Listening to conservative talk show hosts like Sean Hannity, John Carlson, Micheal Medved and uninformed Christians - you would be certain that our founding fathers were all devout, fundamentalists bowing before the Bible and its Christian God. This couldn't be farther from the truth and even as a Bible College student I knew that the founders were not Christian by any definition of the term. Now let's get to who they were. Since atheists are often accused of twisting the facts - I will be quoting from educational websites NOT atheist's websites and will give you links to the full documents.
Our founders were the product of The Enlightenment, a movement started in the mid 18th century by French philosophers. This belief placed 'reason' above every other authority including "The Word of God" and generally didn't look kindly on established, organized religions. Standing AGAINST not WITH "The Age of Enlightenment" was "The Great Awakening" a Christian revival movement that sought to place reason as again subservient to The Bible.
What historians call "the first Great Awakening" can best be described as a revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s. That revival was part of a much broader movement, an evangelical upsurge taking place simultaneously on the other side of the Atlantic, most notably in England, Scotland, and Germany. In all these Protestant cultures during the middle decades of the eighteenth century, a new Age of Faith rose to counter the currents of the Age of Enlightenment, to reaffirm the view that being truly religious meant trusting the heart rather than the head, prizing feeling more than thinking, and relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason. |
Deism, Theism without a Creed and Atheism
Christians will commonly point out that our founders did believe in a god of some kind even if they held no widely recognized religious doctrine. Problem is - the philosophy of the founders as Deists and Theists without a Creed has much more in common with Atheism than Christianity. Deists and Atheists see themselves as secular and relegate others to being ritualistic. Deists, Atheists etc believe in placing reason above church authority, support science over religion and are against bringing religion into government. Atheists, Deists and Theists without a Creed will pretty much vote the same way, raise their children in similar ways and agree on the insanity of organized religions like Christianity. Atheists, Theists without a creed and Deists were all persecuted by Christians, have no problem with each other's beliefs and see organized religion as a barrier against reason. Note that it is fully possible that one or more of our founders was in fact an atheist but wouldn't admit to it any quicker than he would admit to being a child molester.
John Adams
John Adams was the son of a church deacon. His first great document was A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law. In this paper Adams decries the mixture of Church and State making no bones about his extreme dislike of both the Roman Catholic and Church of England systems. He, like his contemporaries, praises reason while proclaiming the evils of enforcing church law through the state.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson saw the story of Jesus as highly moral and wanted people to be able to read it without all that darn mythology so he rewrote the Jesus story without miracles. I'm quoting the last three verses:
| 62 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
63 There laid they Jesus 64 And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. |
No resurrection? What denomination of Christianity denies the resurrection? Any?
Thomas Paine
The son of a quaker, Thomas Paine held none of his father's beliefs. The famous pamphleteer known for his writings: Rights of Men, Age of Reason and Common Sense, Paine's influence on the Declaration of Independence is eminent and he was instrumental in the American Revolution. This founder was not at all shy in declaring his nonbelief in Christianity:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. |