Jefferson and the Christian superstition
February 22, 2009 by Bill
When John Kennedy was President, he gave a banquet in the White House that was without precedent. The banquet was for every living American Nobel Prize winner, with about 150 present. At the beginning of the evening, President Kennedy stood and announced he would make a toast. He said: “Never has so much talent…and so much genius…been assembled in one room…since Thomas Jefferson dined…alone.”
The author of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant philosopher, theologian, architect, linguist, scholar, statesman, scientist, musician, horticulturist, agronomist, humanist, deist and master of the civilized arts wrote this:
“I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites, to support roguery and error all over the earth.”
The Jeffersonian Bible became famous and is now in the Smithsonian. Jefferson, literally, took scissors and paste and cut out a few of the parables of Jesus that he thought had ethical value and that was his bible.
He eliminated all of the Old Testament because he found in “disgusting” and “degrading”. He eliminated the writings of Paul and the rest of the New Testament since he found the authors to be “ignorant men”. After cutting out only a few of the parables he wrote that he had, “removed a few diamonds from the dunghill.”
Founding fathers not Christian
February 15, 2009 by Bill
One of my favorite times of the year is the Presidents month of February. Why? Because it gives me an annual opportunity to make a dent in the historical and religious ignorance of the political and Christian knee jerk right wingers. They spend almost full time in perverting American history claiming that the bible and Christianity were at the foundation of this nation. What total hogwash. Once a year I get to bring a few undisputed facts to their attention.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, 1968, vol.2, p.420: “One of the embarrassing problems for the nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was the fact that NOT ONE of the first six presidents of the United States was a Christian. They were Deists.”
In Deism there is no personal God, only an impersonal “force” or “energy” or “natures God” or “providence”. In Deism, the bible is nothing but literature, and bad literature at that. Jefferson and Paine both called it “a dunghill” Others of our founders used the same language. In Deism, Jesus was nothing more than a nomadic teacher. I will now let these men speak for themselves:
GEORGE WASHINGTON: “Being no bigot, I am disposed to humor Christian ministers and the church” Looking for servants, he said: “I will be happy to have atheists, Jews, Christians or Mohammedans.” In 1831, Episcopalian minister Bird Wilson said in a sermon: “Washington is no more than a Unitarian, if anything.” Washington refused to take communion, looking upon it as superstition. He refused to ever kneel in church according to his wife and minister, James Abercrombie. The Treaty of Tripoli, under Washington, Article 11 begins: “As the government of the United States is NOT IN ANY SENSE founded on the Christian religion.” This Treaty was ratified by the senate in 1797 under Adams, without a SINGLE OBJECTION.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: Author of the Declaration of Independence. “I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children since the introduction of Christianity have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. And to support roguery and error all over the earth.”
Love… a mystery that transcends reason
February 8, 2009 by Bill
“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know…” Blaise Pascal
Thousands and thousands of years before the bible was written, or Jesus was born, love filled human hearts and dreamed of immortality. Resting gently on my mind is a vision of the dawn of humanity, perhaps on an African savannah. A scene opens before my eyes. Staring; into space over a grave, filled with flowers, a first tear flooded two eyes.
Whence came that first tear flowing out of a heart having experienced love? Whence came that first sob in the throat but from the source of love…? And today, still, the mystery of life and death, two mysteries which are yet one, remain. Life and death are equal Kings. Presidents and babes lie side by side. Kings and Peasants share the same soil. Every birth asks: “Whence came thou?” Every grave asks…”Whither goest thou?” The most unlettered person weeping over a loved one can answer the questions of this mystery equally as well as the most learned scholar in his study. For we are all equal as we stand with tears in our eyes before a loved ones grave.
The mystery of love remains. Humans have intuitively sensed, from religious mystic to philosopher…poet and musician, that it is through something we call “love” that the ultimate significance of our existence is most deeply experienced on this planet we call “Earth.”
No person, standing before this mystery, has the wisdom or the knowledge to see across the curtain. But for those who stand before their dead with aching heart and tear filled eyes, one affirmation endures…one truth remains…and one light shines clear… Where there has been love there has been Life. Its birthplace was the human heart where for thousands and thousands of years, with all peoples in all cultures, it has brought joy…built hope…been the mother of beauty…overcome fear and given a richness and significance to the living of days that otherwise would have been absent. It has been almost universal in religious mythologies that love brought order our of chaos…light out of darkness…and truth out of falsehood. Love has been the fragrance of the soul.
Valentine week is approaching with a celebration of Eros and Amor An Old Testament book is the only literature in the entire bible where Eros and Amor are celebrated and praised. To me, this omission is one of the great failures of biblical literature.
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