Thomas Jefferson - A man for all ages!

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It may be due to the fact that Jefferson didn't believe religion should be mixed with govt. and a lot of the new curriculum is trying to do the opposite. I love reading the quotes of our founding fathers, I wish more people would read them and not spout off stuff about "our founding fathers" that isn't true.


Some of my favorites of his quotes:
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law."
-letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814



Ben Franklin was the same.
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

"In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."

He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.

I'm related to Abraham Lincoln, and while not a founding father, I love a lot of quotes from him as well.
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
 
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Are you for real???????????
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Yep! It's true! They're replacing him with some guy named Calvin.

Interestingly, I found this quote by Jefferson about Calvin:

"The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.
1. That there are three Gods.
2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, is nothing.
3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit the faith.
4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be darn; and that no crimes of the former can darn them; no virtues of the latter save."
- to Benjamin Waterhouse, Jun. 26, 1822
 
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Hello HappyMtn. I have to strongly disagree that these quotes are somehow outdated, non-applicable to today because the situation is not verbatim. There is a lot of junk in life that changes with time, but there are core truths to existence on this planted that will never, in one gazillion years, change. These are the truths that we are founded on - that everyone, EVERYONE is born equal, with GOD given right to seek out their own destiny, their own way in this life. That government will always attract power thirsty individuals, and that power corrupts even the best, therefor a system of government was created that empowered the people and limited the power of the politicians. The struggle between the founders and Britain is not anything unique - it's the same story a thousand times throughout history; humans in power trying to own the humans not in power - tyranny. History is where we learn from the struggles of those who came before us so that we do not have to relive their pain, so that their efforts for our freedoms are not wasted on an ignorant recipient. The reason that these quotes are so beloved, the reason that the founding documents are clung to with such fervor, is because they have proven themselves to be the blue prints to freedom. They warn us of the dangers of Tyranny - a threat that is as real and present in this moment in time and in this place in time, as it has ever been anywhere in this world. The path has been trod before us from freedom to slavery and we need to understand how this pattern just repeats itself over and over again. Human nature is the same, the dangers are the same, the path the same, THE SOLUTION IS THE SAME. The history of America shows us the path to freedom.
As to the hypocrisy of slavery during the founding of a Nation based upon freedom for all - yes. I have read so many pages from our founders where they rail against slavery, they tremble at the evil of it, but they did not know how to abolish it, or even live without it. They did, however, recognize, that the founding of a free nation and the abolishment of slavery, would have to be two separate fights - they would have to win the one first if the second was ever to have any hope. And they had the enslaved in mind when they were developing this system of government - it is evident over and over again in their writings and in their arguments, that they were fighting to enact a system of government that would only flourish if the practice of slavery was abolished forever. Did you know that the phrase "pursuit of happiness" was originally "pursuit of property" but was changed in large part because slaves were considered to be property at the time and the founders were struggling to avoid anything that would empower the practice, and were fighting to infuse the documents with freedom for all. This is just one example. And many of our founders , Jefferson included, spent decades fighting to abolish slavery. It is our founding documents and the principals of our nation that led to the eventual freedom of all. Now, I fear that if we do not listen to the words of warning from those who went before us, we are going to march ourselves right back into a government of slavery.

You quoted the Declaration of Independence for the "god given rights", that is NOT a legal document for this country, it is a historical document, NOT legal.

From the Website Free Thought:
When the Founders wrote the nation's Constitution, they specified that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." (Article 6, section 3) This provision was radical in its day-- giving equal citizenship to believers and non-believers alike. They wanted to ensure that no single religion could make the claim of being the official, national religion, such as England had. Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention religion, except in exclusionary terms. The words "Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, and God" are never mentioned in the Constitution-- not once.

The Declaration of Independence gives us important insight into the opinions of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the power of the government is derived from the governed. Up until that time, it was claimed that kings ruled nations by the authority of God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea of divine authority.

The 1796 treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "in no sense founded on the Christian religion" . This was not an idle statement, meant to satisfy muslims-- they believed it and meant it. This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams.
 
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SA, you forgot:

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear".
 
Among Jefferson's great contributions to this nation, I believe his decision, against the advice of some of his advisers, to not start a civil war when Adams won their first presidential contest but instead to wait until the next election may have been his greatest. What a precedent!

Jefferson has always been a favorite of mine.
 
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies soley between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions." Thomas Jefferson, Jan 1, 1802

I love the declaration of Independence, and do not apologize for borrowing from it in my response. Why do you claim that I am painting Jefferson as a worshiper of the God of the Bible? As was stated earlier, he seems to have been something of a Deist, so I do not know what god he thanks for endowing us all with rights, but that is the bedrock of our founding, that we are all endowed with these basic, crucial rights and no one can take these from us or we will be overtaken by tyranny again. I worship the God of the Bible. I believe He is strong enough and wise enough to touch the hearts and minds of people and bring them home to Him without needing a government to mandate anything on His behalf . You and I would be standing side by side, I suspect, in fighting any entity that would try to enforce a religious system on a people.


By the way, your web-site is awesome! Very unique.

ooops, I forgot to include the quote from Shared Acres that I'm responding to......... Guess I got a bit ahead of myself there.....
 
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Thomas Jefferson is freaking awesome. He's one of my heroes, along with Generals Lee, Jackson, Forrest, and Stuart. Is it just me, or is Virginia a hotbed of great defenders of liberty?

And I agree, this thread is quite timely... I have no doubt that Jefferson would have gotten together with the other Founders (except Hamilton. Yuck.) and formed yet another new country by now. Of course, today Jefferson and co. would be called anarchist, extremist, etc. I miss the Founders' common sense.
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By the way, my two real issues with Jefferson are these: He was a Deist, and he owned slaves. However, they really couldn't just ABOLISH slavery right off the bat, as that would cause absolute chaos. Virginia, in the mid-1800s, nearly passed a compensated emancipation bill, but Nat Turner's rebellion killed that. Also, before Independence, Virginia tried on no less than TWENTY-EIGHT occasions to shut down the slave trade.

May the South rise again.
 
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