But that would be deceit, for Washington never disclosed his imagined disbelief.
Washington didn't disbelieve. He believed in a deity. He was a deist. As were many at that time and place. For one thing they didn't have the concept of evolution or abiogenesis or the Big Bang to explain how the universe and life got here. They had no other recourse but to imagine a deity. But there were many who did not believe that Jesus was divine. Jefferson chief among them. Those that did not believe still went to church, still participated in prayer to a god. They just weren't... "Christian". That's why the Freemasons don't require that you are Christian, simply that you admit the existence of a higher power.
You are the one calling it deceit. At the time people simply called it more or lesser amounts of faith. Again, you're measuring the actions of people from another time with a measuring stick from today. That's not valid.
Law of non contradiction: disclosing and not disclosing are not the same thing.
You also misrepresent Jefferson. He claimed to be a Christian, and atheist would surely consider him one had he murdered even half a million. They want to claim him, but he was actually born one day too late.
Read the Jefferson Bible sometime. I don't misrepresent him at all.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands are attacking Washington and others for various motives. Under non-moral systems, lying is not a sin. According to Christianity it is.
Stating facts is not attacking someone.
You may disregard the evidence I've presented. Your reputation will fall with some and rise with others. Probably not dramatically.
The evidence you've presented falls in line with a deist attending Christian church.
I believe what the evidence indicates.
You believe what you want to believe. Nothing more, nothing less.
There is no evidence - none beyond 3rd hand hearsay and speculation - that Washington was not what all the good, solid evidence indicates he was.
Washington was a deist. He was never anything else until you came along spouting that he was a Christian. He never took communion. He prayed but not to Jesus, to his god. I'm sorry... you can try to mangle the facts all you wish but George Washington was a deist as were many of his brethren.
You have a burden of proof to meet, if anyone is even to question the issue. We all know you have no hope.
All right. Let's go to the man himself. Washington's diaries are published in four volumes.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/franklin_steiner/presidents.html
We will divide the Diary into four periods, using only such years as are complete. First, before the Revolution; second, after the Revolution; third, while he was President, and fourth, after his second term as ended. During the Revolution he discontinued the Diary. We find in 1768 that he went to church 15 times, in 1769, 10 times, in 1770, nine times, in 1771, six times, and the same number in 1772. In 1773, he went five times, while in 1774 he went 18 times, his banner year outside of the Presidency. During this year he was two months at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where he was in church six times, three times to the Episcopal, once to Romish high mass, once to a Quaker meeting and once to a Presbyterian. In 1784, after the Revolution, he was in the West a long time looking after his land interests, so we will omit this year. In 1785 he attended church just once, but spent many of his Sundays in wholly "secular" pursuits. In 1786 he went once.
These last two year's he was so busy with the work on his farm and other business affairs that he seems to have forgotten the Church almost entirely. In 1787 he went three times. This was the year he was present at and presided over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. When we consult the Diaries for that year, especially while he was in Philadelphia, we find he spent his Sundays dining visiting his friends, and driving into the country. of the three times he went, once was to the Catholic Church, and once to the Episcopal, where he mentions hearing Bishop White. In 1788, he attended church once. The Diaries deal many hard blows to the mythical Washington, above all to the myth that he went regularly to church.
In 1789, he became President, during which time the Diary is incomplete, and it is impossible to account for all the Sundays. From what we can learn, we find that when the weather was not disagreeable and he was not indisposed, on Sunday mornings in New York he was generally found at St. Paul's Chapel or Trinity. In Philadelphia he attended either Christ Church, presided over by Bishop White, or St. Peter's, where the Rev. Dr. Abercrombie officiated. This was to be expected. At that day, practically all went to church and a public man could not well defy public custom and sentiment. Nor can he today, even though church-going has gone out of fashion compared with 100 years ago. Washington spent his Sunday afternoons while President writing private letters and attending to his own business affairs. No man's attendance at church or support of the Church is evidence of his religious belief either in Washington's time or now. Any honest minister will admit this. After Washington retired from the Presidency his own master, and free from criticism, he went to church as few times as possible, for in 1797 he attended four times, in 1798, once, and in 1799, the year of his death, twice. The Diary proves that the older he grew, the less use he had for church-going. And only twice in the Diary does he ever comment upon the sermon; once, when he called it "a lame discourse," and again when he said it was in German and he could not understand it. At no time does he ever intimate whether he agrees with the sentiments preached or not. This is significant.
