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PostSubject: Religious liberty   Religious liberty EmptyMon Dec 17, 2007 4:57 pm

"Religious liberty is the chief cornerstone
of the American system of
government, and
provisions for its security are embedded
in the written
charter and interwoven
in the moral fabric of its laws."
-- Thomas Y.
Bayard
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Warrefok
Entheos
Warrefok


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Number of posts : 1056
Age : 75
Location : Pretoria - South Africa
Registration date : 2007-10-18

Religious liberty Empty
PostSubject: Re: Religious liberty   Religious liberty EmptyMon Dec 17, 2007 7:30 pm

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum - Lucretius
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PostSubject: Thomas Jefferson   Religious liberty EmptyThu Dec 20, 2007 6:43 pm






"[My views on Christianity] are the result of a life of inquiry &
reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by
those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am
indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a
Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his
doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human
excellence; & believing he never claimed any other."
-- Thomas
Jefferson
(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of
Independence, 3rd US President
Source: letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Apr. 21,
1803



"Nothing
can be more exactly and seriously true than what is there [the very words only
of Jesus] stated; that but a short time elapsed after the death of the great
reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by
those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for
enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that
the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated
and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch
wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow
their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise
the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to
the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the
real Anti-Christ."
-- Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), US Founding Father,
drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
Source: letter to
Samuel Kerchreview, January 19, 1810



"The
truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling
themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for 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. But we may hope that
the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away
with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and
genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors."
--
Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of
Independence, 3rd US President
Source: letter to John Adams, from Monticello,
April 11, 1823

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Warrefok
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Number of posts : 1056
Age : 75
Location : Pretoria - South Africa
Registration date : 2007-10-18

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PostSubject: Re: Religious liberty   Religious liberty EmptyThu Dec 20, 2007 8:45 pm

Simsi ... asseblief ... met alle respek ... wat probeer jy sê of bereik met hierdie topic ... ???

Wat probeer jy bewys (of wat probeer jy ontbloot) deur Jefferson aan te haal
... ???
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PostSubject: ...   Religious liberty EmptyFri Dec 21, 2007 3:51 pm

Slegs pragtige aanhalings uit Jefferson se skrywes ....
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Warrefok
Entheos
Warrefok


Male
Number of posts : 1056
Age : 75
Location : Pretoria - South Africa
Registration date : 2007-10-18

Religious liberty Empty
PostSubject: Jefferson   Religious liberty EmptyFri Dec 21, 2007 8:08 pm

Goed ... Waarom is jy so selektief met jou Jefferson aanhalings ???
Laat ek dan maar vir jou so bietjie meer omtrent die man vertel en ook
sommer so paar van sy aanhalings vir jou byvoeg.

Jy wil vir
Deon Maas gekruisig hê, terwyl jy dink Jefferson aanhalings is
"pragtig" ... ???

Albei bepleit vryheid van geloof ... ???

Jefferson was baie beslis nie 'n Christen nie.


  • Hy het nie geglo in die goddelikheid van Jesus nie.
  • Hy het nie in die drie-eenheid of "trinity" geglo nie.
  • Hy het nie in die wederopstanding van Jesus geglo nie.
  • Hy het nie die bonatuurlike dinge, in die Bybel beskryf, geglo nie.
  • Hy het nie geglo dat die Bybel die woord van God is nie.
Die Jefferson Bybel, of "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth", was
Jefferson se poging om die woorde van Jesus, soos in die vier
Evangelies van die Bybel, (Die Evangelie volgens Mattheus,
Die Evangelie volgens Markus, Die Evangelie volgens Lukas en
Die Evangelie volgens Johannes) te versamel. Sy doel was om die
doktrine van Jesus daar uit te haal en dié dele uit die sogenaamde
Nuwe Testament te verwyder wat bonatuurlike versinsels bevat.
Asook om waarneembare wanvertolkings of verkeerde uitleggings
deur die gemelde vier Evangeliste daaruit te verwyder.


"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782)


Ten spyte van Christen fundamentaliste se pogings om die
geskiedenis te probeer herskryf en sodoende van Jefferson 'n
Christen te probeer maak, is daar niks in Jefferson se filosofie wat
in ooreensteeming met dié van die Christendom is nie.

Jefferson het wel in 'n Skepper geglo, maar sy konsep daarvan was
in ooreenstemming met deĩsme, die "Natuur se God" soos deur
deĩste gebruik in daardie tyd.

Met sy wetenskaplike uitkyk, het Jefferson gepoog om sy gedagtes
rondom godsdiens te organiseer. Hy het die bygeloof en mistisisme
van die Christendom verwerp en het selfs so ver gegaan as om die
bybel se evangelies te redigeer (edit). Hy het slegs daaruit gevat
wat na sy oordeel die korrekte morele filosofie van Jesus was.

