With: Gary Hiles <amlink@infinet.com>
Robert Curry destroys cultist claims about the Founders of the United States

GH> Robert you are really full of it this time. You better stick with math
GH> because you know very little about history, our nations founders,

So anytime someone says something that contradicts your mistakes, Gary, do you always say that they are full of it when the evidence actually points to you as being the one speaking without knowledge?

GH> and the three you mentioned were only 3 of the many who
GH> participated.

This much is obvious. I was presenting three examples of those who were vital to the American Revolution, and who were not by any means "conservative Christians" as a matter of fact.

Time for you to wake up to the fact, and this is your wake up call.

GH> I will quote you from a book of famous quotations the words
GH> of the three men you certainly create some fabrication or
GH> distortion then add a few more.

GH> George Washington - It is impossible to rightly govern the world
GH> without God and the Bible.

Speaking of fabrications, Gary, you just quoted one. Washington never said that.

GH> The reason Washington didn't do what you said when he was
GH> President

Pay attention. I didn't say he did it when he was President, Gary.

You clearly do not know much about this subject. He did so as a general many years before he became the first president under the new federal constitution that was ratified more than a decade after the founding of the United States.

GH> was his fear of offending any person of a specific faith when
GH> was President and not showing partialuty toward a specific
GH> Christian sect.

Please stop and think for a moment. Do you seriously believe that someone getting up and walking out as soon as communion begins is not going to offend anyone? That one is really funny. It is also anachronistic to think of Washington behaving as if he were operating under the very recent notion of political correctness, supposedly "in fear of offending" people. He had no such fear anytime in his life. He was upholding his principles by not lying about belonging to any Christian communion. He came as a visitor and he left as a visitor. That was all.

Those are the facts, Gary, and I would invite you to consult any number of HISTORICAL books about him and his time instead of relying so uncritically on your one crummy little book of revisionist religious apologetics that is designed to warp history by pretending that the founders were all "conservative Christians." Many of them most assuredly were not, and Washington is just one case in point. One of many.

GH> He did question sectarianism but not God or the Bible. Get a grip
GH> BOB Another one of your distorted lies.

What exactly is MY lie, Gary? Point it out to me if you can -- go right ahead and quote my own supposedly lying words. Ah, but you cannot, because I did not lie.

If the Promise Keepers were to emphasize that men should not falsely accuse others, then maybe you should go right ahead and join them, if only to learn how to accept responsibility for your obnoxious attitude and to learn how to retract and to apologize for accusing a person falsely so many times. I'm fed up with your perversely unjustified accusations.

GH> Let me quote Jefferson - I have always said and will always
GH> say that the studious perusual of the sacred Bible will make
GH> better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.

I am not familiar with that quote. Jefferson wrote a great deal, so would you care to provide me with the context? I think you are just quoting from your little religious book of half-truths without really knowing anything about Jefferson, because if you knew the man's views, you would run screaming in terror before ever pretending that Jefferson, of all people, could ever be considered a "conservative Christian." Great galloping goats, Gary, but you really need to get a decent education on these subjects before you presume to lecture anyone else.

Here, let me help with a few quotes from Jefferson that I can provide references for. I won't hold my breath waiting for you to admit you were wrong, but at least you can learn something if you take the time to listen.

Would a conservative Christian write to Thomas Law in 1814:

"Some have made the love of God the foundation of morality. Whence, then, arises the morality of the Atheist? . . . Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God."

Would a conservative Christian write to Ezra Stiles in 1819:

"You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am a sect by myself as far as I know. I am not a Jew and therefore do not adopt their theology which supposes the god of infinite justice to punish the sins of the fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation."

Would a conservative Christian write to James Smith in 1822:

"The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerebus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs."

Would a conservative Christian write to John Adams in 1823:

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

Would a conservative Christian write to William Short in 1829:

"If we could believe that Jesus really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatans which his biographers father on him and admit the misconstructions, interpolations and theorizations of the fathers of the early and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible be every sound mind, that he was an imposter."

Oh, one last quote, this time from Jefferson's autobiography:

"I sent a copy of my draught -- The political relation between us and England [in 1775] -- to Patrick Henry. Whether he disapproved the ground taken or was too lazy to read it (for he was the laziest man in reading I ever knew) I never learned . . . He communicated it to no one."

GH> You were really smoking dope on this one.

No, I was reading history, while you were just believing whatever was fed to you by people with a religious agenda who are not above lying with half-truths and outright inventions. You deserve better than to be lied to, Gary.

Time for you to pull your foot out of your mouth. An apology would be a good way to start.

