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Tag: Jefferson’s religious beliefs

Jefferson Condolence Letter to John Adams After the Death of Abigail

Jefferson Condolence Letter to John Adams After the Death of Abigail

Thomas Jefferson November 13, 1818 Jefferson wrote this extraordinary condolence letter upon hearing of the death of John Adams’ wife, Abigail. MONTICELLO, November 13, 1818. The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, April 11, 1823

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, April 11, 1823

Thomas Jefferson April 11, 1823 Jefferson attacks Calvin, predestination, the immaculate conception and other facets of Christianity. DEAR SIR, — The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at least in his exclamation of `mon Dieu! jusque à quand’! would make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism….

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to F. A. Van Der Kemp, May 25, 1816

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to F. A. Van Der Kemp, May 25, 1816

Thomas Jefferson May 25, 1816 Jefferson explains that his various efforts to highlight what he sees as the uncorrupted portions of Jesus’s teachings. He makes reference to the project he undertook while President, which he says was hasty, and to his forthcoming efforts to create a new Bible using just the valuable parts of scripture. This project resulted in the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, better known as The Jefferson Bible. SIR,-Your favor of March 24th was handed…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822

Thomas Jefferson November 2, 1822 Jefferson believed Unitarianism would become the dominant religion. He also explains why he has no professor of divinity at the University of Virginia. DEAR SIR,  Your favor of October the 18th came to hand yesterday. The atmosphere of our country is unquestionably charged with a threatening cloud of fanaticism, lighter in some parts, denser in others, but too heavy in all. I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822

Thomas Jefferson June 26, 1822 Jefferson believed that Christianity no longer reflected the true teachings of Jesus. DEAR SIR, — I have received and read with thankfulness and pleasure your denunciation of the abuses of tobacco and wine. Yet, however sound in its principles, I expect it will be but a sermon to the wind. You will find it as difficult to inculcate these sanative precepts on the sensualities of the present day, as to convince an Athanasian that there…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush

Thomas Jefferson May 21, 1803 In 1803, Jefferson had hoped that someone other than himself write a book on the merits of Christianity. He wrote a “Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus” and sent it to Benjamin Rush, the prominent doctor and Patriot. The syllabus can be found here. The cover letter to Rush is interesting in itself, reflecting as it does Jefferson’s bitterness about how his own religious views had been mischaracterized. Dear…

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