About What Jefferson Said About Christianity Part 1.

The so-called "skeptics" movement was begun as a means to promote atheism while not seeming to promote atheism.  Anyone who has studied it will see that most of its earliest and most prominent members were the kinds of atheists who hold religious people and religion in contempt, much of it with a good dose of class and intellectual snobbery thrown in for good measure.   The moving force behind organized skepticism, Paul Kurtz, was primarily a promoter of atheism, often a paid employee of the Stalinist enemy of religious belief, Corliss Lamont.  Practically all of the prominent members of the early "skeptics" movements were atheists, often presenting even the scientific research into telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis and other topics with no actual religious content as a danger to their materialist faith, even when the researchers themselves were not religious and their research, published in journals far more rigorously reviewed and refereed than the "Skeptical Inquirer" or any of the other official "skeptical" magazines.  Those have a lot more in common with The National Enquirer than they do a scientific journal.

For a movement that is supposed to be all about rigorous evidence, fearless and objective confrontation with the logical consequences of that evidence, "skepticism" and its parent, ideological atheism, has a remarkably shoddy record of both of those.  As I posted last Sunday, as good a journalist as Barbara Ehrenreich went with one of the frequent instances of atheists lying about what an eminent person has said about religion, John Adams, in that case.  If she had even read the letter she, or more likely some atheist authority she based her misrepresentation on, had read the actual letter they'd have seen that Adams didn't say what they wanted him to say, in fact, the phrase, "the bloodiest religion that ever existed" was part of a question dealing with the corruption of the teachings of Jesus and within an endorsement of Christianity as, not just truth, but revealed truth.

Christianity, you will say, was a fresh revelation. I will not deny this. As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

I'm still pretty shocked that as good a journalist as Barbara Ehrenreich wouldn't have checked her source in its original form, doing something that would have earned a college freshman caught doing it a failing grade.  At least it would have in a research paper in my field.  But that's not uncommon with atheists, in my experience.  When it comes to a condemnation of religion, an endorsement of their ideology, they are as ready to misrepresent as any fundamentalist, perhaps more so.  There's not much of a price to pay for that kind of lying within the milieu they operate in.  At least theoretically, a biblical fundamentalist would believe that bearing false witness was a major sin with real consequences and doing so would discredit their sincerity in a way that it seldom has with atheist misrepresentation.  I'm unaware of any atheists who have suffered professionally from misrepresenting religion. Still, I would have expected more from Ehrenreich.

For more evidence, you can look at the frequent atheistic quote mining of James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, they entirely misrepresent a longer document which both endorses Christianity and, in Madison's case, hopes for its universal adoption.  Far from condemning Christianity, he opposed the state establishment of a single sect as impeding the progress of the spread of Christianity.

Because the policy of the Bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift ought to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions; and how small is the former! Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of revelation from coming into the Region of it; and countenances by example the nations who continue in darkness, in shutting out those who might convey it to them. Instead of Levelling as far as possible, every obstacle to the victorious progress of Truth, the Bill with an ignoble and unchristian timidity would circumscribe it with a wall of defence against the encroachments of error.

Can you believe it's a sin to tell a lie if you don't believe in sin?  I ask with the intention of provoking a discussion of that point.

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I was curious about what Ehrenreich attributed to Jefferson, though she didn't quote him or give any indication of what letter or document she based her assertion that he advised a young friend," in your philosophical thinking don't forget to open up the question of whether there is such a deity,:.  I looked for the source of the assertion but didn't find anything I think matched her assertion.  I wouldn't be surprised if Jefferson said something that could be opportunistically construed to constitute an attack against God, as conceived of by Christians or Jews, I doubt it would stand up as that when an entire document is consulted and certainly not when you consider all of Jefferson's statements on the subject.

First, even if he said it, questioning the existence of God isn't an anti-religious act, it certainly isn't unknown even in the scriptures.  The Rg Veda, the Jewish scriptures, the Christian scriptures, all contain that kind of challenge.  Perhaps other religious texts do as well but those are the instances I'm familiar with.  Questioning what God is like or could be like, even questioning the action or inaction of God is questioned by no less of a religious personage as Jesus when he said,  "My God, why have You forsaken me?"

