The neocons and the fundamentalists love to claim that the United States is a society based on "JUDEO CHRISTIAN" values and they always add that the "founding fathers" of the USA where Christian. The founding fathers are such men as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Alexander Hamilton who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were the patriots of the colonies that became the United States of America. They were the men who took part in the revolutionary war against England and King George. Not all of them were soldiers. Many were great thinkers, philosophers and writers. They were the men who conceived and installed the great US constitution that has given the USA its' freedom that has lasted until this day. The USA has survived many wars and a horrendous civil war that almost tore it apart. But because of the genius of the US constitution and its' Bill of Rights, the USA lives on. And Christianity can lay no claim as being the protector of the US constitution.
The founding fathers who were instrumental in creating and installing the US constitution as the law of the land, for the most part, were not CHRISTIANS. They were either atheistic or for the most part, they were DEISTS. A DEIST is someone who believes in a supreme creator or God of some type, but doesn't give it a name, or a sex (him/her), or a religion, or an identity or form. A DEIST just lets whatever God that may exist be and doesn't try to define it.
There were 40 men who signed the US constitution. George Washington was the leader of the country and his title was "president and deputy from Virginia." They signed it on September 17, 1787. At that time, George Washington was a General and commander in chief of the continental army and became the first President of the USA, from 1789 to 1797.
About two years after the constitution was signed, on September 25, 1789, James Madison (the "father of the constitution") put forth and proposed the first ten amendments to the constitution. They were called the "BILL OF RIGHTS." On December 15, 1791, the BILL OF RIGHTS was ratified by the States and made a part of the US constitution.
There were several founding fathers of note. They were the thinkers, the warriors, the philosophers and writers that gave rise to the constitution. They were the chosen leaders of the legislative bodies of the states that made up the first US congress.
The first leader of great virtue was the "father of the country,"George Washington. Hardly anything is known about his religious beliefs. The common record shows that he was a spiritual man and a great warrior and military commander. He as well as several other founding fathers were members of the FREEMASONS, an occult spiritualistic group whose doctrines included the belief in a supernatural God and life after death. They believed in any religion that espoused those tenants. They were considered heretics by the Christian church. The Masonic order did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God or divine. They believed in Jesus as a great teacher of truths only and rejected the miracle stories. The Freemasons practiced science and experimentation and believed in the secular doctrines of law and order.
Richard Harwell, recorded the first president's initiation and loyalty to the Masonic Lodge. On September 1, 1752, a new lodge of Masons held its first meeting in Fredericksburg and soon attracted members. Under Daniel Campbell as Master, a class of five was initiated on November 4. George Washington, one of this group, paid his initiation fee of £23s as an Entered Apprentice.
On February 4 1789, Washington was elected first president of the United States and John Adams his vice-president. The inauguration was on April 30. The oath was administered by Robert Livingston, Grand Master of New York's Grand Lodge. The marshal of the day was another Freemason, General Jacob Morton. Another Freemason, General Morgan Lewis, was Washington's escort. Washington himself at the time was Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22, Virginia.
On September 18, 1793, the cornerstone of the Capitol was officially laid. The Grand Lodge of Maryland presided over the ceremony and Washington was asked to serve as Master. Subsequently, the Capitol and the White House were each to become focal points of an elaborate geometry governing the layout of the nation's capital city. This geometry, originally devised by an architect named Pierre l'Enfant, was subsequently modified by Washington and Jefferson so as to produce specifically octagonal patterns incorporating the particular cross used as a device by Masonic Templars.
In September 18 1794, President Washington was in Washington D.C. The cornerstone of the Capitol was laid. It was a memorable affair for the Masonic Order, magnified by Washington's participation as a member. Portions of the Temple and The Lodge also confirm that Masonic ceremonies were conducted for Washington's inauguration and the laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol building:
Richard Harwell noted the Masonic funeral of George Washington in 1799.
Washington's high esteem for the Masonic Order is expressed on the Masonic National Memorial erected in his honor. Carved on the outside of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, are words from an address by General George Washington when he visited King David Lodge in Newport, Rhode Island, as follows: "Being persuaded that a just application of the principles on which the Masonic Fraternity is founded must be promotive of private virtue and public prosperity, I shall always be happy to advance the interest of the Society and to be considered by them as a Brother." In 1966,I visited the monument in Alexandria Virginia when he was stationed in Washington D.C. as a member of the US Air Force Band. It is very impressive and it sits high on a hill.
George Washington, the first president of the USA and commander of the revolutionary army (and father of the United States of America ) was never a Christian. But he did believe in the God of nature and all of the great spiritual laws of antiquity.
On December 14 1794, Alexander Hamilton submitted proposals for establishing a National Bank. Jefferson opposed them but Washington signed them through. In the middle of the reverse side of the dollar bill is a large ONE and above it is "IN GOD WE TRUST." To the left and right of the large "ONE" is the back and front of THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES. It is unmistakably Freemasonic - an all seeing eye in a triangle above a thirteen-stepped, four-sided pyramid, beneath which a scroll proclaims the advent of a 'new secular order,' (NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM) one of Freemasonry's long-standing dreams.
