George W. Bush edits Thomas Jefferson

July 8th, 2008 at 02:25pm Pat Cunningham

 

Thomas Jefferson was not a very religious man, at least not in the orthodox sense of the term.

Indeed, in the presidential campaign of 1800, Jefferson’s critics labeled him “virtually an atheist” and  ”a manifest enemy to the religion of Christ” whose election would be “a rebellion against God.”

Actually, Jefferson was a great admirer of Jesus and once wrote a book in which he adapted from the Bible the ethical teachings of Jesus without the references to miracles and divinity.

On his death bed, just days before the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson penned a letter in which he implied scorn for dogmatic religion as “monkish ignorance and superstition…”

President Bush quoted from that letter in a speech last week at Monticello, Jefferson’s home. He even included the sentence in which Jefferson had originally made the reference to “monkish ignorance” — but he skipped right over the 12 words regarding religion.

Read about it HERE and HERE and HERE.

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