>A month before his death in 1790, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to Yale University president Ezra Stiles: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.">Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to John Adams in 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 Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.">Jefferson also denied the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of and the resurrection of Jesus, and the divine inspiration of Scripture. He went as far as to cut up and glue back together the New Testament to remove all references to miracles to make an "uncorrupted" book about the moral teachings of Jesus, and he had no use at all for the Old Testament.>Thomas Paine: "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."Objectively at least half the founding fathers are burning in hell for being blasphemers and heretical. Particularly Jefferson for outright changing the holy scripture itself and making his own Bible. Why the hell are these bozos propped up when they're all spawns of Satan?
>>18106581National narratives requiring them to be heroic nigh-saintly superhuman figures out of myth who can do no wrong rather than incredibly complicated mortal men with as many flaws (and virtues) as the rest of mankind. Founding legends are rarely ‘about’ the truth as much as they are ‘about’ creating a sense of self-identity.Which makes them basically worthless if you care about truth, but whatever that’s nationalism for you.
>>18106581It is insane to me that people legitimately believe that the nation was someone founded on Christian values, when these were quite literally the people who founded the country.
The typical American Christian conservatives tend to be hysterically afraid of critical history of any sort, and think that any revisiting of the established narratives will lead into literal communism.
>>18106581>the smartest people in history share their doubts about the authenticity of religion>"haah they're burning in hell! die heretics! dieeee!!!"You're not making yourself look very smart here
>>18106702No one thinks like this.>>18106658Jefferson created his own personal secular Christianity because he liked Christian values so much. It was obviously founded on Christian values.
>>18106581But I've seen miracles in every wayAnd I see miracles everyday
>>18106748>heresy is christiani hope you won't complain about women pastors
>>18106860He clearly believes in a divine creator
