Go Buckner!
I already provided JThunder with cites, but he (as always) ignored them. He has had the basic outline of the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers presented to him, but he waves aside the evidence for a more remote Christology in the 18th century because it contradicts what he already believes. That’s the problem with debating fundamentalists. Still, here’s a cite explaining the prevailing faith of the major FFs, Deism:
No personal Jesus there. If JThunder doesn’t believe me , he can ask the Founding Fathers themselves:
“I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.” - Benjamin Franklin from “Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion”, Nov. 20, 1728
“The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” - Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823
“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?” - John Adams, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816
Doesn’t sound like they agree with him either. And need I mention Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason?
The educated men of the 18th century, influenced by writers of the English Enlightenment such as Locke and Hume, believed in a Watchmaker God who, having created the clockwork mechanism of the universe, sat back and left humans to run their own affairs. They denied the divinity of Jesus and revered Him as a moral teacher and not as the traditonal Christian conception of Him as the Second Person of the Trinity.
JThunder wrote
Well, if you read the OP, it says
Well, if Mr. Thunder thinks that the religious beliefs of our FFs have no relevance to the claim that the 4th of July had its origins in Jesus, there’s not a lot I can say to him.
Mind you, I’m discussing the beliefs of the colonial elite who had access to the writings of rationalist philosophers. There is a case to be made on JThunder’s behalf for the idea that the common people of the 18th century did believe in a personal Jesus, and I’ll help him do it. He could have mentioned the evangelical ferment of the Great Awakening of 1740-41, and how and how Jonathan Edward’s and George Whitfield’s preaching emphasized the primacy of the conversion experience. Cite. He could have explained that this watershed moment in American Protestantism helped shake off the established Anglican church’s emphasis on the intellect as a pathway to God and replace it with the emotional submission to Jesus as savior. He could futher have explained that, although this revival faded out, it directly inspired the second Great Awakening in the early 19th century that produced many mainline Protestant sects, plus such odd offshoots as the Mormons and the 7th-Day Adventists.
If JThunder needs help in formulating an argument to refute my posts, I’ll be glad to help and serve volleys from both sides of the net. It’s no more than my Christian duty. wink
I already explained why your cites are irrelevant. The fact that Thomas Jefferson did not espouse the notion of a personal savior does not mean he was ignorant of that belief – and it certainly does not mean that Washington, Benjamin Rush and company were ignorant of that as well. So I maintain my contention that you have not cited anything in support of your claim.
Wait a minute. You are quoting the Internet Infidels site, which is decidedly anti-Christian in its orientation.
Throughout this thread, you have lambasted me for citing Christian websites, on the grounds that they are partisan in nature. Now, to support your claim, you are citing a resource which has an explicit axe to grind against Christianity. You are violating the very standards of debate which you laid out earlier.
In fact, I explicitly and repeatedly mentioned that I will not accept any atheistic or anti-Christian websites, since you refused to accept any cites from organizations that espoused a Christiain worldview. As I said, I just want you to adhere to the same standards that you have been demanding of me.
Besides, the paragraph which you quoted merely repeats the myth that the Founding Fathers were deists. It provides no support for that claim. As you know full well, I have repeatedly said that some of them were deists, but not all. A good number of them were not.
Again, that proves nothing. It only shows that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams espoused deism, and that was never under debate. In fact, I explicitly mentioned them early on, as Founding Fathers who did not profess Christianity.
Their views, I would like to remind you, say absolutely nothing about what the other Founding Fathers believed.
Thomas Paine was not, strictly speaking, a Founding Father, although he is frequently lumped in their group. Moreover, as I keep pointing out, this is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Your quotes still do not refute anything I’ve said, and they most certainly do not illlustrate that the Founding Fathers (or 18th century culture in general) were unfamiliar with the notion of a personal savior.
Again, your misreading the OP. It merely attests (erroneously , as QtM later admitted), that July 4th had its origins in Jesus. This is NOT the same as saying that the Founding Fathers intended a Christian nation. You are taking your own biases and projecting them onto the OP itself.
