Democratic Underground - Jefferson was a secular leader

as were all of the first dozen or so presidents. They tried to keep the clergy from interfering in government. Nowhere is God to be found in the Constitution.

Jefferson's bible was a secular bible, where all supernatural references had been removed. Jesus was a moral philosopher to him, not divine. More important than what Jefferson's specific religious beliefs were (he was a deist as where most founders) was that they he (and they) felt that religion was a private matter. This is the issue that many raise with the present day politicians who insist on pandering to the religious. We've been backsliding since the founders. God began to appear on our money, then God appeared in our pledge, now God appears in our political campaigns and is a litmus test for high office. So it will be welcome day for the nonreligious when this pandering comes to an end.

Only in the letters to each other did they confide their religious beliefs or lack of them:

It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are one and one is three, and yet, that the one is not three, and the three not one.... But this constitutes the craft, the power, and profits of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of fictitious religion, and they would catch no more flies.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams (August 22, 1813), Works, Vol. IV, p. 205, Randolph's edition

The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere relapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being more unintelligible. The religion of Jesus is founded in the Unity of God, and this principle chiefly, gave it triumph over the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged.
-- Thomas Jefferson, equating the Dogma of the Trinity with polytheism and calling it more unintelligible than paganism, in his letter to Rev Jared Sparks upon receipt of the latters' latest book (November 4, 1820)

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/qframe.htm

A big difference between the deist founders and Obama (or Clinton apparently) is that they didn't believe in a Christian God (the metaphysical insanities of Athanasius). I have to think that Obama and Clinton are smarter than that. Maybe not. :)

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