posted
The national day of prayer is in early winter, I believe. If it's the same one they're still doing.
But the idea that every mention of God made by any great man was only to appease the peanut gallery and against his own conscience is annoying. It's a bit like the "every great man was gay" and "every woman wishes she were a great man" theories.
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I don't know. If there is evidence, it seems more like "Many people in Spain during the Inquisition were secretly Jewish." or "Some black people used to pass as white people."
I don't think anyone is saying that all great people were paying lip service, but it is likely that some of them were.
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What evidence do you have that Lincoln was an atheist? I think that (being "Honest Abe and all) he might have been being honest when he referred to God.
Not that this was your premise originally, but you do seem to be defending it.
edit to add: That was to Javert, but could be to MrSquicky as well. I think that without evidence to the contrary, it makes sense to believe that he was being honest. It is less like saying that "many people in the Inquisition were secretly Jews" than saying, "this particular person, who often talked about being Christian was secretly a Jew" which is okay if there is some evidence for that. If there isn't, it is just making stuff up.
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quote:No friend of organized religion, and not a believer in any sort of personal god or anything supernatural, but not technically an atheist.
No, I think Jefferson was an atheist. If you don't believe in anything "supernatural," you certainly don't believe in a God. You can substitute "Nature" for his version of "Nature's God" everywhere it appears.
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Tom, what is often described as "supernatural" is of very little consequence to my theism anyway. So that "certainly" of yours is not true.
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Lincoln might have been an atheist at times, and been a Christian at times, and been a Deist at times, and many other things. His mental problems were probably of sorts that might make such religious conversions more likely. He could say things about God wholeheartedly and still have been for a good chunk of time an atheist.
He probably was about a Deist most of his life. He said several things to suggest he did not believe God spoke his will to anyone, never belonged to a particular church (though his wife and several close friends did), and is attributed with several quotations that speak out against Christianity in particular (though there is considerable debate about which came from Lincoln and which may have been fabricated).
There are also a good number of quotations and assertions about him being religious that are known to have been fabricated, notably including quite a bit of Holland's biography.
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Though, I don't think that mental problems are necessarily connected to changes in faith (I think that perfectly sane people can learn new things or have doubts) I think that depression (for example) could easily hamper one's belief in a benevolent God.
I don't recall that Lincoln was particularly Christian, but his words seem to indicate a belief in a deity.
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I think hampering one's belief in a benevolent God sounds like being connected to changes in faith to me.
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Yeah, they could definitely occur without mental illness. All I was asserting was that crippling depression associated with losing one's loved ones, and possibly greater mental illness near the end, might well make religious changes much more likely.
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Tom, I'm not sure what you mean by 'supernatural' here:
quote:If you don't believe in anything "supernatural," you certainly don't believe in a God.
If it's defined as something like 'outside the observable, rationally comprehensible laws of nature,' then I think you're fundamentally misunderstand Deism and eighteenth and nineteenth century natural theology; this was an entire school of thought dedicated to proving that the hand of God worked in scientifically verifiable ways and structured the universe and the course of history to achieve his purposes. Jefferson believed this. It doesn't mean that God intervene sin the universe; it does mean, though, that Jefferson and other deists (like John Toland or Franklin) believed that God was the ultimate cause of the creation, and humanity was of a different order than the rest of creation because God had ordained it so.
Fugu, I think you're overstating the influence of Lincoln's depression. He never really experienced a conversion of the evangelical sort. In his maturity, however, he was certainly not a deist; indeed, in his maturity he seems to have tended to a cultural, non-Christian Old Testament style Calvinism.
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You shouldn't forget that Jefferson also read his Bible of his own volition um...religiously? Sorry couldn't think of a better word. He personally did not believe in any of the instances where men performed supernatural miracles via God's power, but he still believed in a God who set the universe in motion and expects us to figure it all out.
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Because his later writings indicate a theology in which God takes an active interest in the course of history.
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quote:No friend of organized religion, and not a believer in any sort of personal god or anything supernatural, but not technically an atheist.
No, I think Jefferson was an atheist. If you don't believe in anything "supernatural," you certainly don't believe in a God. You can substitute "Nature" for his version of "Nature's God" everywhere it appears.
Yes you could make such a substitution. You could also substitute Dharma for "Nature's God" everywhere it appears but that doesn't prove Jefferson was a Buddhist.
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Here is a good summary of Deism from Wikipedia:
quote: The concept of Deism covers a wide variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues. Following Sir Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, most commentators agree that two features constituted the core of Deism:
* The rejection of revealed religion — this was the critical aspect of Deism. * The belief that reason, not faith, leads us to certain basic religious truths — this was the positive or constructive aspect of Deism.
