alt.education

Free Lunch wrote:
>On Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:34:24 -0400, in alt.atheism
>Bob LeChevalier wrote in
>:
>>Nicklas@Click.com wrote:
>>>It is "mere" when the central "god" is the same
>>>
>>>Are you suggesting the "god" is different?
>>>
>>>You'll have to explain that......
>>
>>Thomas Jefferson said "I am a Christian". He also said that
>>Calvinists were "demon-worshippers". It sounds like HE thought that
>>they worshipped a different God than he did.
>
>Could you point to a reference about Jefferson's Christianity? I was
>under the impression that he was deist.

"Deist" is not a term that he used. It is a term that others might
use to describe his beliefs, and to distinguish them from "orthodox
Christianity" as a unitary religion. But of course that is what we
are arguing about: whether there is such a unitary concept as
"orthodox Christianity". Jefferson believed in a God, and he
considered that the God that he believed in was the same God described
in the Bible. He just didn't believe that the Bible was to be taken
literally when it asserted things like "God said ..." or "God did
..."; he was wise enough to distinguish human interpretation from
factual reporting.

Even though his interpretation of the nature of God is consistent with
the definition of "deism" by many who use that term, he states that he
is a student and follower of the life and teachings of Christ, which
was one of the definitions provided for "Christianity". Thus the
question becomes whether "deism" and "Christianity" are the same
religion %^)

Thomas Jefferson's beliefs evolved over time (as did his politics. He
made the claim "I am a Christian" in the following quote in 1803:

http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/jeffbsyl.html
>Letter To Dr. Benjamin Rush.
>Washington, April 21, 1803.

<...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.

Here's one of his lambastings of St Paul (from the same web page).
Note that he no longer claims to follow all of the teachings of
Christ, but selects some as not really being his teachings, and
indicates his disagreements with some of those teachings, i.e. that of
the efficacy of repentance.
<
< its true and high light, as no impostor Himself, but a great Reformer
< of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am
< with Him in all His doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side
< of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards
< forgiveness of sin; I require counterpoise of good works to redeem
< it, etc., etc.
<...Among the sayings and discourses imputed to Him by His biographers,
< 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. I separate, therefore, the gold from
< the dross; restore to Him the former, and leave the latter to the
< stupidity of some, and roguery of others of His disciples. Of this
< band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first
< corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations
< and falsifications of His doctrines, led me to try to sift them
< apart. I found the work obvious and easy, and that His past composed
< the most beautiful morsel of morality which has been given to us by
< man. The syllabus is therefore of His doctrines, not all of mine. I
< read them as I do those of other ancient and modern moralists, with a
< mixture of approbation and dissent...

lojbab