Quote: It strikes me as odd that a professed Christian president would have such a ritual performed on his corpse
That would probably be news to Lincoln.
Quote:My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.
-- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge J S Wakefield
Quote:The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Quote:There was the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.
-- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Martin M Morris (March 26, 1843)
The custom of placing a coin is Greek but IIRC it was a single coin in the mouth..not one on each eye.
Xtians stole so much they could easily have stolen this idea.