This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I do believe the Founding Fathers, rather than being Christian fundamentalists, were men of the Enlightenment, who, for the most part, believed in deism, the idea that God created the universe then went away and left it on its own.
Thomas Jefferson, who believed that all men are created equal, held slaves when he wrote the line. The Jefferson Bible is well known in history classes for having all the miracles removed, leaving only the philosophical teachings of Jesus. While it is nice to believe that the Founding Fathers depended on God for almost every move, the truth is that they depended mostly on logic and reasoning, the tenets of the Enlightenment.
Mack Patten
Salt Lake City
