(September 27, 2012 at 11:03 am)Minimalist Wrote:Quote:Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. 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
Go find the entire letter, he goes on to say that if one comes to the conclusion that a god does not exist, that is ok too.
It really astounds me that from the day the ink dried on the Constitution, that after the founders risked their lives setting up "no religious test" and the first Amendment, that every effort has been taken to bury especially the skepticism of Jefferson.
If he ran for office today, neither party would nominate him nor would most of the public vote for him.
He also said in one of his letters something to the affect "whence comes the morality of the atheist? It is idol to say that no such thing exists".
Now when I quote Jefferson I neve let the theist make false claims that I am lying claiming he was an atheist. No, when we quote him we must always make the effort to point out that he was a deist, not an atheist. But the important thing about him was that he valued questioning over fear of being wrong.
