Grey,

Apparently, Grey’s anatomy is very selective. I did not state that atheist thinkers had little to do with democracy. I said many were deists and liberal Christians.

Please desist from this continual misrepresentation of my words. It is not my fault you a frightened of dying or wish for eternal bliss. Take it out on those responsible for your condition.

Accepting for the moment that Jefferson penned the draft copy of the American Declaration of Independence, in a letter to Adams he wrote:

“To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise.”

And, a later letter by Jefferson stated: “And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter”

Moreover, let’s not forget the words of Reverend Bird Wilson of that time, who stated:

“…the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity.”

I said: “…a fledgling democracy took hold.” I did not say it was the only attempt but it was the one setting the stage for other democracies to follow.

It was people escaping from European Judeo/Christian cultures of many flavours, which created America and democracy.

The imagined existence of a god premises your worldview, or does your website falsely represent you.

What proof would I need demonstrating the existence of a god, you ask? I suppose, as with everything else, evidence where the highest probability showed that to be an accurate interpretation. However, since it is claim beyond natural occurrence, the evidence would have to be extraordinary. Not non-existent.

David

David, my most sincere apologies at misunderstanding you once again. It is not my intention to misrepresent, merely to understand and respond. I'm a little confused by what you are trying to say when you said
"Religions are not democracies nor have they been at the forefront of promoting such a system of governance. For 1700 years, with quite some time of that in near complete power, they did not suggest its introduction. It was the enlightenment, which successfully introduced the ideal of democracy. This was the moment in history where the Church and its dogma came under intense investigation."
and then
"“…you claim Democracy came from the atheistic enlightenment.” I did not state that, although many of the thinkers were deists and liberal Christians. As you would know, to proclaim an atheist stance in those days was not a beneficial action, as it is still not in the USA today. Deist then, the rational ones, that is, would be atheist today."

Clearly, if the thinkers of the day were not atheists, then atheistic thought did not influence the creation of democracy and clearly religious thought did indeed suggest the introduction of democracy throughout the 1400 hundred years (not 1700) of time (as you later admitted when the cases of England, scandanavia and switzerland were raised).

Perhaps you can disavow me of my misunderstandings and highlight which atheistic thinkers had anything to do with the framing and writing of the declaration of independence and constitutions of the united states or perhaps clarify what you really meant in the first paragraph quoted above.

cont next post...

cont...
Now as to your Jefferson quotes. I am a little concerned that you are not using the full context of the letters, which are available at the following links
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_jadms.html
http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/53/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_John_Adams_1.html
Any reading of the full letter makes it clear that Jefferson believed in the Christian God, but considered many theologies (e.g. immaculate conception, calvinism etc) as false. As the 1923 letter has Jefferson saying "The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknolege and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world;"

So perhaps you should be more careful in accurately representing quotes from Jefferson with their proper context. I would suggest not simply accepting quotes from atheistic 'cliff notes' and instead doing the research yourself would be helpful in this regard.

As for Washington, in his personal correpsondence to Brig General Thomas Nelson 1778 he wrote "The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations." or perhaps the testimony of someone a little closer to Washington, his adopted daughter,Nelly Custis-Lewis, who lived with him for 20 years who said "I should have thought it the greatest heresy to doubt his firm belief in Christianity."

P.s. I am a little confused as to your answer to my question about what makes a warranted belief. I wasn't just referring to belief in God, but belief in general, as I would assume that you had a level playing field and weighed all evidence fairly, as that would be the rational thing to do.

It is quite amusing, Grey, how you strive to present yourself as some kind of intellectual, complete with fancy words and long sentences, but fail at the really simple things.

Like using words correctly. And thinking straight.