That Washington was a vestryman has no special significance religiously. In Virginia, this office was also political. The vestry managed the civil affairs of the parish, among others, the assessment of taxes. Being the largest property holder in the parish, Washington could hardly afford not to be a vestryman, which office he would have to hold before he could become a member of the House of Burgesses. Thomas Jefferson, a pronounced unbeliever, was also a vestryman, and for the same reasons. General A.W. Greeley once said, in 'The Ladies Home Journal,' that in that day "it required no more religion to be a vestryman than it did to sail a ship." It is remarkable, after the civil functions of the vestry were abolished in Virginia, in 1780, how few times Washington attended church. He no longer had a business reason for going.
How about your painting...? The scene was laid in Valley Forge, in the winter of 1777-78, while Washington's army was in winter quarters, suffering from hunger, nakedness and cold, when many had abandoned all hope of success. There, Isaac Potts, a Quaker, at whose house Washington is said to have had his headquarters, when walking in the woods on a cold winter day,
saw Washington on his knees in the snow engaged in prayer, his hat off and his horse tied to a sapling.
This story was first told by our old acquaintance, Weems, the great protagonist of Washington mythology, He does not give his authority for telling it, but others have added to the account.
According to Weems, Potts accidentally finds Washington at prayer. Being attracted by a sound in "a venerable grove," he looks into it and finds him pouring forth his soul to God, his countenance being of "angelic serenity," these two expressions being added to give a dramatic and romantic effect. Weems makes Potts a patriot, who, after watching Washington's struggle with the Almighty, rushes into his house with great glee, and shouts to his wife, "Sarah! My dear Sarah! all's well! all's well! George Washington will yet prevail!" telling her what he had seen. According to the story as told by the Rev. Mr. M'Guire, Potts was a Tory, as most Quakers were, and he makes him say to his wife, not calling her by any Christian name, "Our cause is lost." He seemed to think the revolutionary conflict would be settled by Washington's prayer. Instead of Potts's coming upon Washington suddenly, hearing a sound in the grove, and upon investigating finding the Commander-in-Chief at his orisons, as told by Weems, M'Guire makes him follow the General for some time to see where he was going and what he was going to do, when, lo, he saw him get down on his knees in the snow and pray. According to the Snowden account, Potts's wife's name was not Sarah, but Betty. He represents him as now willing to support the cause of America, does not tell what his views were previously. The prayer causing the Quaker to change from a Tory to a patriot was no doubt the work of some later artist who wished the fable to be more effective.
The Rev. M.J. Savage says:
"
The pictures that represent him on his knees in the winter forest at Valley Forge are even silly caricatures. Washington was at least not sentimental, and he had nothing about him of the Pharisee that displays his religion at street corners or out in the woods in the sight of observers, of observers, or where his portrait could be taken by 'our special artist!'"
Benson J. Lossing, in his 'Field Book of the Revolution' (vol. 2, p. 336), also gives an account of this historical prayer, but does not mention the source from which he obtained it. Like Weems, he tells that Potts was attracted by a noise in the grove, but while none of the other chroniclers say anything about Washington's having a horse, Lossing speaks of "his horse tied to a sapling," and instead of the General's face being a "countenance of angelic serenity," he says it was "suffused with tears." A reasonable question to ask is, "Can there be found any evidence that Washington was a 'praying man?"
Bishop White, whose church he attended on and off for 25 years in Philadelphia, says he never saw him on his knees in church. This ought to settle the question. If he did not kneel in church, who will believe that he did so on the ground, covered with snow, with his hat off, when the thermometer, was probably below zero?
As further proof that the story is fictitious, there is reason to believe that Isaac Potts did not live in Valley Forge at the time Washington's army was there, in the winter of 1777-1778. Mr. Myers of the Valley Forge Park Commission, recently admitted this.
That Potts did not own the house at the time is established by Washington's account book, where it is proved that the rent for headquarters was paid to Mrs. Deborah Hawes, and the receipts were made out in her name. Potts bought the house when the war was over.
But it is not likely that the Valley Forge prayer story will die soon. It is too good a "property" to abandon, for the Rev. W. Herbert Burk, the Valley Forge rector, is working hard to erect a million dollar church to commemorate it. He also stands sponsor for the prayer in St. Paul's Chapel in New York City. Bishop Warburton once said: "A lie has no legs and cannot stand, but it has wings and can fly far and wide."
from here.
You may not like what you read. But it's mostly his own words. Lastly, I leave you with this:
Among the addresses sent to Washington when he became President was one from the First Presbytery of the Eastward, which objected to the new Constitution because it did not recognize God and the Christian religion, in these words: "We should not have been alone in rejoicing to have seen some explicit acknowledgement of the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent, inserted somewhere in the Magna Charta of our country." To this, Washington replied:
"The path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. ... In the progress of morality and science, to which our government will give every furtherance, we may confidently expect the advancement of true religion and the completion of our happiness."