Deist authors advocated a combination of both critical and constructive elements in proportions and emphases that varied from author to author.
Critical elements of Deist thought included:
* Rejection of all religions based on books that claim to contain the revealed word of God. * Rejection of reports of miracles, prophecies and religious "mysteries". * Rejection of the Genesis account of creation and the doctrine of original sin, along with all similar beliefs. * Rejection of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religious beliefs.
Constructive elements of Deist thought included:
* God exists and created the universe. * God wants human beings to behave morally. * Human beings have souls that survive death; that is, there is an afterlife. * In the afterlife, God will reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior. Although, others believe God wants humans to be moral and affect what they can in their mortal lives, and they will be rewarded in the same life.
Individual Deists varied in the set of critical and constructive elements for which they argued. Some Deists rejected miracles and prophecies but still considered themselves Christians because they believed in what they felt to be the pure, original form of Christianity — that is, Christianity as it existed before it was corrupted by additions of such superstitions as miracles, prophecies, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Some Deists rejected the claim of Jesus' divinity but continued to hold him in high regard as a moral teacher (see, e.g., Thomas Jefferson's famous Jefferson Bible). Other, more radical Deists rejected Christianity altogether and expressed hostility toward Christianity, which they regarded as pure superstition. In return, Christian writers often charged radical Deists with atheism.
So quite a wide range of views. Sometimes I rather wish they didn't use capital G, "God" for the god of Deism. Without revelation, without faith, and rejection of those listed elements these people really would not be classified as Christians today (most would not quite be atheist as they are defined today either...although they can still be inspiring). Certainly not for those still arguing that Mormons are not Christians for some trivial rejection of the Trinity Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Oh, don't worry Javert. As atheists grow more numerous and atheism more popular, the tables will begin to shift in proportion.
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What does it say about religion in our country when people are or are not electable based on what they believe, or feel that they have to pretend to believe something in order to get into or stay in office?
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: What evidence do you have that Lincoln was an atheist? I think that (being "Honest Abe and all) he might have been being honest when he referred to God.
Not that this was your premise originally, but you do seem to be defending it.
edit to add: That was to Javert, but could be to MrSquicky as well. I think that without evidence to the contrary, it makes sense to believe that he was being honest. It is less like saying that "many people in the Inquisition were secretly Jews" than saying, "this particular person, who often talked about being Christian was secretly a Jew" which is okay if there is some evidence for that. If there isn't, it is just making stuff up.
I have no particular evidence that he was an atheist. I've seen people argue it and heard a few things, but if I wanted to make that argument I would have to do some serious research.
But I think it's completely possible that he was an atheist and still said the things he said. Maybe not. Doesn't make a particular difference to me either way. Would just be something interesting to learn.
BB: Jefferson redacted the Bible to, essentially, the life and teachings of Jesus. No miracles, nothing supernatural, nothing godly. These actions don't seem to be necessarily out of character for an atheist.
Though I still think Jefferson was probably a deist, which is really as far as you could go during his time and still be intellectually honest.
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I just read the article. Hitchens cracks me up, every time. It works because he's British, I think. Anyhow, I'm glad he's out there.
fugu: The Second Inaugural. You may argue the God stuff in there is merely literary flourish, but he's alluding to a pretty well developed Calvinist theology of history, which had by his time fallen largely out of favor. But he's in many ways the intellectual heir to Jonathan Edwards, I think.
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quote:You could also substitute Dharma for "Nature's God" everywhere it appears but that doesn't prove Jefferson was a Buddhist.
See, I believe that Jefferson was only a "Deist" because at that time there was no other competing theory for things like abiogenesis. When you looked at things like the complexity of life in the late 1700s, you could see how they worked but not -- unless you were a really extraordinary genius -- figure out why they would work without a creator of some sort. He was an atheist who believed in a godlike mechanism because no alternative mechanism had been posited at that point; we can call these people Deists, if we must, but they were really just atheists with insufficient information.
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MattB: even Presidents who wrote their own speeches regularly alluded to beliefs they did not believe in with public speeches. Washington and Jefferson, for instance, particularly the latter.
Notice in particular that he never says that God has necessarily granted the North anything, and also that he constructs the entire latter part of the speech as a hypothetical. He dances around the exact properties of God very deftly.
Lincoln was a prolific private writer. Do you have an example from his private or semi-private writings?
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By that same logic, he was clearly would have been Mormon if that had been an option at the time.
