Very good points MM - I’m not trying to revise the understanding of the historical period known as the Age of Enlightenment, only trying to clarify the false assumption that our forefathers were hell-bent on eradicating Christianity (and religious observance) from their culture - when the opposite is actually the truth. TJ was a progressive thinker and used rational tools to test the precepts of his age, this does not in itself denote him as a secularist. GW was a personally devout man and I believe I read he prayed three times a day . As for refusing communion and not attending a specific church , I refused communion last week myself at a men’s group and have spent the last 15 years searching for a church I could trust to worship in let alone administer from as a laymen(which I’m still not). The point I’m making is questions and disagreements or differences in the practice of conscience does not make one “against religion” nor set up the rationale for a Faith Exclusive civil governance.
Very good points MM - I’m not trying to revise the understanding of the historical period known as the Age of Enlightenment, only trying to clarify the false assumption that our forefathers were hell-bent on eradicating Christianity (and religious observance) from their culture - when the opposite is actually the truth. TJ was a progressive thinker and used rational tools to test the precepts of his age, this does not in itself denote him as a secularist. GW was a personally devout man and I believe I read he prayed three times a day . As for refusing communion and not attending a specific church , I refused communion last week myself at a men’s group and have spent the last 15 years searching for a church I could trust to worship in let alone administer from as a laymen(which I’m still not). The point I’m making is questions and disagreements or differences in the practice of conscience does not make one “against religion” nor set up the rationale for a Faith Exclusive civil governance.