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@supernimo739gaming7

11 ай бұрын

Based

@dmonvisigoth1651

11 ай бұрын

Even as a non-Christian (rather, recovering former Christian), I must agree with much of what Jefferson believed with regard to the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Man was ahead of his time.

@lunalee3021

10 ай бұрын

Would you ever make a video on the biblical definition of "Wives submit to your husbands?" It might settle a lot of arguments.

@jeremyhennessee6604

8 ай бұрын

New Subscriber here. GREAT channel brother. Have you ever did one on Thomas Paine: The Age of Reason? If not it would be awesome to. From what I can ascertain, it seems Thomas Paine had a pretty similar view regarding the creator. He was canceled more or less. Over his views. It's hardly a new thing. (Canceling that is.) Great work again.

@minetruly

5 ай бұрын

Atheist here. I've just discovered your channel, and I must say it's really refreshing to see someone presenting a Christian topic with intellectual integrity. I didn't look at the channel name before watching the video, and as I watched, I struggled to figure out whether you were an atheist. I've subscribed and I'm looking forward to hearing your perspective on some of the other topics I'm seeing on your channel. I can't express enough how refreshing it is to get a detailed analysis on a topic in Christianity without the presenter twisting things to fit their bias or unconsciously deferring to some kind of dogmatic belief.

The Jefferson bible is definitely a fascinating piece of history

@JacksonHoulihan

10 ай бұрын

I found one at a goodwill and it is pretty cool what he did. It was never supposed to be printed and he said as much during his life. It was printed for members of congress and then it got around how good it was so people decided to print more copies.

@Mark-Wilson

6 ай бұрын

Interestingly he also had a jefferson Quran

@sclifford9818

2 ай бұрын

One of the reasons for the Jefferson Bible was for the Indians at the recommendation of a Scottish Pastor.

ReligionForLunch

@alexreid1173

11 ай бұрын

I ate lunch while watching this so yeah

@owenconant

11 ай бұрын

Religion for brunch I'm about to have some eggo waffles

@sterlingkuhlmann6270

11 ай бұрын

I’m sitting at the lunch table right now lol

@Charles-js3ri

11 ай бұрын

Ooh me too.

@elak624

11 ай бұрын

Just ate pasta for lunch while watching this haha

“I am a sect of my own” I really relate to.

@TheMargarita1948

8 ай бұрын

This applies to all theologians. Not one has fully agreed with any other one for 4000 years.

I was gifted a copy of the Jefferson Bible and find it intriguing. I do not find it irreligious. It reflects the spiritual longings and growth of an incredibly gifted, complex man of his times. As an Episcopalian who grew up in Botetourt Co. Virginia where Jefferson defended the Anabaptist and Methodist Preachers who were jailed for spreading God’s Word without an exorbitantly priced license from the Anglican Church, the Established Church of the Virginia Colony, I find his Statute for Religious Freedom fascinating. It informed that section of The Bill of Rights. Jefferson was influenced by the Enlightenment, bound by the time in which he lived but he also had a questing mind.

@larryclese

10 ай бұрын

It also erases the parts about "monogenesis", ie, all humans are descended from Adam and Eve. He favored "polygenesis" meaning that white and black and asian people were products of DIFFERENT creations and were not all the same. He did this because enslaving people who were the same as white people was getting to be a difficult proposition. Sooo, iit is also the White Supremacist Bible, quite literally.

He wasn’t the pious church goer God fearing Christian a lot of Americans think he was but he did manage to win freedom for all religious participants in his home state of Virginia. It’s hard to imagine the some of the protected freedoms in the first amendment without Jefferson’s Statute for religious freedom.

@RPlavo

11 ай бұрын

In fact he despised clergy

@patrickrowan6001

10 ай бұрын

In the original comment there’s the word “but” linking the clauses Surely an unreligious person is more rather than less likely to support religious freedom?

@krompkap09

10 ай бұрын

@@patrickrowan6001 I could very well be the case but I would like to adjudicate his support due to his fervent liberal(in the classical sense) upbringing.

