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Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
Where shall we start! With the inscription on the liberty bell or that Ben franklin himself requested that every session of Congreess begin with prayer...
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The same Ben Franklin who requested Congress open with prayer was branded a heretic and even an atheist by religious leaders of his own day. Of course the reason was that he questioned the honesty and sincerity of those leaders.
http://americanrevolutionblog.blogsp...-stand_27.html
However, his actual stated beliefs would earn him similar treatment by any serious Christian leader today.
http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib..._Stiles_1.html
Franklin believed, but he expressed doubts about the divinity of Jesus, which would, I believe, earn him the wrath of modern evangelicals were he to enter the political arena today.
Likewise Jefferson, who told his nephew Peter Carr to "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."
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_carr.html
This was the kind of thing that led Christian leaders of his own time to oppose his presidency and label him and atheist.
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I have very old history books that are clearly different from the latest ones used in schools today. The shift is of recent and not the other way around. The national archives have all the evidence to support the history before it was hijacked.
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If we're talking about school textbooks, then I agree, to a point. Schoolbooks are always being rewritten to suit the times, and it's good to oppose it, if for no other reason than to keep the conversation alive. I dislike history books in general, unless they are tightly focused on a specific subject. I have come to prefer biographies of late, as they tend to give not only the subject's own writings and thoughts, but also those of his contemporaries. Last year I read Dumas Malone's massive six-volume, 3500-page biography of Jefferson, which led me on an entertaining journey through seven more books, culminating in Annette Gordon-Reed's
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
But I'm also fond of 'different' history books. Two favorites:
Who Were The Founding Fathers, by Steven H. Jaffe
http://www.amazon.com/Who-Were-Found.../dp/0805031022 which doesn't try to explain them, but rather shows what they thought of themselves and each other, then goes on to show from each generation's writings what
they thought of the Founders, including their attempts to use those men's words to support a variety of different, and often conflicting, causes; which brings us back to the subject at hand.
The second is Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers, by Brooke Allen
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minority.../dp/1566636752 She is biased toward atheism, or at least unbelief, but she makes some good points about what each of the big six (Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton) actually believed, or at least what can be culled from their own writings and the opinions of those who knew them.
Oh, and as to the Pennsylvania State House Bell (its original name), all the inscription shows is that Isaac Norris, who ordered it, was indeed a Christian, as were (presumably) all of his Quaker fellows. Except for those like Ben Franklin, who was definitely
not a Quaker.
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I am well prepared on this matter and it will be an interesting discussion.
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I hope so (on both counts).