Verdraaing van die geskiedenis is aan die orde van die dag onder
Christene, ingesluit wanneer en waar ookal Christene die woord "God"
teëkom. Christene is blykbaar nie in staat om te sien dat dié woord
talle ander definisies bevat wat nie met hulle siening ooreenstem nie.
Mense definieer God vanaf die Natuur tot en by die Bonatuurlike.

Hoeveel Christene is in staat om te sien dat die volgende woorde
van Jefferson direk gemik was op die tirannie van die Christen
"geestelikes" van sy tyd:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every
form of tyranny over the mind of man."


Christene gebruik die woorde om te probeer bewys dat Jefferson 'n
Christen was, sonder om daaraan te dink dat sy God en die Christen
se God nie dieselfde wese is/was nie. Daardie woorde kom uit 'n brief
aan Benjamin Rush in 1800, in antwoord op Rush se waarskuwing
teen die Philadelphia "geestelikes" se aanvalle op Jefferson, wie vir
Jefferson as 'n ongelowige uitgekryt het.

Die volledige verklaring lees as volg:

"The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their
hopes, & they [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided
to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe
rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against
every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have
to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of
their printing lying pamphlets against me. . ."


As daar enige iets is wat die wanopvattings rondom Jefferson kan
opklaar, dan is dit die man se eie woorde ... Jefferson se eie woorde.
Die volgende "pragtige aanhalings uit Jefferson se skrywes" wys
duidelik hoe hy die konkoksies van die Christen gesien het.


==============================================
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction
of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet
we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity".

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
==============================================
"What is it men cannot be made to believe!"

-Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, April 22, 1786.
==============================================
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there
be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of
blindfolded fear".

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
==============================================
"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the
plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed
by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from
the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion
was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to
comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the
Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of
every denomination".

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for
Religious Freedom
==============================================
"I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of
atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the
being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price
had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and
wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions?
Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
==============================================
"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of
any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in
anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an
addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
==============================================
"They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me,
will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe
rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all
they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion".

-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
==============================================
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between
man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or
his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions
only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that
act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature
should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of
separation between church and State".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802
==============================================
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people
maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of
ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always
avail themselves for their own purposes".

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
==============================================
"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and
doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and
such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of
other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause,
to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the
New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have
proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of
the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those
parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
==============================================
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
==============================================
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses
in return for protection to his own".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
==============================================
"If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is
pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their
virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God".

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
==============================================
"You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far
as I know".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819
==============================================
"As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine
(not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything
rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819
==============================================
"Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his
biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality,
and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much
ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and
imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions
should have proceeded from the same being".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
==============================================
"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the
human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings,
or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise:
but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke,
Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of
immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But
heresy it certainly is".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
==============================================
"Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against
absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the
sport of every wind".

-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.
==============================================
I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist,
which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever
man worshipped a false god, he did".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
==============================================
"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 Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But
may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these
United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore
to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated
reformer of human errors".

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
==============================================
"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse or
The book of Revelation, last book of the Bible], and I then considered
it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of
explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
==============================================
"All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general
spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the
palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with
saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready
to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God".

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826
(in the last letter he penned)
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PostSubject: Hello , Ware   Religious liberty EmptySun Dec 23, 2007 12:18 am

Thank you for the above exposition ... I enjoyed reading your input ... I shall reply soon thereto ...

However , the idea with a topic like this is exactly this : .... to get people's views and replications to the utterances of some and certain quotations... of certain men and women not necessarily Statesmen (as in this case) of the past ... and how and if ever and to what extent , the remarks, quotations and utterances of the past remain applicable or not to the present day ...

Firstly , this topic is not about Maas ... I have stated my views , not on "crucifying " Maas , but on my views on satanism as a religion , elsewhere ... may we leave him out of this topic ... His views are not important ... because you know my views on satanism ... satanism is NOT a religion ... unless you classify an infidel a satanist ... I do not ...

With respect , it is hard for me to envisage in the three passages quoted by me ...neither in the ones that you referred to ....a plea by Jefferson that satanism be constitutionialised and regarded as a religion ...


He merely lashes out at the people who pretend to be Christians but have distorted His teachings (for selfgain ) ... on this laters ... (although we have touched on this in debate before ) ...

It is Christmas time ... and also my birthday, although past , the family will be here and I am preparing and very busy workwise as well ... will try to write soon but very busy at the moment ... SIMS ...
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