@fernandocuriel124

4 ай бұрын

I’m a Christian conservative but I definitely agree with you Thomas Jefferson.

The religiousness of the founding fathers is such a wonderfully grey area to look into that just gets bogged down by people wanting to find a historical snippet they can use in an argument

@yesnomaybeso5755

2 ай бұрын

It’s simple. They believed in God not religion.

@MFBloosh

Ай бұрын

@@yesnomaybeso5755 "They" didn't believe in God. A lot of the founding fathers didn't. They created a country that's supposed to have a separation of church and state. They also wrote that we would never establish a religion in this country. "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." People get confused with freedom of religion, thinking it means that our founding fathers wanted us to be ruled under religion when it was the complete opposite. Freedom of religion just means you shall not get persecuted for practicing whatever religion you practice, ya know, since they came from England where Kings and Queens used religion to justify the most horrifying actions against common people, as well as their foes/rivals.

Thanks for the video! Can you do the same with Atatürk, a founding father of the Republic of Turkey?

@ReligionForBreakfast

11 ай бұрын

That's a good idea

@ritawilbur6128

11 ай бұрын

Yes, please!

@bartolomeothesatyr

11 ай бұрын

@@ReligionForBreakfast I concur, I would be very interested to hear your observations on the historical religious development of the modern Turkish state.

@ethanjacobrosca7833

11 ай бұрын

@@ReligionForBreakfastmaybe you can also do “Was Alexander Hamilton religious?”

@MattBellzminion

11 ай бұрын

@@ReligionForBreakfast Ataturk famously said that the world would be much better off if all the world's clerics were sent to the bottom of the ocean. (I wonder if today he might amend that to include most or all billionaires, too.) He's also said to have regularly consumed a couple of bottles of hard spirits every day, so if he had a personal deity, it may well have been Bacchus.

“A disciple of Voltaire” made me make an audible laugh! Zing!!! I often wondered if Jefferson was an atheist, but thanks to this, it’s clear he wasn’t. However, his letter to Danbury Baptist is a must read as to why there is the Establishment Clause in the 1st amendment. He was a flawed person (aren’t we all?) but I think he was fundamental in setting up a secular society where you are allowed to believe what you believe; you just can’t force it upon others.

@AndrewFullerton

11 ай бұрын

* Can't force it upon others unless you own them as chattel property

@thelostone6981

11 ай бұрын

@@AndrewFullertonThat is why said he’s a flawed person. Yes. Not all of us were born into wealth and with chattel such as Jefferson. And I’m not going ignore history as those who strive to rewrite. But humans are funny primate species with each member having many flaws. Me and you included.

@AshiwiZuni

11 ай бұрын

Secularism as a practice has existed and thrived in the islamic golden age, ancient greece, in many indigenous societies as well. What makes you think Jefferson was somehow fundamental to these worldviews when he quite literally was just a slave owning bourgeoisie and tried justifying his “place” in the world by rewriting a religious allegory to fit that worldview. Very cult like secularist.

@screetchycello

11 ай бұрын

@@AshiwiZuniPeople are complicated and the US has always preached values it never quite lived up to in practice. But **for the US specifically**, he had a huge effect on shaping ideas around religious freedom. I don't think anyone would argue he was the only one.

@seand.g423

11 ай бұрын

Dude, it's the 2020s. *were And *could

10:36 Glad to see that political discourse has always been terrible

“…and everyone becoming disciples of Voltaire” 😱

@floptaxie68

11 ай бұрын

as if it was something bad😂

The Jefferson Bible is a super interesting read. The history of its publication is really neat, too.

Thanks for this balanced and insightful analysis of Jefferson's religious beliefs, and particularly stressing that they were not static, sometimes self-contradictory, and continuingly evolving. As a professional American cultural and Church historian, I have enjoyed, and learned from, your excellent description and analysis of American religious life, since discovering your channel several years ago -- all excellent; but this episode stands out as particularly fine. Thanks -- and keep up the excellent work!! (BUST '67, & Dempster and Teaching Fellow),

Jefferson, in about 1815, said "I am an Epicurean". Epicureanism was the ancient philosophy perhaps the hardest to square with conventional Christianity.