There are other Latin phrases on the back of the one dollar bill. Above the four sided mystic eyed pyramid is ANNUIT COEPIS. This translates as "Providence has favored our undertakings." Providence was a word the fathers used in lieu of GOD. Over the Eagle is E PLURIBUS UNUM, which translates "Out of many, one." This relates to the 13 colonies united into one nation.
The neocons love to proclaim the "IN GOD WE TRUST" on the one dollar bill as proof of the JUDEO CHRISTIAN foundations of the USA. The "In God We Trust" must be looked at in the context in which it is written. At first glance it would seem to support the neocons and their Judeo-Christian foundation for the USA. The question is, what does "God" mean? To the founders of the Republic it means nature's God, not the God of the Bible. On the American one dollar bill there is no painting of the Bible or of a cross or any mention of Jesus or Moses. The GOD of "In God we trust" is a universal concept, devoid of specific religious context. So it definitely can't be "JUDEO CHRISTIAN." It is occultic.
James Madison is known as the "father of the constitution" and the man who gave the USA the BILL OF RIGHTS. He was not a military warrior, but he was a mental warrior, a genius. He was the fourth president of the USA. He was the man who created the separation between church and state with the first amendment of the US constitution. And he was the man who made religion free and uncoercable by a meddling government.
Madison was never a church member but he did espouse to be a DEIST and in his mature years, expressed a "preference" for Unitarianism. Unitarianism actually began in the second century, at the beginning of the Christian era. A man called Arius taught that Jesus was not God, but only a man. Arius was called a heretic by the early church. Arius was the first of a long list of teachers who denied the divinity of Jesus, without being an atheist, who would face the inquisition. The teaching survives today in Unitarianism. The Unitarians believe in Science and wisdom and the virtues of all religions but don't hold much value in the myths and legends. They are what is known as the "liberals" of the church. They are only Christian in name, but not belief.
Thomas Paine was English born and in 1774 moved to the colonies under the behest of Benjamin Franklin who he met in London. Benjamin Franklin gave him a letter of introduction to help him find work and position. Franklin obviously knew genius when he saw it, because Thomas Paine became a patriot and founding father of the USA.
Thomas Paine was foremost amongst the "PAMPHLETEERS." The Pamphleteers were writers who published short political, philosophical and religious subject pamphlets that were instrumental in the formation of the ideas and concepts that were the fuel of the revolution against the tyranny of King George and the English.
Paine's "Common Sense" appeared in January 1776. The 50 page pamphlet sold more than 500,000 copies within a few months. More than any other single publication, "Common Sense" paved the way for the Declaration of Independence, unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776. "Common Sense" turned the tide of public opinion in favor of declaring independence. Paine's arguments against all forms of monarchy dissolved any lingering attachment to Great Britain.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence declaring the colonies free and independent states. Although Paine quoted Scripture to denounce the concept of monarchy, his later work, "Age of Reason", is a treatise on the implausibility of the Bible and the irrationality of Christianity. Paine believed in one God, but rejected all religions, saying: "My own mind is my own church."
He also maintained an interest in Freemasonry. His pamphlet, "Origin Of Free-Masonry," proposed that Masonry's embodiment of the sun worship of ancient Druidism was a legitimate alternative to Christianity. He notes that Freemasonry's god, "...Osiris and Isis, theologically represented the Supreme Being and universal Nature..."
One of Paine's pamphlets was "The American Crisis, Number 1," published on December 19, 1776. It opened with the famous phrase, THESE ARE THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS. When George Washington's army was on the verge of disintegration, Washington ordered the pamphlet read to all the troops at Valley Forge.
After the United States was founded, another wave of pamphleteering was caused by the proposal of a new constitution in 1787. From this material emerged THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, contributions made to the discussion of government by the revolutionary pamphleteers Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison.
Paine endured poverty and money problems even though his pamphlets sold by the hundreds of thousands. He accepted no payment for them in order that cheap editions might be widely circulated. In appreciation for his work, the State of New York gave him a farm in New Rochelle New York where he lived and pursued his interests in writing and scientific exploration.
Paine went to France and continued to publish and to support the French Revolution. In France, Paine hailed the abolition of the monarchy but deplored the terror against the royalists and tried unsuccessfully to save the life of King Louis XVI, favoring banishment rather than execution. He was to pay for his efforts to save the King's life when the radicals under Robespierre took power. Paine was imprisoned from December 28, 1793, to November 4, 1794, when, with the fall of Robespierre, he was released and, though seriously ill, readmitted to the National Convention.
