypt are matter. Let us be content, therefore, to believe him to be a spirit, that is, an essence that we know nothing of, in which originally and necessarily reside all energy, all power, all capacity, all activity, all wisdom, all goodness.
-John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, January 17, 1820
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Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
-John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-1788)
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It cannot hold that Franklin was a Deist, it sounds that would have come from a christian.
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I guess you haven't read the whole piece, for his very next paragraph reads as follows:
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As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in His government of the world with any particular marks of His displeasure.
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And in his own words:
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My parents had early given me religious impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the dissenting [puritan]way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough deist.
-Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
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