I have been watching for about 2 years. Your videos have been thoughtful, well produced, considerate, well informed. That being said, I think this your best video so far. This is perfect.

Great video on this subject people don't often think about, at least in a mainstream way. The founders of the US are vastly more interesting simply as people than most give them credit for. I was easily convinced of that by watching the masterpiece of historical entertainment John Adams, I suggest everyone watch it. I think most of the founders are genuinely represented in the show. I have always respected Jefferson for his view on religion, not because he was or wasn't an atheist or a deist or something, but because he mostly kept his worship at least deeply personal. Yes he spoke ABOUT organized religion a lot, but I think he did that in some ways the same way people debate about politics to this day, it was an institution with issues and he wasn't going to hold back just because it's "sacred." I think that takes quite the character. Yet he wasn't the type to, excuse my possibly accidental example, go to church only with cameras surrounding him. His actual worship was personal, and it makes total sense to me that it took many many years for anyone to find the Jefferson Bible. I appreciate people who treat their worship personally instead of doing it in the most public way possible, and I appreciate people who see issues with our human institutions and try to improve them. It's what makes the freedoms outlined by Jefferson in our founding documents so important in my opinion. Really great video, loved this and the Washington one :)

The religious beliefs of our founding fathers doesn't matter. They knew and were clear in the only way for America To function is by keeping religion separate from government.

Honestly, I don't read the Bible as much as I should, but everything you covered about Thomas Jefferson roughly reflect my own beliefs which always buoys him to be my favorite founding father.

Adapting and interpreting religious text is an act of devotion. Although some would view it as sacrilegious, there is always some guess work in understanding any text

@LPVince94

11 ай бұрын

Which seems kinda weird when this same text is supposed to be divinely inspired. Why can't god express himself in a clear manner? Why do his words need to be interpreted, edited and expanded upon by fallible humans? If gods word is truth than this shouldn't be possible. Two humans shouldn't be able to look at his word and arrive at two wildly different interpretations both of which can't be true at the same time with no way of telling which one is closer to what god actually meant in the first place.

@krompkap09

11 ай бұрын

More like ‘an act of utter foolishness’.

@francismarion6400

10 ай бұрын

because people are individuals and they have an individual way of understanding experience.

@jamesparson

10 ай бұрын

I can see the cherry picking from here.

@user-dy6zm8zw5h

10 ай бұрын

The so-called three Persons in the Trinity, not only have different names: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but also have nonidentical meanings. The Father has His image, which we humans cannot see, but there should be. The Son has His image, while the Holy Spirit is formless. Therefore, the three Persons are not identical. Their names are different, and their meanings are not identical as well. If the three Persons are identical, then there is no need to talk about Trinity, but would be one Person, one essence. Just like one person with three names, in which case it’s still one person, rather than three persons. One essence doesn’t mean one person. Through practice, Jesus has eradicated sins and sinful nature, and become the most special and beloved Son of God. Through the Holy Spirit, He can completely connect with God and enter unity with God. From this perspective, the three Persons are in one essence. --Light of Wisdom Church《The Trinity ｜God from God, Light from Light｜Reincarnation | I Am the way, the truth and the life 08》

Great video! I wrote my undergraduate thesis on American Deism and focused on the language that Jefferson used in his writing, ie The Creator and Nature’s God. Would love to see more videos on other Founding Fathers such as Madison and Paine.

So many of the US Founders left behind a plethora of writings that are very insightful into their complex views. These were very thoughtful individuals & like today their views ran across the spectrum of the day. That spectrum ran wide thx to the Enlightenment. They often got into heated debates with each other.

Among the American Founders who were Deists that i would almost definitively call "atheist," its basically just Thomas Paine. Paine's theism always seemed to be desperately hanging by a thread.

@markkozlowski3674

11 ай бұрын

“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race, have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion…” --- Thomas Paine

@Justin_Beaver564

11 ай бұрын

Yup. A deist was basically an 18th century agnostic.

