alt.education

Jd wrote:
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>>>If you can produce references where they believed in Hinduism, or Islam etc. etc. please place it
>>>here where we can all see it.
>>
>>Not necessary. It is merely sufficient to note that several did not
>>attribute to the God of the Bible the nature that you attribute to
>>him.
>
>I'm underwhelmed.

Do I care?

>Again you offer rumor and gossip in support of your opinions.

You forgot logic and the words of the Founders. Shall we quote TJ's
statements about Jesus Christ, miracles, and Saint Paul again? How
about Thomas Paine, or Ben Franklin?

>(BTW that is the only way you can assert that the Constitution was written by pagans).

But of course I made no such assertion. I merely said that many of
them did not believe that the "God" they referred to was the
Trinitarian God you refer to, and I cannot be all that certain that
any of them believed the sort of nonsense you believe.

>"Virtually every one of the 55 writers and signers of the United States Constitution were members of
>various Christian denominations:

I'm a member of the Southern Baptists, according to them. Of course,
I am also a member of the Mormons according to them. And I am a
minister of the American Fellowship Church, according to them. Yet at
times you have been quite willing to claim that I am a non-Christian,
an atheist, a pagan, and a few other things

>29 were Anglicans, 16 to 18 were Calvinists, 2 were Methodists, 2
>were Lutherans, 2 were Roman Catholic, 1 lapsed Quaker and sometimes Anglican, and 1 open deist--Dr.
>Franklin who attended every kind of Christian worship, called for public prayer, and contributed to
>all denominations."

But rejected all of them as false.

>> (Moslem consider that their God is the same God as the one in
>>the Bible, though). It is also worth noting that despite the
>>occasional reference to God, you haven't been too successful at
>>finding places where the founders mentioned Jesus. That YOU think a
>>reference to God includes Jesus doesn't mean that they did.
>
>What *I* think is irrelevant and beside the point.

Hence my comment above about you being underwhelmed.

>The words of the founding fathers speak for
>themselves wrt the founding of America being aided by God Himself in their views.

But what God, and what sort of "aid" did He give?

>"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of
>men more than those of the United States.

For the affairs of men that a president is concerned with, that
"Invisible Hand" is more commonly known as "politics". Of course with
some presidents, like the last one, there are affairs that they wish
to keep private and outside the realm of politics. Those affairs are
conducted by hormones.

>Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems

"seems" (What was this about rumor and gossip?) The sun "seems" to
rise in the East every morning. Of course the sun isn't really
rising; the earth is turning the part that you are on towards the sun.
What "seems" to be the case may have nothing to do with reality. The
founders were quite aware of this fact.

>to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency;

>“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of
>Christianity…

Which principles were those? Since Adams was a Unitarian, it is a
good bet that what he meant by that phrase has little to do with what
you mean by that phrase.

>"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
>government of any other." - John Adams

Says nothing about God or His nature. Buddhists are moral and
religious people.

>And fyi they did specifically mention Jesus...

Not the ones you've been mentioning. I haven't said that NO Founder
was a Christian; indeed some were Christian ministers. You on the
other hand have claimed that ALL of them were.

>"First of all, I . . . rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins." - Samuel
>Adams, Signer of the Declaration

Samuel Adams did not sign the Declaration

>"To my Creator I resign myself, humbly confding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus
>Christ for the events of eternity." - John Dickinson, Signer of the Constitution

Dickenson was the one member of Congress who *refused* to sign the
Declaration. He resigned from the Congress, though he fought for the
Revolutionaries. He was indeed later a signer of the Constitution,
but he was hardly a leader.

>"I resign my soul into the hands of the Almighty who gave it in humble hopes of his mercy through
>our Savior Jesus Christ." - Gabriel Duvall, U.S. Supreme Court Justice; selected as delegate to
>Constitutional Convention

The following are those who refused to attend or were unable to
attend:

Sorry, but he fails to qualify as a Founder.

>"This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one
>which will make them rich indeed." - Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry never served in National office. He was a Virginia
patriot, not an American patriot. It was AGAINST Patrick Henry that
Madison wrote his Remonstrance. Patrick Henry LOST his battle for
religious establishment in Virginia.


>"In 1777, while the colonies were struggling in the Revolutionary War, the First Continental
>Congress called the Bible "the great political textbook of the patriots" and appropriated funds to
>import 20,000 Bibles for the people."
>
>http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/heritage/heritage19.html

BTW - your source constitutes "rumor and gossip", so I see no reason
to believe the factoids and quote-mining is accurate. Here is the
relevant 1777 Congressional record:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(jc00898)):
< Allison and others, report, "That they have conferred fully with the
< printers, &c. in this city,and are of opinion, that the proper types
< for printing the Bible are not to be had in this country, and that
< the paper cannot be procured, but with such difficulties and subject
< to such casualties, as render any dependence on it altogether
< edition of the bible, and to strike off 30,000 copies, with paper,
< binding, &c. will cost £10,272 10, which must be advanced by
< Congress, to be reimbursed by the sale of the books:
<
<"That, your committee are of opinion, considerable difficulties will
< attend the procuring the types and paper; that, afterwards, the
< risque of importing them will considerably enhance the cost, and that
< the calculations are subject to such uncertainty in the present state
< of affairs, that Congress cannot much rely on them: that the use of
< the Bible is so universal, and its importance so great, that your
< committee refer the above to the consideration of Congress, and if
< Congress shall not think it expedient to order the importation of
< types and paper, your committee recommend that Congress will order
< the Committee of Commerce to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland,
< Scotland, or elsewhere, into the different ports of the states in the
< Union:"1
<
<[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of Daniel Roberdeau, is in
< thePapers of the Continental Congress, No. 28, folio 203.]
<
< to import twenty thousand copies of the Bible;
<
<

So the Congress did NOT appropriate money for Bibles; it ordered that
a committee import Bibles because there was a shortage. There was no
reference to "the great political textbook of the patriots" in the
resolution, and indeed the phrase "political textbook" never occurs in
the records of the Continental Congress on the Library of Congress web
site. The word "Bible" only occurs in two places in the Continental
Congress record, the second being a commendation in 1782 to printer
Robert Aitkem for managing to produce an edition of the Bible, because
apparently, resolution notwithstanding, they had not managed to import
an English version of the Bible during the war.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_62lU::
< He undertook this expensive work at a time, when from the
< circumstances of the war, an English edition of the Bible could not
< be imported, nor any opinion formed how long the obstruction might
< continue. On this account particularly he deserves applause and
< encouragement. We therefore wish you, reverend gentlemen, to examine
< the execution of the work, and if approved, to give it the sanction
< of your judgment and the weight of your recommendation.

lojbab