Lincoln the Atheist?

[Tero]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Li ... d_religion

There was the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.
-- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Martin M Morris (March 26, 1843), in The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln (Nicolay & Hay Edition, volume 1, page 80), quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents (page 112)

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

Maybe a Deist at best.

[Tero]

Evolution curious but all of philosophy not useful for a politician.

The treatise interested him greatly, and he was deeply impressed with the notion of the so-called "universal law" evolution; he did not extend greatly his researches, but by continued thinking in a single channel seemed to grow into a warm advocate of the new doctrine. Beyond what I have stated he made no further investigation into the realm of philosophy. "There are no accidents," he said one day, "in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.

That's the extent of what's known about Lincoln's thoughts on evolution, says Michael Lind, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of the 2004 book What Lincoln Believed.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-a ... z1kuFPEoKm

[Seth]

Yeah, right:

In 1846, when Lincoln ran for congress against Peter Cartwright, the noted evangelist, Cartwright tried to make Lincoln's religion or lack of it a major issue of the campaign. Responding to accusations that he was an "infidel", Lincoln defended himself, without denying that specific charge, by publishing a hand-bill in which he stated:

"That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.... I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, or scoffer at, religion.[14]" Source: Wikipedia

He "never denied the truth of the Scriptures" and you think he was an atheist?

Please.

[Tero]

He could not. He was a politician. We don't have "atheist" presidents. Never will. Not even gay.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

His wife was into spiritualism, trying to contact a dead son all the time. Abe participated in some of the seances, but I think that was solely to humor the Mrs.

[Tero]

It was a Victorian thing. Darwin's relative or in law hosted one too. It's in a book, but it was not all that comical.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think Mary Todd Lincoln would have been hospitalized for severe depression if she were alive today and acting the same.