Tema: USA: Our Founding Fathers were not Christians

Benjamin Franklin Few men have done as much for the world as Benjamin Franklin. Although he was always proud to call himself a printer, Franklin had many other talents as well. He was a diplomat, a scientist, an inventor, a philosopher, an educator, and a public servant. Any one of Franklin's many accomplishments would have been enough to make him famous. He organized the first library in America, and the U.S. Postal System. He invented many things, including the lightning rod and the Franklin stove. Franklin amazed scientists throughout the world with his experiments in electricity. In Europe, Benjamin Franklin was the most famous American of his time. It was he who persuaded the English to repeal the hated Stamp Act. It was also he who convinced the French to aid in the American Revolution. Franklin helped draft both the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.
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Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia Deluxe
Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did."
- letter to his father, 1738






". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
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"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."
- "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion", 1728
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"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity." - Works, Vol. VII, p. 75
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"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both here (England) and in New England."
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"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." -in Poor Richard's Almanac
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"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." -in Poor Richard's Almanac
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"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
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"I looked around for God's judgments, but saw no signs of them."
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"In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it."






"It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers" (Priestley's Autobiography)


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