Fun with quotes!

[juldea]

Blatantly stolen, word for word, from scottage.

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." – George Washington

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." – Thomas Paine

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." – Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." – Abraham Lincoln

"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." - George Bush Sr.

Comments

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

Can you cite references for those quotes please.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I cited my reference... But to be more specific: http://www.livejournal.com/users/scottage/108324.html

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

No offense, but I mean citations from the original quotes. I remember an email that was going around with sayings that was contributed to George Carlin. When George Carlin was asked about the sayings that were being attributed to him he said he never said those things nor would he.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of what you asked for, but I am not the one who originally posted these or did the digging for the quotes. I saw them posted in a friend's journal, thought they were cool, knew him to be an intelligent person who doesn't just make shit up, and therefore reposted them. Do you look up the citations on every single quote you see attributed to someone on the internet?

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

No I don't look up every quote I see on the internet, but then again I also don't give them a lot of credence either.

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

I can tell you at least the first was at least paraphrased from

“The government of the United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion.” — (First) Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 (8 US at L 154)

I can tell you the Bush quote is referred to in MSN Encyclopedia and happened in 1987 at a fundraiser

[flyingindie.livejournal.com]

I'm too lazy to dig for the original quotes, but as an American history lover, I can tell you that the opinions contained in the quotes are accurate.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

The Washington quote is actually taken from the Treaty of Tripoli, which was signed by John Adams, if I'm not mistaken. (And Google suggests I am not.)

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

He was paraphrasing the treaty.

“The government of the United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion.”
— (First) Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 (8 US at L 154)

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

The Paine quote is from his book The Age of Reason.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Here are some carefully cited Lincoln atheism quotes (http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/lincoln.htm).

The UUs are big on Jefferson (http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/thomasjefferson.html) and can probably emit lots of useful citations, but I'm not going to dig them up right now.

It has often been forgotten in the revivalist atmosphere of the late 20th century that the United States was founded in the midst of the Enlightenment by (mostly) a pack of ravening deist Masons.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I think you meant raving but the image of ravening deist Masons made me reach for my squeegee.

There's a Werewolf: The Apocalypse sourcebook idea in there, somewhere.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

No, I was definitely going for BEN FRANKLIN IS GOING TO BITE YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF imagery there.

[siderea]

You made my day. :D

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Awww. Even though I forgot the all-important BITEY KERRY icon?

[idonotlikepeas]

The Thomas Paine quote is from The Age of Reason. And frankly that quote is probably the least cruel thing he says about orthodox Christianity in that document.

The Jefferson quote is probably fake; I've seen that one come up before and there's no primary source on it. On the other hand, he was a deist and has said many very similar things about the nature of the US government (which he had a fairly significant part in founding, as you may be aware). Feel free to hit up Google for more on Jefferson's Deism.

Not sure about the Lincoln quote, but a few seconds of Googling turned up http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/lewis/lewis07.htm.

The Bush quote is from a press conference in response to a question by Robert I. Sherman.

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

The Jefferson quote is a misquote of a letter he wrote to... gack someone, Christianity was reffered to in the original sentence as "our superstition" though context would certainly lend a vote to Christianity.

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

That first one's a paraphrase Washington used of

“The government of the United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion.”
— (First) Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 (8 US at L 154)

Which is interesting.

[christhegeek.livejournal.com]

Heh, I thought it was well known the majority of the 'founding fathers' were deists.

[flyingindie.livejournal.com]

Not where I live.

[isaiahblake.livejournal.com]

If only it were well-known. What is 'well-known' is that Washington loved Jesus almost as much as he loved honesty.

[threeboy.livejournal.com]

this is why i live in canada.

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