(Conspiracy Nation, 09/06/06)
-- In spite of pronouncements by Rev. Pat Robertson and others that
"America is a Christian nation," in fact the record is somewhat the
opposite. Case in point: Abraham Lincoln, who shocked his law partner
William H. Herndon when Abey "bordered on atheism."
John T. Stuart, Lincoln's first law partner, corroborates Herndon:
"He [Lincoln] was an avowed and open infidel and sometimes bordered on
atheism."
Yet following his death and ascension into federal godhood, a
mythmaking occurred. Abey was changed into a "True Believer."
"The world has always insisted on making an orthodox Christian of
him," complains Herndon in the biography he wrote about his friend.
Herndon resisted turning Old Abe into a dead statue however. He
believed his late companion deserved better treatment.
In 1834, in New Salem, Illinois, young Lincoln wrote an "extended
essay... in which he made an argument against Christianity, striving to
prove that the Bible was not inspired, and therefore not God's
revelation, and that Jesus Christ was not the son of God." A friend
later burned the document, fearing it might harm the rail-splitter's
future prospects.
In 1842, in an address on Temperance given at a Presbyterian church,
"one paragraph of Lincoln's speech offended the church members."
Arguing that Christians believed in a god who descended amongst
suffering humanity, he pointed out that Christians therefore cannot
refuse condescension to "a large, erring, and unfortunate class of
their fellow creatures [habitual drunkards]."
Then he compounded shock to the listeners with the following
suggestion: "Nor is the condescension very great. In my judgement such
of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more from the
absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over
those who have. Indeed, I believe, if
we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts
will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class."
Drunkards comparing better than Christians! The "True Believers"
didn't like that one! And they remembered. In Lincoln's home town of
Springfield, during the 1860 presidential election, "the greater part
of the clergy of the city -- in fact all but three -- were against
him." Lincoln "commented bitterly on the attitude of the preachers and
many of their followers, who, pretending to be believers in the Bible
and God-fearing Christians, yet by their votes demonstrated that they
cared not whether slavery was voted up or down."
This possible octaroon Rothschild-twice-removed (http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Abey.html)
did not believe in "free will." He held most firmly to the doctrine of
fatalism all his life. "There are no accidents in my philosophy," mused
Abey. "Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the
present, and the present will be the cause of the future."
Not the pushy type when it came to religious matters, Lincoln was
reticent as to saying what he actually believed. Over many years,
Herndon caught glimpses, summarized by him as, "[Lincoln] believed in a
Creator of all things, who had neither beginning nor end, possessing
all power and wisdom."
Typically, Old Abe was more succinct: "When I do good I feel good,
when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion."
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Conspiracy Nation
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html