We can make up whatever stories we what about Jefferson, but it doesn't make them true.
That doesn't make sense at all. Had he been looking for some new brand of Christianity you could argue he would have gone LDS.
There is evidence that Jefferson was looking for a way to rationally understand the world without any supernatural events or magic in it. He couldn't see how the world would exist without an initial creator.
Since we now have theories that don't require the supernatural or magic to understand the universe, it is reasonable to think he would have taken them. Maybe he wouldn't have, but it seems much more likely than the possibility of him becoming a Mormon.
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By that same logic, he was clearly would have been Mormon if that had been an option at the time.
We can make up whatever stories we what about Jefferson, but it doesn't make them true.
That doesn't make sense at all. Had he been looking for some new brand of Christianity you could argue he would have gone LDS.
There is evidence that Jefferson was looking for a way to rationally understand the world without any supernatural events or magic in it. He couldn't see how the world would exist without an initial creator.
Since we now have theories that don't require the supernatural or magic to understand the universe, it is reasonable to think he would have taken them. Maybe he wouldn't have, but it seems much more likely than the possibility of him becoming a Mormon.
As silly as it is to suppose we know what Jefferson was thinking, here goes!
You are assuming that Jefferson's only qualms with Christianity were super natural events. For all we know he had that issues with the fact that nobody nowadays was parting the Red Sea or rising from the dead and hence he came to believe those events were all myths spliced with the true moral teachings of Jesus. Perhaps he felt the Christianity he saw around him bore little resemblance to the ideal Christianity he read about in the Bible.
I've met plenty of people who read Buddhist writings, Christian writings, Muslim writings, and are convinced none of them are the correct religion, but they scour the writings for fragments of truth. I've suggested well maybe they are all wrong and there is no God and they are utterly unconvinced that there is no God, and they are perfectly knowledgeable about current theories about the origins of the earth/universe.
I think you are making a reasonable argument that if a modern day scientists could sit down with Jefferson and explain many of the breakthroughs we have made today he easily could have come to the conclusion that his world does not need a God to make sense, but that does not mean Jefferson was an atheist who just couldn't know it yet.
It WOULD be akin to saying that if Jefferson had just once seen an incident of miraculous healing at a Mormon church he would have been converted on the spot as his only beef with Christianity was inability to believe in supernatural things.
Or if he had encountered Buddhism which also does not require a God/Creator that he would have embraced it.
I by no means think Jefferson was a champion of the faith, but having reservations about siding with any particular faith, and talking about the God of nature does not necessarily mean atheism.
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I don't think it is useful to attach famous names to our favorite causes.
Do you think it never occurred to anyone before Jefferson's time that there might be another explanation besides Genesis? Do you think that Jefferson was capable of conceiving a nation without kings but incapable of imagining a world without God?
I think it's the highest form of arrogance to imagine that Jefferson didn't actually mean what he said and if only he had known what you know, then he would definitely agree with you.
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quote:I think it's the highest form of arrogance to imagine that Jefferson didn't actually mean what he said and if only he had known what you know, then he would definitely agree with you.
Kat thinks I'm arrogant. Well, at least it's HIGH arrogance, and not that low, spam-sucking, trailer-trash arrogance...
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I don't think it is useful to attach famous names to our favorite causes.
Do you think it never occurred to anyone before Jefferson's time that there might be another explanation besides Genesis? Do you think that Jefferson was capable of conceiving a nation without kings but incapable of imagining a world without God?
I want to be clear on two things. One: this is only my opinion from what I've read of Jefferson, so if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Two: I really don't care if Jefferson was or would have been an atheist or not. It doesn't change my position at all, but I think it would be interesting.
That being said, I was talking about being intellectually honest, not about imagination. You could certainly imagine a world without god even if you didn't have any theories that helped it make sense. But without the theories to back it up, it becomes less intellectually honest to go that extra step.
quote:I think it's the highest form of arrogance to imagine that Jefferson didn't actually mean what he said and if only he had known what you know, then he would definitely agree with you.
This is a red herring.
Who here doesn't think that their beliefs, opinions, ideas and understandings are the correct ones? If you thought they were wrong, you'd change your mind.
That being said, if you believe you're right, OF COURSE you believe that if you could just get someone else to understand your opinion that they'd agree with you.
Are you telling me that if you could just sit someone down and talk to them about LDS and get them to understand your position, you think they wouldn't believe you?