So in other words, you have yet to provide any substantive sources for your claims. The only article which you’ve cited so far (apart from some irrelevant quotes from certain Founding Fathers, whose beliefs were never in dispute) was from the Internet Infidels site. This is a partisan site, so by your own terms of debate, it must be ignored. Moreover, the quoted text provides no support for its claim, and so at best, it is a mere repetition of what you choose to assert.
I neglected to address this paragraph here…
Again, that does not support your claims. The article in question discusses religious revivals (hence the term “Great Awakening”) of the 19th century. It says absolutely nothing to support your claim that the notion of a “personal savior” was unfamiliar to those of the 18th century. Heck, the word “savior” never even appears in that article! Not even once.
So your claims remain unsupported, even by tenuous evidence.
Oh, BTW, just to be thorough… While the article you cited dealt mostly with the revivals under George Whitefield et al, it did mention one Jonathan Edwards, who wrote one of the most influential sermons of all time (“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”). I just remembered that Edwards lived in the 18th century, and that he died before 1776 (see http://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/edwards.html) for details.
So not only does your article fail to support your case, it actually demonstrates the opposite! It explicitly mentions a well-known and highly influential preacher who preached the need for personal repentance, personal holiness and a personal commitment to following the teachings of Christ. As Edwards himself said in that sermon, “And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now harken to the loud calls of God’s word and providence.”
Thank you for provided a resource which proves your case wrong.
The site is atheist, not anti-Christian, but you have a point. I with draw the cite.
Which is irrelevant, my only point is that the 4th of July is not an explicitly Christian holiday nor did the Founding Fathers intend America to be a Christian nation. One or more of the signers may have been devout but they were not the framers of the Constitution as Jefferson and Adams were.
Read my post. I explicitly mentioned Edwards. As I said, I was giving you arguments to use against me because you seem unable to come up with your own. I can play both sides of the fence in a way that you cannot. I understand relgion and faith, but you do not understand free thought.
See what I wrote
I can argue for your side better than you can.
I never said that you didn’t mention Edwards, gobear. My point is that Edwards disproves your case. His classic sermon is an example of pre-18th century preaching on the need for a personal savior, and so the article in question disproves your point.
You say that I am unable to understand your position. Quite the contrary, my point is that your position is incorrect and unsupported, and that–for reasons which I have elaborated upon at great length–none of the cites which you’ve produced truly substantiate your claim.
Read the cite again–"In essence, Whitefield reduced to Christianity to its lowest common denominator–those sinners who love Jesus will go to heaven. " If you read for meaning, that line signifies Whitfield’s faith in Jesus as a personal savior. Are looking for a quote that reads, “we do not believe in Jesus as a personal savior, signed, the 18th century”?
That’s why I cited it, to help you make your case against me because you didn’t do it yourself, to show you that I can argue for your side better than you can. Of course, I can also argue against that by showing how Edwards’ teachings were later rejected, and the Great Awakening faded.
Yes, they do, but this is the pitfall of arguing with a fundie–no cite will ever be sufficient because you will argue that the cite does not say what it in fact says. I’ve already demonstrated that the leading FFs did not believe in a hands-on Jesus, but that’s not enough for you. I’ve already shown the the framers of the
Republic were Deists, but that’s also not enough.
gobear, this is the reference that we’re looking for a cite about:
Some FFs were deists. Some were Christians. Where is the evidence that 18th-centry Christians didn’t regard Jesus as a personal savior?
You’ve been provided cites to prove that some FFs were deists. That’s not in contention. The statement about the personal savior is all that we’re looking for evidence to support.
I am not a fundie ignoring cites. I’m an atheist who agrees with JThunder that you have yet to provide a cite to back up your claim. Nobody here is denying that some FFs were deists, so please stop arguing that point.
Not necessarily; however, the statement which you quoted does NOT mean that he negated the need for a personal savior. Heck, one could just as easily argue that those who love Jesus are the ones who made a personal commitment to him (e.g. mere church membership or exercising religous rituals is insufficient grounds does not constitute genuine love or a personal relationship).
Heck, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Whitefield did abrogate the need for a personal Savior. How does this prove that the concept was not well-known in the 18th century? Quite simply, it does not.
