The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation.

[logician]

No, I'm not saying they are, but the quote you used implies him to be more of a theist or at least deist. That's all.



They were politicians. Sometimes, lies are good for the greater good. I'm not claiming that they were liars, but there is some evidence for it.

So your claim is that the founding father were liars, and that the U.S. was founded based upon Christianity?

 

[Magic Man]

So your claim is that the founding father were liars, and that the U.S. was founded based upon Christianity?

Nope.

 

[lilithu]

Sorry, Einstein was a de facto atheist:

following are his quotes:

"
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.This is somewhat of a new kind of religion.

I have never implied to nature a purpose or a goal or anything that could be understood to be antropomorphic. What I see in nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very umperfectly , and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

But I prefer not to call myself religious because it is misleading. It is destructively misleading because for the vast majority of people, 'religion' implies 'supernatural'.

The idea of a personal god to me is quite alien to me and seems even naive."

As Dawkins has put it

"By "religion", Einstein meant something entirely different than what is conventionally eant."

BTW, our founding fathers can best be termed "secularists", who believed that the religious opinions(or lack thereof) of a president (or any other office) was entirely that person's own business.

You're too funny. He's quite clearly not a believer in an anthropomorphic god. He does not believe in that god. It doesn't matter that Einstein meant something different than the traditional meaning. Lots of people don't believe in the traditional meaning. It does not make him an atheist, and that is my point.

 

[logician]

You're too funny. He's quite clearly not a believer in an anthropomorphic god. He does not believe in that god. It doesn't matter that Einstein meant something different than the traditional meaning. Lots of people don't believe in the traditional meaning. It does not make him an atheist, and that is my point.

Sprry, but he definitely was NOT a pantheist, or a theist period, as is evident from his quotes.

 

[logician]

Nope.

Well, we got that out of the way.

 

[lilithu]

No, I'm not saying they are, but the quote you used implies him to be more of a theist or at least deist. That's all.

They were politicians. Sometimes, lies are good for the greater good. I'm not claiming that they were liars, but there is some evidence for it.

So your claim is that the founding father were liars, and that the U.S. was founded based upon Christianity?

Dude, you are picking a fight with someone who is mostly on your side. :areyoucra

 

[lilithu]

Sprry, but he definitely was NOT a pantheist, or a theist period, as is evident from his quotes.

As I said several posts ago, Einstein was a panentheist. (Tho I don't see why you're so sure he wasn't a pantheist.) And as I've said more than once in this thread, if by "theist" you mean classical theist, then no, he was definitely not a classical theist. When I use the word "theist" I mean anyone who accepts some type of concept of God. And by that definition he was a theist. At any rate, he was NOT an atheist. All you've proven is that he rejected the classical anthropomorphic omnipotent king/judge concept of God, something that was never in dispute.

 

[Charity]

One of the major problems is that so many people feel it's their duty to "correct" the sanity of the founders.

Thank you for your attention to my quote.......It was very stimulating :sleep:

 

[Magic Man]

Dude, you are picking a fight with someone who is mostly on your side. :areyoucra

To be honest, I wouldn't say I'm on either side. I can see evidence for both.

 

[lilithu]

To be honest, I wouldn't say I'm on either side. I can see evidence for both.

Cool. I certainly recognize and appreciate that you are less strident and more open to discussion.

But in the context of your statement to which logician was responding, you were actually arguing against the Fathers being Christian, even if there was evidence.

 

[Magic Man]

Cool. I certainly recognize and appreciate that you are less strident and more open to discussion.

But in the context of your statement to which logician was responding, you were actually arguing against the Fathers being Christian, even if there was evidence.

That's what I'm saying, though. In this case I would consider myself agnostic. It seems to me that there's evidence that points to some of the Fathers being Christian, and to them not being Christian, and to them being outwardly Christian, etc. I don't have any strict conclusions about it, though.

If I seem to be arguing one way, it's mostly to make sure that particular viewpoint doesn't get lost and overlooked, not saying that it is the only way to look at it.

I do see what you mean, though, about him arguing with me about a point that seemed to be upholding his.

 

[Smoke]

I'm not sure exactly how Einstein's opinions about god are relevant to the question of whether the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, but whatever god he may have believed in, it was certainly not the Abrahamic god. He was quite clear that he didn't believe in a personal god, an anthropomorphic god, or a god who intervened in the world or answered prayers. He did use the word "God" from time to time -- so did Khrushchev, as far as that goes -- but the only "god" he believed in was one he described as "[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Verdana][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human being[/FONT][/FONT]." He said that it would be accurate to call him an agnostic, and that from the point of view of a Jesuit he was an atheist. Certainly, whatever god-concept he may have believed in, it was alien to the god-concept of Christians who trot out his Spinoza quote in support of their faith.

To return to the thread topic, most of the founding fathers were nominal Christians, but most of them would not have been accepted as Christians by our modern Evangelicals, and whatever their personal beliefs might have been, they made it absolutely clear that they weren't founding a "Christian nation."

 

[logician]

To return to the thread topic, most of the founding fathers were nominal Christians,

This certainly is not true, most believed in a creator god only, not in the personal god of the Christians, making them deists, Jefferson had a true disdain for Christianity.

 

[Magic Man]

This certainly is not true, most believed in a creator god only, not in the personal god of the Christians, making them deists, Jefferson had a true disdain for Christianity.

Maybe you missed the word "nominal". Here's the definition from Dictionary.com:

"being such in name only; so-called; putative"

EDIT: and it is a fact that Jefferson showed up to church sometimes.

 

[Smoke]

This certainly is not true, most believed in a creator god only, not in the personal god of the Christians, making them deists, Jefferson had a true disdain for Christianity.

Please look up the word "nominal." I agree that most of the most prominent founding fathers were deists, Unitarians, or not particularly religious.

 

[Magic Man]

Please look up the word "nominal." I agree that most of the most prominent founding fathers were deists, Unitarians, or not particularly religious.

No need. I was nice enough to do the work for him.

 

[Smoke]

No need. I was nice enough to do the work for him.

Alas, the system won't allow me to frubal you again yet.

 

[logician]

Maybe you missed the word "nominal". Here's the definition from Dictionary.com:

"being such in name only; so-called; putative"

EDIT: and it is a fact that Jefferson showed up to church sometimes.

Then why use the word, they also weren't Christians "in name only", they professed deism, the fact that Jefferson went to church means as much as me as an atheist going to a church, it means nothing as far as my beliefs are concerned.

 

[Father Heathen]

In any case, I think we can all conclude that the founding fathers & Einstein weren't bible thumping fundamentalists at least.

 

[Magic Man]

Then why use the word, they also weren't Christians "in name only", they professed deism, the fact that Jefferson went to church means as much as me as an atheist going to a church, it means nothing as far as my beliefs are concerned.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. The point is that the Founding Fathers were at least nominally Christian. That means that they allowed themselves to be seen as Christian, but didn't really believe in Christianity. This would have been more for the sake of appearances than anything else. They were in fact Christians in name only. That is supported by them, including Jefferson, giong to church. You're right that Jefferson going to church would mean no more than you going to church. That's the point. He only did it to keep up airs, not because he believed it. We are not saying that they were Christians, we're saying that they pretended to be Christians.

When you say A is nominally, or in name only, B, it means that A is not actually B, but calls itself that.