(June 14, 2016 at 10:33 am)abaris Wrote:(June 14, 2016 at 9:59 am)Kingpin Wrote: I won't argue with you on that as I don't think Deism is religious but I included it as there were founders who were classified as Deists to show the diversity in the beliefs of the founders (not all were religious zealots even though many were pastors). Regardless, you have a diverse groups of religious believers who firmly believed the governing body of the nation should hold no sway on what people choose to believe.
By todays standards many of them would be atheists, I gather, based on there own quotes. They just didn't have anything to compare religious doctrines against, as we have today. So they were deists.
I don't doubt that and some may even have been agnostic even at that time. But the point was despite the beliefs of the founders of our government they were very clear that the government has no authority over the beliefs of its people.
We are not made happy by what we acquire but by what we appreciate.