It would have been helpful to have the exact alleged quote and a citation so the original could be seen.  Though from what I'd already seen of Jefferson, I think he might have said he could well have advised questioning the trinitarian view of God.  He had no problem declaring his belief in God as presented by Unitarians.  Here's a letter to Benjamin Waterhouse in which he says as much.

Your favor of Dec. 20. is received. The Professors of our University, 8. in number, are all engaged. Those of antient & modern languages are already on the spot. Three more are hourly expected to arrive, and on their arrival the whole will assemble and enter on their duties. There remains therefore no place in which we can avail ourselves of the services of the revd. Mr. Bertrum as a teacher. I wish we could do it as a Preacher. I am anxious to see the doctrine of one god commenced in our State. But the population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one Preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself, altho I know there are many around me who would become so if once they could hear the question fairly stated.

So, Jefferson was a "Unitarian by myself".  But what else can be known about his relationship with Christianity.   Here's a longer passage from a letter to Timothy Pickering in which he seems to agree with Madison about  the desirability of Christianity, as Jefferson believed it to be, being universally adopted:

I thank you for Mr. Channing's discourse, which you have been so kind to forward to me.  It is not yet at hand, but it is doubtless on its way.  I had received it through another channel. and read it with high satisfaction. No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advances towards rational Christianity. When we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since His day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines He inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily His disciples; and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from His lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian. I know that the case you cite, of Dr. Drake, has been a common one. The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers, to revolt them against the whole, and drive them rashly to pronounce its Founder an impostor. Had there never been a commentator, there never would have been an infidel…. I have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon be rallied to the unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also.

It doesn't exactly sound like a rejection of Christianity in favor of what atheists usually mean when they  talk about deism being a species of atheism.  I believe the Channing he refers to is William Ellery Channing, the author of "Unitarian Christianity".   I strongly suspect that was the "discourse" Jefferson was referring to and endorsing by, at least, implication.  Even if that isn't the case there is no doubt Jefferson said, "I have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon be rallied to the unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also."   Those aren't words to gladden the atheist heart.  That Jefferson, as well as Madison and Adams was opposed to the establishment of a state religion obviously didn't keep all of them from endorsing Christianity and of hoping that everyone would become convinced of the teachings of Jesus.

In the elision (after the word "infidel") Jefferson mentions Joseph Priestly, whose theology he explicitly endorsed later in his life.  In a letter he wrote to Priestley in 1801 he said:

This was the real ground of all the attacks on you. Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy,—the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man,—endeavored to crush your well-earnt & well-deserved fame.

Here is an interesting document, Jefferson's 1803 "Syllabus of an estimate of the merit of the doctrines of Jesus, compared with those of others," drawn up for Benjamin Rush.  Among other interesting items, some of them which could justly be considered slightly antisemitic, Jefferson shows that when he endorses deism, he doesn't mean what most people mean by that today.

II. Jews. 1. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief of one only God. But their ideas of him & of his attributes were degrading & injurious

Apparently, when Jefferson said "deism" he meant what is more often call "unitarianism." then and now.  You can see that more clearly when he said:

1. He [Jesus] corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government.

Deism, in the modern meaning of the word, would pretty much preclude many of the things Jefferson stated he believed.  Ehrenreich said: "the founding fathers were mostly Deists, as we know, meaning they thought there might once have been a god who set things in motion and then just walked off and retired from the scene. They were, in other words, what would be called today "godless atheists"

No, they'd seem to be closer to the conservative wing of the Unitarian Universalists who are specifically theists and consider themselves to be Christians.  Perhaps even more Christian than a modern Unitarian Universalist would be comfortable with admitting, he also believed that sin had consequences in a "future state".

3. The precepts of philosophy, & of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.

4. He taught, emphatically, the doctrines of a future state, which was either doubted, or disbelieved by the Jews; and wielded it with efficacy, as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct.