RP>KK>It's not hard to find quotes from the founding fathers and others
RP>KK>stating these things.  Jefferson and other deists had other opinions,
RP>KK>though I don't have those quotes anymore.
RP>Calling him a deist does him a disservice.  He denied such assertions
RP>himself, and claimed to be a Christian:
RP>   On his personal religious views: "They are the result of a life of
RP>   inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian
RP>   system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions.  To
RP>   the corruption of Christianity, I am, indeed opposed; but not to the
RP>   genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian ..."
RP>    - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
That's what a Deist would say, Robert.  Why do you suppose he brought up
the "corruption of Christianity" and railed against the way
Christianity tortured its critics?
RP>As noted previously, it's a mistake, most often deliberate, to think
RP>criticisms they leveled at church authorities means they weren't
RP>Christians.
Right.  And since church authorities often believed that their sect
should dominate politically (as yours believes) Deists used their authority
as Christians to criticize those authorities.  Deism accepted the
existence of the Christian God, but rejected the common 'graven' image
of God as an old patriarch on a throne who threw thunderbolts at
any mortal who disagreed with him.  I would submit for your
consideration a radical view of God put forward by a long-haired
hippie 2,000 years ago: God is infinite light, infinite ecstasy,
infinite wisdom, infinite FORGIVENNESS, infinite mercy, infinite
release from petty human obsessions.
I know church-obsessed people are deeply offended by this radical
view, but I urge you to try it on anyway.
Maybe God isn't your father who monitors everything you do.
Maybe God is a love so deep that it pervades every cell of your
body and makes you helplessly fall to your knees, but forgives you
for some stupid thing you did when you were 4 years old and didn't
know any better.  Just a thought, of course.
But as a human being I know how much more deeply satisfying it is
to imagine paying back all those dickheads who've wronged you
over the years.  It's easy to hate people, and if they speak the
wrong language or have the wrong skin color, it's officially OK.
We human beings are unique among animals in that we are willing
to kill out-group members on the basis of ideologies, not just
looks or skin color.  Gee, some distinction.
 * SLMR 2.1a * .    Chico of Borg: "Resistance?  Atsa no good!"
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