@todradmaker4297

11 ай бұрын

I think it is a grave disservice to refer to Thomas Paine, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson as "atheist". While they all had problems with organised religions and Christianity they most definitely believed in God. It just may be that you are projecting your personal views onto them.

@doneestoner9945

10 ай бұрын

"The world is my country, and to do good is my religion". Thomas Paine

@user-dy6zm8zw5h

10 ай бұрын

The so-called three Persons in the Trinity, not only have different names: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but also have nonidentical meanings. The Father has His image, which we humans cannot see, but there should be. The Son has His image, while the Holy Spirit is formless. Therefore, the three Persons are not identical. Their names are different, and their meanings are not identical as well. If the three Persons are identical, then there is no need to talk about Trinity, but would be one Person, one essence. Just like one person with three names, in which case it’s still one person, rather than three persons. One essence doesn’t mean one person. Through practice, Jesus has eradicated sins and sinful nature, and become the most special and beloved Son of God. Through the Holy Spirit, He can completely connect with God and enter unity with God. From this perspective, the three Persons are in one essence. --Light of Wisdom Church《The Trinity ｜God from God, Light from Light｜Reincarnation | I Am the way, the truth and the life 08》

His comment on Revelation as the "ravings of a maniac" has always stuck with me.

It would be interesting to take a look at the other side of the American Revolution from this lens. I don't just mean the British, but American Loyalists as well. I'd recommend doing an episode on Charles Inglis, who was a Irish born Loyalist during the American Revolution. He was an Anglican Clergyman who responded to Thomas Paine's Common Sense with his own pamphlet called The Deceiver Unmasked, where he analyses and makes very good arguments against what he says. There are clues about his religious beliefs throughout the work, and it would be very interesting to me to understand who he was from this point of view.

That transition to the ad though. Smooth.

Jefferson's point of view on the Bible and Christianity reminds me of Tolstoy's. Tolstoy even has a quote very similar to the "diamonds in a dunghill" quote at 1:07 in this video. "I was in the position of a man who has received a stinking sack of filth and after much labor and struggle finds that in this sack full of filth, priceless pearls actually lie hidden, a man who realises he is not to blame for his feeling of repulsion from the stinking filth and that not only are the people who gathered and preserved these pearls in the dirt not to be blamed, that they are in fact worthy of respect, but a man who nevertheless does not know what to do with those precious things he has found mixed in with the filth. I found myself in the tormented position until I became convinced that the pearls had not fused with the filth and could be cleaned". That's from the preface of Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief, which is his retelling of the Gospel. It seems like he and Jefferson both went through a similar process of gathering Christ's message in its essence and getting rid of everything else.

Very smooth segue into the sponsorship spot, and a useful-looking media tool at that. I find 'left-right' too simplistic (heck even two-axis models are a bit lacking) but something is better than nothing.

Nice documentary, terrific communication skills!!!!

james madison and Thomas Jefferson wrote in the separation between church and state is important to mention

Great video as always Mr. Breakfast. One point of contention: by highlighting the argument of whether the United States was founded (and/or should be continued to be founded upon) a Christian identity and only showcasing one side (in this case, some Republicans and self described christian nationalists) you've framed them as the side that is the outlier. Especially since you used an example of a misinformed and error ridden source (that sort of paints the pro side with a strawman). What does the other side believe? What is their argument? What are their flaws and shortcomings? Strengths? Other than that, great nuance and sourcing on the main content. You're my favorite academic religious content. Keep up the great work!

Really fabulous video, as always. I just wanted to say that your videos - which are amazing - usually center around ancient/classical or modern, for reasons that I can totally imagine. But do you have any expertise in medieval or early modern religions? Crusading, colonialism, medieval scholasticism, the Reformation, Iberian tolerance and intolerance, whether medieval atheists existed... and of course, while that's Christian-centered, there were lots of fascinating religions around, like South Asian Islam and the development of a kinda-secular Mughal society. Keep up the great work, I really admire you!

Some of the greatest moments of sleep, were directly because of this man.

Awesome video. Hope you do the other founding fathers! And the history of the separation of church and state in America.

Wow - fantastic, nicely done good sir.