Paine remained in France until September 1, 1802, when he sailed for the United States. He quickly discovered that his services to the country had been all but forgotten and that he was widely regarded only as the world's greatest infidel. Despite his poverty and his physical condition, worsened by occasional drunkenness, Paine continued his attacks on privilege and religious superstitions. He died in New York City in 1809 and was buried at his Farm. At Paine's death, most US newspapers reprinted the obituary notice from the "New York Citizen", which read in part: "He had lived long, did some good and much harm." This remained the verdict of history for more than a century following his death. On January 30, 1937, THE TIMES OF LONDON referred to him as "THE ENGLISH VOLTAIRE." On May 18, 1952, Paine's bust was placed in the New York University Hall of Fame.
The reason for Paine being called an "infidel" despite his valiant patriotism and brilliant patriotic and stirring pamphlets and writings, was because Paine attacked religion. But his thinking and writings were instrumental in the formation of the US constitution and the rights of all. He was no Christian. He expressed a belief in a God, but he was a DEIST and he opposed organized religion (Churchianity) by writing scathing pamphlets about the religion. This all cumulated in a general hatred towards him by the majority of citizens that were "Christian" regardless of his great work for the new Republic.
On December 8 1730, Benjamin Franklin printed in his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, the first documented notice about Freemasonry in North America. Franklin's article, which consisted of a general account of Freemasonry, was prefaced by the statement that "there are several Lodges of FREE MASONS erected in this Province."
Franklin himself became a Freemason in February 1731, and Provincial Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1734. That same year, he ushered into print the first Freemasonic book to be published in America, an edition of Dr. Anderson's "Constitutions" which was the Bible for English Freemasonry. It enunciates what were to become some of the basic tenets of the Grand Lodge, such as: "tis now thought more expedient only to oblige (Masons) to that Religion to which all men agree." And, "A Mason is obliged by his tenure to obey the Moral Law."
The occultish leanings of the Freemason's is exemplified in Dr. Anderson's 1738 edition: "As a true Noachida, the only religious laws which a Freemason is required to obey are those which are contained in the code that has been attributed to Noah." This sentiment is still further expressed toward the close of the 'Old Charges' where it is said that the Mason is obliged only "to that religion in which all men agree, therefore excluding atheism and requiring the observance of such simple laws of morality as are enjoined in the precepts of Noah."
Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, wrote the Declaration of Independence, which opens with a statement of rights deriving, not from the God of the Bible, but Nature's God and the Natural Law.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
In The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus, Jefferson describes his views of Jesus Christ, the Christian religion, and his own religious beliefs. In a Syllabus which he appended to his Bible, he compared the teachings of Jesus to those of the earlier Greek and Roman philosophers, and to the religion of the Jews of Jesus' time. The following excerpt is from a letter discussing the Syllabus. Of significance is his statement, "...(Jesus) preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require counterpoise of good works to redeem it..."
"But while this syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in its true and high light, as no impostor Himself, but a great Reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with Him in all His doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require counterpoise of good works to redeem it, etc., etc. It is the innocence of His character, the purity and sublimity of His moral precepts, the eloquence of His inculcations, the beauty of the apologues in which He conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes, indeed, needing indulgence to eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies, too, may be founded on a postulate which all may not be ready to grant. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to Him by His biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same Being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to Him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of His disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of His doctrines, led me to try to sift them apart. I found the work obvious and easy, and that His past composed the most beautiful morsel of morality which has been given to us by man. The syllabus is therefore of His doctrines, not all of mine. I read them as I do those of other ancient and modern moralists, with a mixture of approbation and dissent..." - THOMAS JEFFERSON
These words from the man, Thomas Jefferson the third president, clearly reveal his true metaphysical beliefs. No matter how hard the neocons try to represent Jefferson as a "Christian," they fail when the truth about Jefferson's metaphysics are known. Thomas Jefferson was definitely not a CHRISTIAN!
The most amazing thing about the founders of the Republic and their Deistic beliefs, was that they did not have the advantage of modern scientific discoveries as modern Deists have. Today, Deists have vast knowledge compared to the founder's knowledge. Modern science has totally debunked the Bible beyond opinion or theories. The founders had only their reasoning powers and logic. It shows what geniuses they were.
I have reformatted "Jefferson's Bible." In its' original form, each sentence was given a number (like the verses in the Bible). Jefferson did that so that when his version of the scriptures were discussed or taught, the verse numbers helped greatly in the process. I have chosen to leave them out.
Here is an example of the original form:
45 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 46 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
Now learn a parable from the fig tree; When its branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 48 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that he is near, even at the doors. 49 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
Notice verse 46. Jefferson leaves out two following verses that are in the original New Testament. (30) And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (31) And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Jefferson edits out the apocalyptic visionary aspects of the scripture. He rejects the miraculous in favor of the ethics and morals and high thinking of the scripture.
To prove that Jefferson was no Christian believer, one has to just go to the last verses of the Bible - Revelation 22: 18-19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
If Jefferson was a Bible believing Christian, the following JEFFERSON BIBLE would never have been published. Jefferson did not believe in the Bible or Jesus. He believed how he wanted to believe and that is how the founding fathers who created the US constitution of the Republic believed - they thought for themselves. And when one considers that these men lived over 200 years ago, one can only bow down to their greatness.