June 30, 2005

The Statesman v. Thomas Jefferson

Posted by Adam Graham in : Daily Response, the

In today’s Statesman, there was an editorial on the Ten Commandments monument. The Statesman of course is sticking to its guns in opposing the monument:

“Government did not give us our rights,” the Rev. Bryan Fischer, coalition co-director and senior pastor at Boise’s Community Church of the Valley, said Tuesday. “God gave us our rights. That is the foundation of our government in the United States.”

Separation of church and state is one of America’s most precious freedoms.

So, they’re taking issue with Pastor Fischer’s view on rights coming from God? Lets go to the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Guess what? Jefferson said our rights came from God. Now, let me stop here, because our good friend, Radical Russ is going to tell us that the founders, particularly Jefferson was a Deist and that it was a deistic God. Those who go around saying the founders are deists haven’t looked the term up in the dictionary. Take a look at this definion of “deism” from Dictionary.com

The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

So, lets go further down in the Declaration of Independence:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in general Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions…

If God left the world alone, after creating it, why are you appealing to Him? Doesn’t make sense, unless the Founders weren’t deists.

How about Thomas Paine, lets take a look at The America Crisis

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent.

Wait, Mr. Paine, if God abandonned the world, then he doesn’t really have a choice about it, does he? Unless, Thomas Paine wasn’t a true deists.

What about Benjamin Franklin? Lets take a look at his speech calling for prayer at the Constitutional Convention calling for prayer

I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that “except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a bye word down to future age.

How can God govern in the affairs of men if he abandonned the world? Perhaps, Dr. Franklin wasn’t a true deist.

Finally, Mr. Thomas Jefferson speaking for himself (and not a committee as he was when he wrote the Declaration of Independence:

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

Wait, why tremble if God’s abandonned the world. Maybe Jefferson wasn’t a true deist, either.

All of the founders were more likely non-religious theists, which is defined as:

Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world.

Its clear that no one really believed in the absentee landlord that modern deists speak of.

2 Comments

  1. Comment by "Radical" Russ [Visitor]

    Well, I’d hate to disappoint anyone by not chiming in.

    *chime*

    I have to quibble with your Dictionary.com definition of Deism. Beliefs are what the believers say they are, not the dictionary. Let’s ask the actual Deists at Deism.com:

    Deism is defined in Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1941, as: “[From Latin Deus, God.Deity] The doctrine or creed of a Deist.” And Deist is defined in the same dictionary as: “One who believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason.”

    Revelation, or revealed religion, is defined in Webster’s New World Dictionary as: “God’s disclosure to man of Himself.” This should read, “God’s alleged disclosure to man of himself.” For unless God reveals to each of us individually that a particular religion is truly His disclosure to us of Himself, then, by believing that religion, we are not taking His word for it, but we are instead putting our belief in the person or institution telling us it is so. This is what we are doing when we believe in any revealed religion, and that’s all Christianity is. It’s a revealed religion like many others such as Islam and Judaism.

    This would be the part where I cut and paste twenty-seven-odd quotes from each of the Founders showing that they were assuredly not Christians and their belief in God was the Enlightenment view of God, that of a master Creator Who is best understood through reason and scientific study of His Creations. Then you cut and paste a bunch of stuff from other sources and we go round and round again.

    I love ya, Adam. You’re consistent and passionate and you truly believe your historical revisionism… just like me ;)

    But in the spirit of compromise, let’s set up a monument and “make it Constitutional” like Brandi says. We’ll make a semicircle of equally-sized monuments to every major religion to celebrate the historical significance of religion in American life. The Ten Commandments can be right between the Mormon Articles of Faith (there’s your Idaho history) and some sort of “there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger” Islamic monument.

    We’ll have a totem pole and a mini-Stonehenge and a Vishnu statuette and a fat li’l Buddha, and so much more, with no one monument given any more precedence than the other. We should also put up some atheistic secular liberal stuff too, like that UN Declaration of Human Rights and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’m sure you can help me think of some others.

    Then, for added effect, on the reverse side of eack monument we have a little plaque detailing all of the atrocities throughout history perpetrated by the followers of each religion in the name of their God. You know, just to illustrate the historical aspects, so we can “keep it Constitutional”. Though some of the plaques may have to be much larger than the others.

    This fetishism over the Ten Commandments really amuses me. Oh, sure, we could put all that time and effort into doing something important, like getting VA funding for the troops we’re supporting, or bringing attention to the genocide in the Sudan, or increasing research and funding to fight global AIDS, or, I don’t know, some other thing that Christ might do. But arguing over the opinions of 200-years dead men regarding the placement of a big rock with Bible verses on it is far more critical. Because without those Scriptures on a rock in a park, people might be forced to actually look them up in a Bible or go to a church to learn more. If we return the Commandments, perhaps we can save the next picnickers from a life of murder, coveting, and working on Sundays.

    Maybe I should just give in. Have your little fetish rock. After all, it stood there since 1965, and yet still Clinton got elected twice, Desperate Housewives made it to #1, crime still happened, and overall church attendance is down. I mean, since we own Hollywood and the media and the courts, it’s the least we could give you.

  2. Comment by "Radical" Russ [Visitor]

    Oh, just found this at Deists.com, too:

    Do Deists believe that God created the creation and the world and then just stepped back from it?

    Some Deists do and some believe God may intervene in human affairs. For example, when George Washington was faced with either a very risky evacuation of the American troops from Long Island or surrendering them he chose the more risky evacuation. When questioned about the possibility of having them annihilated he said it was the best he could do and the rest is up to Providence.

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