GH> Since this is the main goal of the Promise Keepers no doubt
GH> Jefferson would have attended their meetings.

As far as I know, that so-called quote was invented by some religious liar. All my quotes are referenced and supported by the historical records.

Jefferson was an independent thinker and a man who made a point of reading something of an ethical nature every night. I doubt he would want to jam into a stadium to join a mob of religious followers, or join a Promise Keeper cell where he is supposed to discuss his private family, financial and sexual activities with people who believe in what he considered a religious myth.

GH> By the way Jefferson also wrote the Declaration of Independence
GH> where he refers to the Creator.

Did you know that Jefferson's first draft contained no reference at all to any "creator?" I'll quote the original for you, for your edification, Gary. Furthermore, neither Jefferson nor the other deists among the founders considered their creator a Christian one. Didn't you know that?

Now here's the first draft, as quoted in_Jefferson, Champion of the Free Mind_:

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive inherent and inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

GH> Ben Franklin - A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a
GH> good school in every district, all studied and appreciated as
GH> they merit, are the principal support of virtue, morality,
GH> and civil liberty. He who shall introduce into public affairs
GH> the principles of primitive Christianity will revoluntionize
GH> the world.

I have no idea where you got that alleged quote, either, but at least it sounds like something he may have said. Franklin's religious views were -- like the views of many of his freethinking contemporaries -- uniquely his own. Unlike Jefferson, who cut up a new testament to extract the good parts (or as Jefferson phrased it, "diamonds found in a dunghill") and paste them back together to create his own shorter, better version, Franklin preferred a quieter approach. Although he did not believe in a divine Jesus (some conservative Christian, eh?), he did believe in a divine creator-god and even in other gods. All this can be found in Franklin's private writings. I have them here in a collection of his autobiography and other works.

Briefly, Franklin was a self-declared hedonist who considered pleasure to be good, as opposed to the Puritan hatred of it that so influenced him as a child. He was also a deist who did believe in a benevolent creator, who chose to avoid any conflict with any religious sect due to his belief -- and this is one shared by humanists -- that deeds are far more important than creeds.

GH> How about Patrick Henry recall him?

Yes. So did Jefferson, as I quoted for you above.

GH> John Adams - so great is my veneration for the Bible

As far as I know, Adams was a Christian.

GH> John Jay - God governs the world and we have only to do
GH> our duty wisely and leave the issue to him.

Yet the founders specifically left god out of the Articles of Confederation that created the United States, and later made a point of founding a federal republic upon the foundation of "We the People" -- a radical departure from the common justification in those times that governments were given their authority from a divine or heavenly source.

Even those founders who were Christians joined with the great many who were not to leave their religion completely OUT of the founding constitutions.

They were truly revolutionaries in their time.

GH> How many more do you want BOB?? You better stick
GH> with math and leave this kind of thing to people like me or
GH> you really show how ignorant you are.

Thanks for the laughs, Gary. Your bullshit has been exposed for the farce that it is. Now will you face the truth like a man, or will you go into denial like a good little sheep?

GH> I knew you would refer to France. Any more? Had to stretch
GH> to think of one

You asked for one, so I gave you one. If you want more, I'll be happy to oblige. Just make up your mind in advance how many examples you are going to ask for, Gary, instead of changing the number after I provide you with the answer.

GH> That is the one I had in mind where women are sex objects
GH> and exploited and most of the men are bums who let the
GH> women do everything forthem. Bad Choice Bob. Try again.

Oh, good grief. Do you expect me to take that seriously?

GH> By the way, Washington was a Congregationalist,

Nope, your source is either mistaken or lying. Washington never joined any church. Period. Several later claimed him, but none can provide evidence to support their claim.

GH> Jefferson a Unitarian,

So someone who denies that Jesus is the son of god qualifies as a "conservative Christian" in your mind? Do you even know what Unitarians believed at that time?

GH> and Franklin was a fequent visitor of several different
GH> churches.

Indeed, so was Washington.

GH> Adams was a Quaker.

A much better Quaker than Nixon, to be sure.

GH> I just found how many lies or mildly stated serious errors
GH> in what you just wrote this time BOB, so you see you have
GH> lied haven't you??

No, Gary, all I see is your worthless accusation.

Now either QUOTE my exact words where you claim that I lied, or else admit that you are again making it up. Oh, I forgot. You don't have the guts to admit when you're wrong.

Also, is it the Promise Keepers who taught you to write "BOB" at bizarre intervals, or is that just something personal to Gary Hiles?

---
Robert Curry
St. Petersburg, Florida