Love it! I’ve heard such miss characterizations of this topic. When I used to do Bible studies, it was a common practice to highlight things. We were encouraged to get creative and how we approach scripture. Separating authors separating passages of scripture. I think it would be really amazing to see a short concise listing of all of Jesus’s teachings minus the other stuff. Calvinism would’ve been fairly commonly taught at the time, to me he seems somewhat pre-Wesleyan and lived in an age, where there was very little reason to trust the authenticity of the Bible.

Why is every time that someone hopes for an afterlife, such as "geez, don't believe it but I hope there's one, it sounds nice" then that person is suddenly religious?

Great info, thanks

Thanks for doing this video about Thomas Jefferson and the Jefferson Bible.

Love these videos on religion in the early American republic! Would be cool to have more videos about other founding fathers!

Very interesting video. Thanks!

I would love to see your take on the spirituality of the Lakota people. Would you consider this?

Jefferson also quoted as saying he was never prouder than when his Quran was used to swear in a new Congressman.

@boygenius538_8

11 ай бұрын

Do you have a source?

@TesterBoy

3 ай бұрын

An absolute lie

I want to take a moment to say thank you for making a point in these videos to bring up how christian nationalists try to distort people like Jefferson and Washington in order to promote their narrative. It's pretty gross behavior even before you add in that their goals seem to be staunchly opposed to basic American principles of freedom and equality. Like, we have lots of documents from these people. Why do they think lying about them is a good idea? Jefferson would be fun to argue with. Granted, they didn't have a lot of the information or the critical approach we have today so his views are understandable, but the idea that Paul was some corrupter of Jesus' words just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Mostly in that we have no way of verifying that anything attributed to Jesus actually came from such a person. Mark seems to pull several things from Paul's letters and puts them in Jesus' mouth. The other gospels copy and respond to Mark. So no matter which way you slice it, Jesus depends on Paul. Which means that if there's any corruption, it is going the other direction. The gospel authors use Jesus to distort what Paul said. Though really the parts they borrow from Paul largely agree with Paul so I'm not sure you could label this a corruption, they mostly just change the context. I get the feeling that a lot of these guys were borderline agnostic theists. You could probably move them over to full "there might be a god but I don't know anything about it" deism without much trouble. If not for the way these things get tied up with various social categories I imagine several of them would have been full on atheists. Not openly, of course, but the past just kinda sucked like that.

@Mystro256

11 ай бұрын

They're generally considered deists from what I've read.

@allanjmcpherson

11 ай бұрын

I think they're assuming (possibly rightly) that most people won't actually look into it. But I think it's somewhat of a distraction. For the sake of argument, let's say they were all devout Christians with no qualifiers. They still wrote a constitution that contains a statement that "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof ...." That seems pretty clear to me.

@Tinil0

11 ай бұрын

@@allanjmcpherson Which makes the assumption that they were the most devout and pure orthodox Christians even MORE powerful in support of the separation of church and state. If even these exemplars could realize the importance of such a thing, how foolish would you have to be to deny their wisdom?

@Chaosmancer7

11 ай бұрын

I think Jefferson would be fun to argue with the same way that getting in the ring with Muhammed Ali would be fun. I'd end up staring at the ceiling, confused, and with a pounding headache.

@schnitzelfilmmaker1130

10 ай бұрын

As a Christian who has mostly the same doctrinal views as CNs, CNs and the disinformation that they spread with the founding fathers irritates me a lot too. It’s too dishonest and simple-minded, and it stands in opposition to the teachings of Christ.

Great idea. Need this!

I was just thinking of your content rn too lmao!

@ReligionForBreakfast

11 ай бұрын

It's always breakfast somewhere in the world.

Just visited Monticello. He was definitely a man who marched to the beat of his own drums.

You get better looking every video! 😊

Could you make videos about Transcendentalism (especially Emerson) and Perennialism (Schuon, Guénon)?

Would love to see how much you have researched the Buddhist Monks. All of the Dali Lamas Rinpoches have gone through the "Ceremony of the Little Death" whereby the spirit leaves the body for 3 days, and most(not all ) come back to their ice cold body with a monk their to help their process. Many of their enlightened monks have performed many miracles.

