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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (41552)	6/22/1999 2:04:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Moreover - regardless of how they believed - they were wise enough to compartment their spiritual beliefs away from the secular machinery they were designing. I get a little worried when my contemporaries argue for a more Christianized state and cite the probable intent of the founding fathers.

To: jbe who wrote (41552)	6/22/1999 8:29:00 PM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

What I would like to see was an analysis in detail of how the FF really deep down felt about existence of a humanoid god. That most intelligent people believe that some vague spiritual miasma at the root of everything is possible: even I believe in neutrinos and 21 cm radiation permeating everything. In an age in which people were burned or broken on the wheel for being protestants, and had their children stolen away, Voltaire (whose noblest act was his protest) was careful to appear to believe in god. Remember Socrates had been executed for being an atheist (among other things). I knew the feeling very well. I was ridiculed in school for my questions and my doubts. Even today, an open admission of atheism causes many people to be shunned. I am not saying that Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington were hypocrites, but they were not looking for trouble. I've read a lot about them, but I have never been able to decide if these three were deep down atheists. I think they were careful not to ask themselves the question, but more or less happily consented to play along with the mass delusion that there was something out there that cared for people.