The American Founding Fathers considered the existence of the Creator as the most fundamental premise underlying all self-evident truth. They felt a person who boasted he or she was an atheist had just simply failed to apply his or her divine capacity for reason and observation.
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"Divine capacity for reason and observation"? When has god ever been observed? Since when does reason lead one easily to god? Some of the founding fathers were christians, and some weren't. Some of those who weren't still believed in a creator who was probably divine, this does not make them christians, however. Reason was the 'reason' why the founding fathers believed what they did about the laws and ideals regarding the US. Not some creator deity that may or may not exist. Not all those present believed that there was a creator god, so it would seem absurd that this would be their guiding principal. However, a reading of the texts themselves, instead of quote mining, will show this. Moronic fundies. Learn to read.
And not only were many of the founding fathers Deists, most of the remaining were Presbyters (not exactly the same as modern day Presbyterians) who were definately NOT fundie. They were certainly Christian but not in the 20th/21st century sense.
Besides, quite a few of our early Presidents were not Christians and I'm sure quite a few of our more modern Presidents were closet non-christians.
Then why did they include this little gem in the U.S. Constitution?
*source* The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
"Question with boldness the very existence of a God...because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of a blindfolded fear."
What anti-American said that? Oh yeah...THOMAS JEFFERSON.
I don't understand how an American, which I understand Homesick777 to be, can be so massively ignorant of the content and meaning of the American Constitution. He/she must have had teachers, surely? And be able to read?
Unless . . .
Right. Home or fundie Christian schooling. And a crippling inability and unwillingness to read anything that doesn't tally with fundie Biblical intepretation.
Oh, and a compulsion to bear false witness for Jeeze.
So much fail, so much wilful ignorance, so much sin and so little time until the Rapture. These people must be as nervous as hell fearing they won't come up to scratch.
fergus
I've always thought of the "endowed by their creator" line in the Declaration of Independence to mean the way we all were created:
Daddy got a hard on and mommy spread her legs. The timing -- whether planned or not -- was right that the sperm fertilized the egg and nine months later the baby was born.
(Note that in recent years IVF has allowed for the possibility that this could be somewhat different in terms of process, but the same general idea is there...)
and that was what..over 200 years ago? Science has come a long way since we broke the Christian leash strangleholding our necks.
And besides, many of the FF's were not the kind of fundy Cretin that is popular today. Thomas Jefferson even bluntly said that Jesus' virgin birth is the same thing as the roman myths.
I don't think the FF ever said that the belief in a Creator underlies all truth or whatever, and anyway they were mostly deists, not Christians, so even if we believed everything the FF said, it still wouldn't make your religion true.
There were doubtless those who believed in some sort of nebulous and unknowable creator. But most of the prominent founders said scathing things about religion in general and Christianity in particular. Further, there is no mention of your God or your beliefs in the Constitution. American History books are not hard to come by. Try one.
Even if this were true...so what?
Humanity has learned quite a bit since the days of the Founding Fathers. Well, some of us have learned.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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