@deathandcats

11 ай бұрын

That sounds fascinating actually. Do you know how they facilitate the process of leaving and returning? How long do they train for this before the ritual? And how/why did this process come about? Genuine questions, so genuine responses only please!

Always thought the "founding fathers" were deists for the most part.

@supernimo739gaming7

11 ай бұрын

Agnostic maybe

@ReligionForBreakfast

11 ай бұрын

Some are more deserving of the label than others. Jefferson being one of them.

@abaddon2148

11 ай бұрын

if not deist, definitely (mostly) not the type of pious trinitarian christians a certain group of people likes to paint them as

@sterlingkuhlmann6270

11 ай бұрын

@@terreschill461I used to be an evangelical. Now I’m like an Augustinian Lutheran Taoist Stoic

@Ofallthings089

11 ай бұрын

I get the sense that they were Christian, but not in the same way a person going to church on Sundays would be today.

From the sounds of it, if he were born in the 20th or 21st century he almost certainly would have been an atheist. His conviction in the existence of a creator seems to have come from a rationalist, empirical view that there was no other explanation for the physical things we see around us. This isn't an argument most educated religious people would make today (plenty of people cite the beauty of universe...etc. as evidence for god, but few would be so firm as to say no other explanation was _possible_ ).

@todradmaker4297

11 ай бұрын

I guess I must be old school; a good 200 years behind the times because I hold similar views as Jefferson did. I would like to think that Jefferson would still believe as he did despite the possible explanations we have today.

@randomjake1488

11 ай бұрын

That’s quite a leap of faith you are making to assume his religious views if you he was living 100-250+ years in the future

@Chaosmancer7

11 ай бұрын

I think also the increased understanding of psychology would have shaken his belief. We know now that the human mind is predisposed to find pattern and order, even when none exists. Saying that it is impossible for the human mind to perceive the universe and not see order makes perfect sense within that framework, not because the universe is ordered, but because the human mind imposes order.

@francismarion6400

10 ай бұрын

yet the human experience seeks disorder. We are broken.

the herringbone looks great!

He was a deist who liked some but not all of the bible (which is why he edited his own version) so yes, but not in the way most modern Americans would think

@Foogi9000

10 ай бұрын

Honestly, I'm not a Christian but I agree with Jefferson. I'm more Agnostic than anything but I agree that the Bible is a man made work of propaganda written by liars and fools.

@fernandocuriel124

4 ай бұрын

As a Christian conservative, I agree with you.

@sg23148

2 ай бұрын

​@@fernandocuriel124conservativism is incompatible with Christianity

This was so interesting

I find it interesting that the American Revolution was partly brought about by the First Great Awakening distancing Americans from the Church of England but 3/4 of the Founding Fathers remained at least nominally Anglican.

@DailyLifeSolution

11 ай бұрын

American Republic was founded earlier and was better than its successor, French Republic.

@rainbowkrampus

11 ай бұрын

The Great Awakenings really ought to be a mandatory part of education. So so so many things about the US make zero sense unless you understand their relationship to these flashpoints in culture.

@melissamybubbles6139

11 ай бұрын

Did they? Weren't there regional differences in nominal affiliation? I'm surprised the percentage of Anglicans would be that large.

@chowyee5049

11 ай бұрын

@@melissamybubbles6139 they were mostly aristicratic landowners, a demographic dominated by Anglicans. Those who weren't Anglican were Presbyterian of Scottish descent.

@francismarion6400

10 ай бұрын

Pilgrims.

Society's religiosity ebbs and flows. So does an individual's. It's part of being a human.

"...in pile of dung." ??? Holy Sh*. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Does Ground News also consider common news outlets that are subsidized under the same umbrella? Like if you have two or three outlets that "look different" but are owned by the same major corp? K thx

It's interesting to point out that alot of the deist founding fathers like Jefferson, Washington, and Madison, were also Masons. So Masonic ideals were a big influence on their ideals and thought processes, along with enlightenment teachings.

