So, I was at work, and was focused on completing my charting when I overheard some techs talking about Obama.....At first I was just listening, and then when one said that "I cain't vote for him, I cain't vote for a mooslim".......I kinda chuckled and kept working on my charts....One of the nurses spoke up and said "You know that he's not a muslim, right?" The tech said, well, everything he's seen says that he's a mooslim, and then he proceeded to say "Every president we've ever had, has been a christian......our founders were all good christians". I sit there for a second, but then, not being able to bite my tongue any longer, I reply, "You do realize that Washington was not a christian, I mean he was born an Episcopalian, but renounced this later, right?"...The guy looks at me, "Well, my pastor says that all of our founders were good christian men".......I say, "Well, I'm sorry to say that your pastor is completely and utterly WRONG on this point." SO, I show him some quotes.....
"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 corrupt 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 I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...."
-Ben Franklin
“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758
“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”
“He (the Rev. Mr. Whitefield) used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard.”
“I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies.”
“Some volumes against Deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle’s Lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the Deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appealed to me much more forcibly than the refutation itself. In a word, I soon became a thorough Deist.” Benjamin Franklin, from his autobiography
“Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society.” George Washington Letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792
The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.” John Adams
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” John Adams, Treaty of Tripoly, article 11
“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.” John Adams, letters to family and other leaders 1735-1826
“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia
“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.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
“In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” James Madison, April 1, 1774
So I show him these...and unbelievably, he says, "well, I don't think that they wrote those, and I stand by what my pastor says"......
I reply, "Well, they believed in god, just not jesus. They were deists, the closest church in current existence to their belief structure is probably the Unitarian church."
His reply..."Well, I don't believe that, and sorry, but I think you're completely wrong".
I reply, "Of course, you have empiric evidence of my fallacies?"
He's like, "Nope, I have faith in my pastor"..
Now it's no secret that I am not religious, in fact, I would venture that organized religion has been the most evil creation that man has EVER devised, and has been responsible for more pain, suffering, and death, then almost everything else combined.
BUT, I also believe in the freedom for people to believe in what they want to. My problem is when people try to distort history for personal reasons.
:mad2: :mad2: :mad2: :mad2: