Emilie Gruchow wrote:
>
> If anything, Jefferson's manner of speaking certainly counters any
> arguments that the founding father was a devoted man of the Christian
> church. Though I do agree with his acceptance of humanity's tendency
> to duke it out in large groups every 150 years or so, I would shy away
> from assigning it to a higher calling of nature (ie Deism). I am not
> completely dismissive of religion myself, though I am skeptical, but
> conducting one's primeval head butting in the name of some higher
> power seems a stretch even to the agnostics on this side of the pond.
Personally I'm agnostic, I don't believe in gods.
Jefferson definitely leaned towards Deism. He did apparently accept at
least parts of the Bible.
He doesn't get into any religious reference, at least in this quote. He
does refer in his writings to Hobbes' "Nature's God" which is consistent
w/ Deism.
I think the spirit of rebellion against tyranny was then, and is now, an
important one to encourage. I'm not waiting for anyone to pick up guns
and snipe at the Kops, but I'd like to see an end to the apathetic rot
which has become endemic.
I'd like to keep some of the spirit of 1789 alive.
>
> elag <elag@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:<3F124E55.A4BA3D3B@cloud9.net>...
> > The storming of the Bastille on July 14 and its immediate consequences
> > showed what the French Revolution was all about, namely,
> > the consequence of a moral collapse that had been prepared by the
> > left-wing, radical chic, literati of its day...
> >
> > http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Paris/Monuments-Paris/Bastille.shtml
> >
> > http://www.history.sfasu.edu/jackson/232/Test2/french_revolution.htm
> >
> > What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion?
> > & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not
> > warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of
> > resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to
> > facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century
> > or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
> > blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure. --- Thomas Jefferson
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