Is quite interesting learning that there are so many corrents of thinking regarding Christianity

Jefferson might have agreed with Nietzsche, when the later has said that there was only one Christian - and He has died on the cross.

Thank you.

Hello sir, where do you acquired this knowledge?

It’s funny how Jefferson wasn’t an orthodox Christian yet some Christians still want him on their side. I’m reminded of the phenomenon of folk saints among some Catholics who admire a person, yet the established church never canonizes such figures as they often are not seen as saintly enough or have real major issues with the faith, yet people venerate them

What nags me is the Jefferson quote in the beginning when he talks about atoms. The atom theory, as we know it today, is a fairly recent concept that was proven around 1904 or so. It is hard to imagine that Jefferson was aware of this. He then must have referenced the fairly obscure ancient greek idea about atoms as the smallest undividable parts of the universe but this does also make little sense to me since this was hardly mainstream.

@iachtulhu1420

11 ай бұрын

Atomism was then associated with Lucretius, Epicurus, Democritus and old school materialists that were influential in Radical Enlightenment from 18th century, especially in French philosophers and earlier their main influence - Spinoza. Jefferson of course couldn't known of atomic theory as a scientific hypothesis, but as a philosophical proposition passed down from antiquity and then rediscovered in late Renaissance.

@rainbowkrampus

11 ай бұрын

Thomas Norton wrote a poem called The Ordinal of Alchemy in 1477 that caught on around the 1600's with the nascent rise of chemistry. This led to the widespread use of the word atom as "indivisible" among educated members of society. It eventually got applied to particles in the 1800's. Also recall that a lot of these guys were into alchemy or at least knew people who were. So they were tossing around obscure words left and right.

@bartolomeothesatyr

11 ай бұрын

Jefferson was an extraordinarily well-educated human, for his time or any other.

5:40 correction: materialism and belief in an afterlife are not mutually exclusive. Afterlives and eschatology are not limited to immateriality, the realm of spiritualism and idealism. One could argue the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh is or can be made compatible with Jefferson's rejection of immaterial entities and existence. When speaking to Adams, Jefferson's talk of meeting again could signify meeting again in a material existence.

a great example of enlightenment thinking

Can you do a video about Secular Buddhism?

10:36 made me laugh out loud because we STILL say sh*t like this 😅

As a "red letter" Christian, I approve this message.

Big fan of Jefferson, as a Virginian

Never have I felt more connected to Jefferson.

"Religion is well supported; of various kinds, indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order..." - Jefferson "To preserve peace and order": Religion is just a means to an end for him. "Of various kinds": It doesn't matter which religion it is as long as it stabilizes society.

Tell me more about how the Federalists wanted to reenforce the power of the clergy. What specifically did they want the clergy to be able to do? Also, what of the other founders that aren't normally talked about? What did they believe? I know Benjamin Rush was a pretty literal believer.

I would like to see a conversation between TJ and BJE 😂

Leo Tolstoy did basically the same thing in Russian. Also, Tom Pain was even more skeptical than Jefferson and was a Theist who tried to spread that belief.

Hearing all the various descriptions given for Jefferson's belief system made me start wondering how my own might be labeled. I definitely have "primitivist" tendencies, in that I think it is possible to extract information about what was actually believed and taught by Jesus and his early followers using the biblical texts and their historical contexts. I don't think this is an especially wacky idea, as it's literally the foundation of the disciplines of historical Jesus studies and textual criticism with reference to the bible. However, I can not do that work honestly and come away from the text thinking the the earliest followers of Jesus and I are actually on the same page either. I'm not an apocalypticist. I think that if we want any kind of utopia we are going to have to do the work. So, if I look at what Jesus seems to have really taught and believed, as expressed by a careful, repeated examination of the text, reinforced by considering secondary analyses of those same texts from a variety of academics with a variety of religious (or nonreligious) views, then what I am left with is someone who I think offered a very powerful analysis of timeless problems within our society, and exhorted people to humanize and connect with the people impacted most by those problems, but who also seemed to have believed that a miraculous cure all for them was right around the corner. If I accept his analysis, but reject his solution in favor of believing that if we all take that analysis seriously, and connect with and humanize the most oppressed among us, that might be a genuine vector toward something like what he was hoping was coming, I'm not sure what the label would be for that. I mean, I've picked one, but I'm not sure how expressive it actually is. I think it's pretty hard to nail anyone's belief system down with a few words. Doesn't stop us from trying like crazy though.

