Jefferson would not have supported intelligent design

I dont think Jefferson ever supported intelligent design, from whatever I have read about him. I dont know if the term was even coined when he was alive.

There is a thin line here between believing in God (because we are religious) and supporting intelligent design. I dont agree that they are the same. And Jefferson said that 'there is a fabricator of all things'. Boston Globe conviniently said that this means that Jefferson supported intelligent design.

For a newspaper fighting for its survival, The Boston Globe has picked a peculiar time to run an absurdly-reasoned opinion piece supporting intelligent design.

Penned by the Discovery Institute's Stephen C. Meyer, the essay makes the ridiculous assertion that Thomas Jefferson – author of the Declaration of Independence and the third US president – espoused intelligent design.

Meyer sees supports for this claim in an 1823 letter Jefferson wrote to the second US president John Adams: "It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion."

Fair enough. Though he may not have been a Christian in the strictest sense, Jefferson was deeply spiritual, and he invoked a creator in arguing for universal human rights – "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

But Jefferson was also a dogged supporter of the separation of church and state.

Source: www.newscientist.com...

Jefferson was a Deist.

He is most closely connected with unitarianism, and the religious philosophy of Deism.

www.positiveliberty.com...

According to Jefferson, Deism simply means belief in only one God, which indeed seems to be an early, commonly accepted definition of Deism. Similarly (small u) unitarianism simply means disbelief in the Trinity.

And the terms “Deist” and “unitarian” seemed to be used interchangeably to describe those, like our key framers, who believed in one God but wanted to understand Him on rational grounds and hence broke with many of the traditional Christian orthodoxies. And these terms “Deist,” and “unitarian” were not, according to founders like Jefferson and Adams, mutually exclusive with “Christian.” Indeed according to such founders (following Joseph Priestly) Christianity had been corrupted through dogma, and that corruption was not only represented in clerical dogma but also in the Bible itself whose entire history was “defective and doubtful” in Jefferson’s words and contained “errors and amendments”

It would be more accurate to say that Deists like Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin (and probably Madison and Washington) didn’t believe in the Miracles and other behaviors attributed to God found in Revelation which contradicted the laws of Science and Reason. Therefore when God did intervene, He did so while acting consistent with the laws of Science. He did not for instance, walk on water, part the Red Sea, or turn Lot’s wife into salt. This explains why the Deists, like Jefferson and Adams could shirk at some of the Miracles and Prophesies recorded in the Bible which seemed so far fetched, but still believe in a God who intervened in the affairs of men. Essentially they believed in a God who did play dice with the universe.

www.infidels.org...


Intelligent design, fits with deism perfect.

An as a deist Jefferson would have supported the belief in intelligent design

[edit on 17-7-2009 by ANNED]