Jon is right; you’re still dodging the question, and none of the cites which you’ve posted defend your position. Jon is also correct in saying that your quotes about certain FF’s being deists is irrelevant – indeed, that something which I’ve repeatedly pointed on in earlier postings. You have yet to adequately defend your position.
If that’s your point, then you’re arguing wrongly. I already cited George Whitefield earlier, as well as John and Charles Wesley. So you don’t get any points for mentioning Whitefield et al, since I already mentioned him in my earlier responses.
I apologize for misreading your statement regarding Edwards and Whitefield. As I said, I already mentioned Whitefield and company, and so it’s rather foolish of you to castigate me for allegedly failing to defend that point adequately. Moreover, you are the one who claimed (and continues to claim) that personal saviorhood was unfamiliar to 18th century Christianity, and so the burden of proof for that claim rests on your shoulders.
I’ve already pointed out that many Christians rejected a divine Jesus as savior (Deists are Christians, albeit unorthodox ones, BTW), and despite the more evangelical approach of Whitfield, Edwards, and the Wesleys, the emphasis of the semons preached in the Great Awakening dealt more with God as vengeful judge (as in Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God) than as personal savior. Edwards certainly preached htThe major denominations of the time-Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Anglicans–required assent to a statement of faith than a subjective emotional conversion experience. Conventional Christians believed in salvation through Christ, but that was more intellectual assent than the “are you saved” approach, which is what I mean by “personal savior.”
Still, I’ll withdraw my statement because I suspect the only evidence JThunder might accept is a certificate saying,
"We agree with Gobear.
love,
everyone in the 18th century, " and despite offering positive evidence for what many 18th-century Christians did believe, I’m never going to prove to his satisfaction what they didn’t believe.
Interesting that you didn’t even note that a fellow atheist also felt you fell short of the mark in proving your assertion.
I don’t know about JThunder, but all I’m looking for is the evidence that convinced you that “Jesus as a personal savior” “wasn’t a widespread concept in the 18th century.” Did you only mean that some of the FFs (or even many) did not regard Jesus as a personal savior? Did the non-Deists among the FFs regard Jesus as a personal savior? If not, how do you know?
I’m not by any means trying to imply that the non-Deists among the FFs wanted to regulate that Jesus be everyone’s personal savior. I’m just looking for evidence that they didn’t regard Jesus as a personal savior, since that was the original contention. If the evidence is not available, drop it (without a smartass reason why), and admit that thing which we atheists often brag about being able to admit: we don’t know.
It’s nice to get the confusion over the origin of the fourth verse of the Star-Spangled Banner cleared up, but it should be noted that
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the song was written not for the American Revolution but for the War of 1812 several decades later;
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the verse in question mentions God but not Jesus.
So it is doubly irrelevant to the issue of whether the Founding Fathers in 1776 were somehow intending the foundation of the United States as an explicit monument to Jesus-worship, and the implications of that issue for whether we should treat July 4 as a Christian holiday. (Sounds like utter hogwash to me—except in the sense that Christians are of course free to regard any holiday or any other aspect of life as being, from their point of view, essentially about Jesus—but hogwash or not, it’s got nothing to do with the national anthem.)
There is nothing inherently commercial or consumer based in the Halloween tradition, but the candy industry and retail stores have turned it into quite a consumer based holiday. Why? Because they can. Because the holiday provides a focal point. Because it is an opportunity to access a broad market. Because it is an opportunity for growth.
The same can be said for folks who try to put Christianity into Independence Day.
Wow. I go away for a long weekend and this happens?
I’ve seen serious threads devolve into whimsical and facetious banter, but rarely the reverse. Cheeses H. Christ! 
Yeah, tell me about it! I’m no longer intellectually equipped enough to join in the debate in my own thread! :eek:
Oh yeah? Come on up to Oostburg and say that! Then I’ll hide you out at my place!
Well time to modify the OP:
Proposed: Jesus loved the Founding Fathers so much that he bequeathed them vegemite. We should celebrate this by consuming vast quantities every July 4th.
