-=> On 01-18-98  04:20 Keith Knapp said to Tom Enright <=-
 TE>Give it a rest.  Jefferson criticized the practices of *some*
 TE>religious leaders, not Christianity in general.
 KK> That's because he was a Deist, and saw clearly the damage that
 KK> could happen when religious sects took political power.
Recognising the dangers of a theocracy does *not* make anyone a
deist.  It requires only a passing knowledge of history.
       "I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers
       to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over
       another." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799.
       "Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most
       scrupulously reserved.  I have considered it as a matter
       between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far
       less the public, had a right to intermeddle." --Thomas
       Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.
       "The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in
       which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to
       the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent
       institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to
       liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human
       mind." --Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801.
 KK> He also
 TE>wrote.statements on *both* sides of several issues during his
 TE>lifetime, including slavery.
 KK> Right.  While he publicly advocated the slow abolition of slavery,
 KK> he privately asserted that them nigras were not capable of the
 KK> attainments of real humans.
Is this the quote you're basing that asinine statement on?
       "I have supposed the black man in his present state might
       not be [equal to the white man]; but it would be hazardous
       to affirm that equally cultivated for a few generations,
       he would not become so." --Thomas Jefferson to Chastellux,
       1785.
Read the quote again.  He is saying that given the same
educational and social "cultivation" that blacks would be the
equal of the "massahs" in only a few generations.  Given the
culture they came from that is quite a vote of confidance.
Subject any group to the social, educational, and dietary
deprevations that blacks suffered under slavery and that group
will compare poorly with the ruling class.
       "The rights of human nature [are] deeply wounded by this
       infamous practice [of slavery]." --Thomas Jefferson:
       Rights of British America, 1774.
Yep, sounds like a rabid slaver doesn't he?
While you are at it, explain why Jefferson introduced a bill in
the Virginia Legislature to outlaw slavery in that state.  Not a
popular stance to take at that time.
 KK> If you would like to push your idea to a further conclusion,
 KK> all you have to do is take your above point and apply it to
 KK> what Jefferson thought about Chritianity:  while his private
 KK> opinion of sectarian Christianity was not very high, he also
 KK> acknowledged publicly that it would have to be enlisted to
 KK> form a strong Union.
His private, and public, opinions of power-mongers in clerical
garb was quite low.  However, if you bother to read the quote
above that begins with "The Christian religion" you'll see that
it directly refutes your statement.
 TE> Try doing thorough research some
 TE>time instead of stopping when you find something that *seems* to
 TE>support your predetermined conclusion.
 KK> Oddly enough, when others here post Jefferson quotes that agree
 KK> with your value programming, you don't complain that they have been
 KK> taken out of context.
Because they aren't taking his quotes out of context. You are.
As far as religion is concerned I agree with Jefferson.  I don't
give a fig if you believe in one God, twenty Gods or no God.  My
religious views are my business and I refuse to discuss them
with, or defend them to, anyone.  Others have the same right.
T.E. - San Diego Ilks (Sgt. at Arms)
... Liberal Rule #12 - If all else fails, quit in a huff.
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