The Caprinator,
Yes, in recent years it has been very popular for people to "rewrite" history. I have watched this with great sorrow over the years.
Men who knew the founding fathers of the church, men who knew the founding fathers of our nation, men who lived just generations after their deaths wrote their accounts of these great men and those were passed down for, depending on whom we speak of, hundreds of years, or decades. Then in the 1980's people started going, "Oh, that's not true!"
I keep wondering, how does someone in 1980 or 1990 or 2000 disprove the eye wittness accounts of someone back in the 1700's?
It came to me that they always do this by providing "one manuscript" that someone else wrote. Its always someone that no one ever heard about before, or someone who is a rabid enemy of the person being discussed.
They use this to trash the life of the great men who we once used as leaders to our children, and they claim they do this for the sake of our children, but in doing so, they leave our children with the feeling that no one should be used as an example, that historians cannot be trusted, that school's lie to them, that great men are really just despots.
Then they wonder why children have no respect for anyone.
No one ever said that any of the founding fathers of our nation was perfect. Not even their highest praisers of their day.
However - they were, without a doubt, better men, as patriots and in most cases, better men of God than the people who try so hard to trash their reputations.
I spent 37 years of my life being taught that Franklin and Washington were Christians. I've only seen, in the last 10 years, this contention that they are not. I ask people 70 or 80 years of age, they say all of their life, they were taught good things about these men.
Apparently, America's education now comes from the same people that provide us with "SouthPark," "The Bachelor," "Domestic Housewives," and other "quality" programming. Apparently America's youth don't go back to the sources and question for themselves.
When I started hearing that these men were not men of God, I did something that really isn't that hard to do. I started looking up who said they were, vs who said they weren't, then looking at the material they referenced. I worked my back until I landed at readable photostatic copies of Washington's diaries, and to the Library of Congress itself.
I don't, and never will, rely on the Internet for important information. Anyone, absolutely anyone, can build a website, claim it is a quality source of information, and put up total garbage. There are no editors, no proof-readers, no research teams verifying 99% of it.
Wickipedia is proof of the kind of education modern young people get. Its a pity too. When my own children tell me that their reports can come straight off the web, I march them down to the library instead.
RSR - Let me ask you something. Who is more likely to have created "great lies"? A man like Mason Weems was a Presbyterian Minister? Or a modern day agnostic trying to disprove the greatness of General Washington? It is a historical fact that Washington attended church all the time. When his step-daughter was asked what his beliefs were, she said she couldn't recall him ever mentioning Christ to her. I'm not at all surprised. That was a very different day and age, and the relationships between step-fathers and daughters was quite different. However - it doesn't change the fact that many people from Washington's time call him a Christian. Nor is there any evidence he felt otherwise. As to Washington's daughter not recalling. One of the fineset men of God I ever knew used to spend hours and hours talking to the young children in the family about how important faith in Jesus Christ was. Later, at his funeral, his daughter shared that she was stunned to hear so many people speak of her father's testimony. She said he had never talked to her about God. Her siblings quickly corrected her, saying, "He talked about it every day. You just didn't listen. You threw it out with everything else he tried to teach you in those days."
As for me. I will stand firm on the belief that men who, after having had homes destroyed, relatives turn against them, relatives and friends murdered, entire armies hunting them down with murderous intent who could look to God, and thank Him for His guideance, and call the nation to prayer to Him each morning as better men of God that 99% of modern Americans who have everything handed to them easily, without risk or danger, or in many cases even earning it, who do NOT thank God, and who bend over backwards to try to make sure none of the rest of the nation does either.
You're getting me mixed up with someone else. 