It makes me think most people don't know very much about the framers at all.
Did you know that when this country was founded the catholic population was 1% of the country of 3 million or less? That means there were less than 30,000 Catholics in the whole country and they were persecuted.
Do you know why that was?
Did you know that the puritans made it a law that you had to belong to a Church. So even athiests like Thomas Pain and Ben Franklin had to belong to a Church. Even Jefferson wasn't sure what he believed and was a self proclaimed agnostic. Some of them sounded like they believed in God but never knew a sacrament in their whole lives.
People really should study up on the puritans and the Catholic persecution in this country. Some framers had noble goals for sure, but in practice they were no more holy than anyone else. There were more war mongers than anything.
They had a false praxis, if they had any, that we never have and in all honesty were far from Christ because of it.
Besides the deism and agnosticism, this country was not founded on God but on "God'S" in a spirit of pluralistic religious indifference. It would do anyone well to remember that because it explains the constant state of discord and religious indifference between the Church and State. The intent was humanistic.
I would suggest study of the Republic and other parties in the early days. They have actually reversed roles since then. This country is no more democratic than most others.
Ben was not an atheist..or at least he may have well converted ...
QUOTES:
God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country.
This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.
God helps those who help themselves.
This from
Presidential Prayer Team :
Benjamin Franklin and Providence
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?
Below are two more quotes from Franklin that express his understanding of God:
My dear friend, do not imagine that I am vain enough to ascribe our success [Revolution] to any superiority
If it had not been for the justice of our cause, and the consequent interposition of Providence [God], in which we had faith, we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an atheist, I should now have been convinced of the being and government of a Deity!
In a letter to William Strahan, August 19, 1784
I must own I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance to the welfare of millions now existing, and to exist in the posterity of a great nation, should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler.
On the impact of Independence on generations of Americans during the Constitutional Convention
Although it seems Jefferson and Paine questioned He existed - they probably found errors in the Protestant churches. And did not conform to the Puritans.
They did not necessarily deny He gave man rights either. I think they both questioned, and i also saw from Paine - he could not find truth and no one could answer his questions. Obviously living in a time when Catholicism was hated.
But had he even learned from Catholics, he could have been convinced.
Also i own a book on the martyred Saints of America.
I am not clueless entirely, but there were other forefathers - although we hear so little from or about them, only the main components are mentioned.
Words of our Christian forefathers | mangrumsNet
Did you know that 52 of the 55 signers of "The Declaration of Independence" were orthodox, deeply committed, Christians? The other three all believed in the Bible as the divine truth, the God of scripture, and His personal intervention. It is the same Congress that formed the American Bible Society,
immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of Scripture for the people of this nation.
I would like to read more on the other forefathers.
