Republican Theocracy vs Thomas Jefferson on Religion, God, Government, Rights & Reason
/
Thomas Jefferson loved Paris and he surely would approve of these photos of Eniko Mihalik, by Cedric Buchet published in Vogue Paris March 2010, married to his own words.
Thomas Jefferson’s views on God and government is enlightening, especially given the events of the past week. Refusing to deal with jobs and the economy, Washington Republicans focused on their top priority of making America a theocracy.
Today’s op ed in The Pilot, Southern Pines, NC sets the stage for Jefferson’s reflections:
This past Tuesday, the United States economy was still fragile. A looming Greek debt crisis threatened to make things worse. Perhaps most tragically (judging from the wall-to-wall press coverage), someone named Kim Kardashian had just filed for divorce.
Beset by crises, it was hard to know which way to turn, which of our nation’s many problems must be addressed first. But one man could see clearly what needed to be done. One man knew what required immediate action. That man was Speaker of the House John Boehner. With seconds ticking away, he and his fellow Republicans seized the moment and used it to its greatest advantage.
What step did these brave visionaries, these giants in the land, take? They boldly introduced legislation to have “In God We Trust” declared the motto of the United States.
I believe that Thomas Jefferson should speak though his own words, with no commentary from me — except to say that the great Jefferson would consider Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the whole Republican presidential crew wackos and a danger to the republic.
More Reading Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 1878; more quotes and dates, context of these quotes plus quotes erroneously attributed to Jefferson, read Monticello.org.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. ~Thomas Jefferson
Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. ~Thomas Jefferson
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
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
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
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.
Photos via ru_glamour.
More Reading