@ReligionforBreakfast can you make a video about Pastafarianism?

His views on the new testament canon is identical to the islamic view

@9:32 This is the gist of it for me.

Ground News sounds good - do you know if it covers the UK, or is it just a US thing? Btw, the importance of religion in the US is one of the most striking differences with other Anglophone societies, in particular the UK, and indeed with most of the industrial world. God had real problems surviving science, factories, democracy and wars. It would be interesting if you did a video on how come religion is so big in the States, despite the country's technological advancement, international engagement and social mobility.

@chendaforest

10 ай бұрын

One likely reason is that it has a weaker social safety net and higher rates of inequality. Prosperity and security tend to result in less religiosity. Secondly the lack of an established church meant that churches had to continually compete for members which drove innovations in recruitment and retention of members.

wonderful video. just what i was looking for

According to CONFUCIUSISMS & their books does they(the soul) can feel & realise anything for "forever" even after death & libration? Please reply soon

To be fair, Jefferson is likely correct about the corruption. 🤷‍♀️

@bubblegumgun3292

11 ай бұрын

Most definitely the legitimacy of the trinity is still in question

@hairyballs089

11 ай бұрын

Corruption comes from the lack of moral accountability of the ruling elite. Jefferson was stupid and is part of the reason why there is so much degeneracy in America today. We need the pope or a revitalization of protestant institutions to get America's bureaucracy pointed to the good of the people.

@pashaputrasupriatna4596

11 ай бұрын

@@hairyballs089 so much moronic aura is coming from your comment it might actually be good for you since youre the source i try to think of it as radiation of sorts, hopefully it kills those braincells quick enough to cripple you to never think again cuz clearly you aint usin that brain of yours or maybe you dont have a brain in the first place?

@mathewfinch

11 ай бұрын

The doctrine of the Triniry always struck me as a relatively clunky attempt to square the circle of Jesus being divine, while also being the son of God, while technically staying monotheistic.

@hairyballs089

11 ай бұрын

@@mathewfinch It also helps that the trinity overlaps with Platonist pagan ideas of what God might be.

Here's the thing. The Gospel readers of the time knew that all miracles and supernatural reports were not to be taken literally. These were literary devices that were common in the Greco-Roman world at the time. There are also reports from back then in which Julius Caesar, Emperor Augustus and Emperor Tiberius performed miracles. These miracle reports were simply intended to point out the importance of the person

Newton's "World is like a clockwork" might be the reason behind Jefferson's belief in intteligent designer God.

I can't tell you how much I had to deal with religious people (Christians) claiming Jefferson as one of them.

He called himself an Epicurean, probably based on what he'd read in Lucretius.

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear.” Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

In a weird way, hearing stories like this makes me wonder what the people of our time would've done if we didn't have so many distractions like social media. Think about it, I bet Jefferson just slapped this collage of a Bible together because he was bored.

Dr John Fea: 2:50 Thomas Paine, literally the author of Common Sense and *The Age of Reason* : am I a joke to you?

I think I should join Jefferson’s religion. I agree wholeheartedly

@orvos1459

3 ай бұрын

Religious rationalism?

Every time i hear more about Jefferson the more based i think he is.

His views are complicated to say the least. And I don’t think giving a label is very helpful because I don’t really think any label fits his views.

Whatever he was, he is the reason the U.S can enjoy religious pluralism and avoid the conflicts most other nations are struggling with. His studies of other religious texts such as the Quran are benefiting all of us today.

I have a copy of Jeffersons Bible. With all the unscientific stuff scribbled through. He was a deist. It's an interesting read.

Yum. Religion for supper.

Wow, it feels good to know that Jefferson and I both have the same opinion of Paul.

The original cut and paste

I didn't realize how based Jefferson was.