Deism and the founding fathers of the US

Ben Franklin believed in reincarnation and he stated so many times. Thomas Jefferson was a well know agnostic. Freedom of Religion was a highly cherished of the Constitution.

Thanks NIck, I didn't know that.

Thanks NIck, I didn't know that.

A great many of the Founding Fathers were deeply religious, and a few were full-blown atheists. The religious convictions of the Founders varied considerably. New Englanders tended to be Congregationalists. Immigrants for Scotland were often Prespryterian. Quakers and Catholics came from the mid-Atlantic States. Episcapalians/Church of England was rather common in the Southern States. Off hand I can't think of any prominent Jews among those who constructed the Constitution, and there certainly were no Buddhists, Hindus, or Muslims.

Some of the Founders were Deists. That is they believed in a Supreme Power, or Deity, but not necessarily the God of the Abrahamic faiths. This was a pretty popular religious view among thinkers of the Enlightenment, and the Founders were predominently products of the Enlightenment. Some were agnostics, and a small number were atheists.

The religious wars of the Reformation and Counterreformation, were still very much on the minds of the Founders when they designed the Constitution. Religious intolerance within and between the various Colonies had existed from the very beginning of English settlement of North America. No one wanted the new country to be torn apart by religious chauvinism, and everyone wanted protection from the danger that the State might impose a religion (as many European States had done) aborhent to their own consciences. The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights forbids the Federal Government from establishing any religion.

It is not unfair to say that the government of the United States was designed by men, predominently of Christian background, who had no problem with the country being fervently religious in the abstract sense, but who loathed the idea that any one sect of Christianity might reign supreme over all other sects.

Re: Deism and the founding fathers of the US

Thanks guys.

When I've thought about what I considered to be my Christian beliefs, it actually was more deist than Christian. Now I'm agnostic.

BTW, what do you think about what they say about Deism being a non-revealed religion like Christianity? Do you think that reason leads to God, like what they claimed?

I know that Alexander Hamilton was a Presbterian and fairly religious, although not much of a church-goer. I do not believe he was a Deist, although I am not sure. I think his religious views were fairly conventional. As to the degree of his religion, the following excerpt from a letter to a friend, in which he gives a theoretical description of the girl he would find ideal to marry, may be revealing:

"As to religion, a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in God and hate a saint."

I see no obstacles to reason leading to a theistic belief. Even dyed-in-the-wool Christians who claim to have received a revelation often attempt to use reason to justify their beliefs and to explain them to non-believers. But a reasoning person may come up with a different concept of a Higher Power than the person who simply accepts the "sacred writings" (be it Torah, New Testament or Quran) as revealed divine truth.

A lot of the Founding Fathers' ideas and writings (i.e. the Declaration of Independence) were based off philosophes, or "lovers of reason." Many of the Founding Fathers took off from other Deists, so it's not incorrect to say that they themselves could be considered Deists.

The only reason I know about this is because we are currently studying the Age of Reason in World History right now. Deism is basically the belief that God created everything, then left it alone afterwords (no divine intervention, etc.) This God is referred to as the "watchmaker god," being that a watchmaker creates a watch, sells it, and never sees it again. If anything, Deism is right alongside with Theistic Evolution (which basically says that God made the Big Bang happen, then did nothing).