I'm sure that your research skills are adequate enough to find information on Deism among the Founding Fathers.
So I looked up Deism and this is the definition from Wikipedia: Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology[5] that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe.[11] More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God—often, but not necessarily, an impersonal and incomprehensible God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it,[8][12] solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority.[13] Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology—that is, God's existence is revealed through nature.[14]
So I think you are trying to make the argument that the founders are not Christian and did not intend for this country to be founded on Christian values? According to this definition, Deism is a philosophy, not a religion. Why can't the founders be both Christian and Deist (aka view the bible from a rational/logical viewpoint)?
The Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence use words like "Divine Providence" and "Creator" and you believe they were referring to a non-denominational, catch all type God? Not to mention the subsequent states constitutions that were formed thereafter. 44 out of 50 of them use words like the "Almighty God", etc.
But the biggest question I would have for you is if religion or Christianity meant so little to the founders, why did they even mention God at all in their works?
I think our Founding Fathers wanted religious freedom, and deliberately worded our founding documents to reflect that.
I think that they looked at one of the main reasons why people first came to the country (fleeing religious persecution) and wanted to avoid that.
I think while many of them were from Christian backgrounds, they chose to not make this a theocracy.
People seem to have the impression that because most of our Founders were Christian that they had no choice but to make this a theocracy based on Christianity. It's like it's inconceivable to them that Christians were capable of putting their own religious beliefs aside for the formation of this country.
If they had intended for this to be a theocracy based on Christianity, they had every opportunity to do so. They could have stated it outright.
But they didn't do that. They went to all the trouble of not mentioning Christianity anywhere in our founding documents and the one time they referenced any sort of deity, they chose to make it as generic as possible and calling it "the Creator" and not "God" or "Yahweh" or "Allah" or "Ganesh" or "Thor".
While this is certainly giving preferential treatment to monotheism, it doesn't in any way state which god people want to worship. And they mentioned a Creator simply because the vast majority of the population was (and still is) religious, and religion factored greatly in their lives. It was simply important to them.
Article 1, Section 7 of the United States Constitution: "...If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law."
Why are Sundays excepted if the founders didn't want to make this a Christian nation? Pagans don't have a sabbath day, neither do Muslims, and the Jews' sabbath is on Saturday. Boom.
In all seriousness though, we have to give Christianity credit for turning the barbaric pagans of Europe into the great nations of western civilization. Individualism, rationalism, virtue, equality for all. These ideals originate from Ancient Rome, but were adopted and revived by Christianized Europe and unlike Ancient Rome formed a culture that instilled importance on chivalry and morality. All the freedoms we enjoy today are because of Christian principles, not from the teachings of Thor, Ganesh or Allah. I think Jefferson and Madison probably detested Muslims because of the Barbary Pirates that would enslave American merchants. After meeting an ambassador from Tripoli to stop the unwarranted attacks on American merchant ships, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise...
That was written in the 1700's. Doesn't seem like too much has changed in the last 200+ years for the mussulman, actually really since Islam's inception in the 7th century. Some cultures are better than others and I think it's important to address the reasons why, even if it offends some.
So I looked up Deism and this is the definition from Wikipedia: Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology[5] that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe.[11] More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God—often, but not necessarily, an impersonal and incomprehensible God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it,[8][12] solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority.[13] Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology—that is, God's existence is revealed through nature.[14]
So I think you are trying to make the argument that the founders are not Christian and did not intend for this country to be founded on Christian values? According to this definition, Deism is a philosophy, not a religion. Why can't the founders be both Christian and Deist (aka view the bible from a rational/logical viewpoint)?
The Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence use words like "Divine Providence" and "Creator" and you believe they were referring to a non-denominational, catch all type God? Not to mention the subsequent states constitutions that were formed thereafter. 44 out of 50 of them use words like the "Almighty God", etc.
But the biggest question I would have for you is if religion or Christianity meant so little to the founders, why did they even mention God at all in their works?
I think our Founding Fathers wanted religious freedom, and deliberately worded our founding documents to reflect that.
I think that they looked at one of the main reasons why people first came to the country (fleeing religious persecution) and wanted to avoid that.
I think while many of them were from Christian backgrounds, they chose to not make this a theocracy.
People seem to have the impression that because most of our Founders were Christian that they had no choice but to make this a theocracy based on Christianity. It's like it's inconceivable to them that Christians were capable of putting their own religious beliefs aside for the formation of this country.
If they had intended for this to be a theocracy based on Christianity, they had every opportunity to do so. They could have stated it outright.
But they didn't do that. They went to all the trouble of not mentioning Christianity anywhere in our founding documents and the one time they referenced any sort of deity, they chose to make it as generic as possible and calling it "the Creator" and not "God" or "Yahweh" or "Allah" or "Ganesh" or "Thor".
While this is certainly giving preferential treatment to monotheism, it doesn't in any way state which god people want to worship. And they mentioned a Creator simply because the vast majority of the population was (and still is) religious, and religion factored greatly in their lives. It was simply important to them.
Article 1, Section 7 of the United States Constitution: "...If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law."
Why are Sundays excepted if the founders didn't want to make this a Christian nation? Pagans don't have a sabbath day, neither do Muslims, and the Jews' sabbath is on Saturday. Boom.
In all seriousness though, we have to give Christianity credit for turning the barbaric pagans of Europe into the great nations of western civilization. Individualism, rationalism, virtue, equality for all. These ideals originate from Ancient Rome, but were adopted and revived by Christianized Europe and unlike Ancient Rome formed a culture that instilled importance on chivalry and morality. All the freedoms we enjoy today are because of Christian principles, not from the teachings of Thor, Ganesh or Allah. I think Jefferson and Madison probably detested Muslims because of the Barbary Pirates that would enslave American merchants. After meeting an ambassador from Tripoli to stop the unwarranted attacks on American merchant ships, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
That was written in the 1700's. Doesn't seem like too much has changed in the last 200+ years for the mussulman, actually really since Islam's inception in the 7th century. Some cultures are better than others and I think it's important to address the reasons why, even if it offends some.