>>Perhaps you can disavow me of my misunderstandings and highlight which atheistic thinkers had anything to do with the framing and writing of the declaration of independence and constitutions of the united states<<

The word you were scrabbling for, Grey, was disabuse, not disavow.

disavow v. trans. to deny responsibility for, to refuse to acknowledge or accept

disabuse v. trans To set free from mistakes; to undeceive; to disengage from fallacy or deception

The answer of course is to only use words whose meaning you understand.

But these somewhat captious carpings aside, you make the assumption that it is axiomatic that an atheist would allow their atheism to somehow manifest itself in their input to the constitution.

It is not at all necessary to assume this.

My atheism, for example, quite happily allows me to i) recognize that some people need religion to make their life decisions for them, ii) accept that religious people are entitled to their view, and to the activities that they choose in order to indulge their belief and iii) understand that when framing laws, ordinances or constitutions, it is perfectly consistent with that atheism, to accommodate the particular requirements of religious people.

I see no harm, for example, in the fact that some folk choose in court to swear an oath on their chosen Book. Further, I see absolutely no necessity to deny them this right.

That's the fundamental difference between the religious and the atheist. The fact that we don't believe in a supreme being does not in any way require us to insist that the trappings of religion should disappear overnight.

Most of us understand that it will take a few more generations of enlightenment (no capital 'E') for folk to realize they are staring into an empty space, and to wean themselves off their dependency.

Grey,

The arguments surrounding the ‘founding fathers’ and their supernatural beliefs are not as simple as your seem to think. To quote and counter quote can be endless. However, it is reasonably sure that Jefferson was a deist as were others and that is the reason for Reverend Bird Wilson saying so.

That which muddies the waters is the various brands of Christianity then (And now) all claiming to be the true Christians, as do you. This self-pronunciation makes all others non-True Christian and your website contains an extensive list of those folk.

Claiming atheism as a worldview did not help careers back then, as it does not in some places now.

Even Thomas Paine, who penned, ‘The Age of Reason’ was opposed to atheism. However, because he was deist, a common accusation was that he was an atheist. Most people rejecting Christianity then were deists. Remember also, this was a time in history before the discovery of Natural Selection.

Deism is one of the antecedents of the atheism many of us enjoy today. The proof of this is that deism has lost popularity. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that many deists of yesteryear would be atheists today.

Deism hides behind the fact that the universe must have a supernatural first cause. Because of religious influences down through history, they reject Christianity, as it is unproven, but retain the spooky part. Atheists reject the spooky part.

David

David, sorry for the delay...work has a way of taking up a lot of time.

I find it unusual that you say that the beliefs of the 'founding fathers' are not simple, but then affirm with surety that Jefferson was a deist. To be honest, I have no idea who the Reverend Bird Wilson was and whether his pronouncements are trustworthy. For all I know he could have been that days equivalent of Pat Robertson. What we do have are the letters and writings of Jefferson, which are much better guides to his thoughts.

One thing that is important to remember is that a persons beliefs are not constant all of their lives. So a later writing may be a shift in ideas of the person from the former and should not necessarily be read back into the entire life of the writer. Other than that, it is pretty straight forward when you interpret writings, where straight forward statements are used to restrict the possible explanations for less clear statements.

That you quoted Jefferson out of the context of the full letter is an example of bad interpretation of his writing. Jefferson's earlier writings (and indeed his funding and efforts of evangelism) clearly show his non-deistic beliefs. I think you also seem to have a very simplistic notion of Christian theology. (I'd also appreciate you not misrepresent my statements. I have nowhere on my website where I extensively list non-True Christian variants)

Arguing that the founding fathers, the men who were willing to die for their beliefs, were somehow cowed into not being atheists seems somewhat self-serving. Even so for other 'enlightenment' thinkers whose essential goal was to put forward controversial beliefs to make a name for themselves (Hume comes to mind) Your 'proof' is a somewhat soft and simplistic view of the history of belief. Note also that noted atheist moved from his Atheistic belief to Deism.

It is also somewhat strange that you try to place the discovery of natural selection after this period (as writings clearly show it to at least have been around from 1794)