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quote:Are you telling me that if you could just sit someone down and talk to them about LDS and get them to understand your position, you think they wouldn't believe you?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. They could intellectually understand perfectly and may or may not believe. Conversion comes from the spirit, faith is a gift of the spirit, and no matter how much I talk, I can't hand over a testimony to someone simply because I burn with mine.
Believe me, I've tried. It doesn't work.
Well, sometimes, but when it does, it isn't because of me.
It is possible for someone to understand and still disagree.
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quote:Do you think it never occurred to anyone before Jefferson's time that there might be another explanation besides Genesis? Do you think that Jefferson was capable of conceiving a nation without kings but incapable of imagining a world without God?
It's not that he couldn't imagine a world without God. It's that, prior to the 1800s, there was no viable scientific rationale for a world without God. Jefferson had a fairly precise mind; he was a tinkerer and a theorist and an avid reader of what we'd consider science fiction today. He even had a passing familiarity with Eastern religions, although I never saw anything in his writing to indicate that he'd studied their actual beliefs beyond acknowledging their practice. Unlike Washington, who believed that religion was necessary not just to explain our existence but also to provide a unified national morality, Jefferson believed -- despite what he wrote in the Declaration -- that morality was largely a social construct. His "Deist" God was far more hands-off than Washington's, and possibly even Lincoln's (although, as has been pointed out, the extent of Lincoln's belief is pretty questionable). In the 1700s, no matter how imaginative you were, you did not have a viable materialistic replacement for a supernatural Creation; it was one of the Holy Grails of the Enlightenment.
There's nothing in anything Jefferson ever wrote that implies he would have believed in a supernatural Creator for more than a few seconds after his first encounter with a modern biologist. He believed there was a hands-off, invisible, unknowable God because his was, quite explicitly, a "God of the Gaps;" there was no other explanation, so something must have done it -- and it was convenient to call that thing God. His own struggles with "redacting" the Bible are, to every atheist born Christian to whom I've ever spoken, nearly identical to the well-read atheist's conversion away from faith.
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Men have adapted before to new information and you don't know how he would have adapted to this information. It isn't as if every person who believed in a God of the gaps let go of that beleif when the gaps were filled.
It is wistful speculation to imagine that he would have reacted in the way you would have.
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quote:Are you telling me that if you could just sit someone down and talk to them about LDS and get them to understand your position, you think they wouldn't believe you?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. They could intellectually understand perfectly and may or may not believe. Conversion comes from the spirit, faith is a gift of the spirit, and no matter how much I talk, I can't hand over a testimony to someone simply because I burn with mine.
Believe me, I've tried. It doesn't work.
Well, that's where we differ. The things I believe don't come from faith, and thus being less personal I think it would be easier to convince someone if I got them to understand.
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It's arrogant to believe that someone else is intelligent?
------
Look, seriously, I don't think George Washington -- who wrote often of the value of religion in his life and in the development of the country -- would meet Charles Darwin and go "Oh, Lord! I must forsake you!"
But I think it's pretty clear from everything that Jefferson ever wrote that the news that he didn't require a creator would come as an enormous intellectual relief to him. He clearly had difficulty with the concept of an absentee God.
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Is there irony in being called arrogant by someone who claims to know the creator of the universe?
(Perhaps that's a tasteless joke. If it is, I will remove it. But I happen to think that we're all just relatively certain of our current understandings, and none of us is terribly arrogant for doing so.)
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: It WOULD be akin to saying that if Jefferson had just once seen an incident of miraculous healing at a Mormon church he would have been converted on the spot as his only beef with Christianity was inability to believe in supernatural things.
Um, I don't know many people who wouldn't change their minds about god on the spot if they were presented with irrefutable visual evidence. Problem is that's never happened.
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Come on, JT - that isn't fair. It isn't as if Tom has the slightest inclination to move either.
As for the second, there are a hundred stories of it happening and of people talking themselves out of it and going back to their favorite beliefs anyway. You don't believe the stories, probably because you don't believe it could actually happen. That's a circle, and it doesn't prove anything.
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Edit: Thought better of it. I can't imagine that the discussion that would follow would be worth the time I'd put into it.
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: That's why I used the word 'irrefutable'.
You used "irrefutable" to refer to a specific hypothetical to which it did not apply.
quote: It's never happened to either of you, either, and you know it.
I didn't say it had happened to me. But I believe it has happened to other people. You believe it hasn't.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Come on, JT - that isn't fair. It isn't as if Tom has the slightest inclination to move either.
How would you know if Tom would move his position? Just because you wouldn't change yours doesn't mean you should assume others are the same.
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There's no evidence for it. I suppose I could make something up and claim it as truth, but I'd rather not.
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