The Treasurer for the US during the Revolution was Robert Morris. He was one of those who pledged is "life, property and sacred honor" to the cause. He saved the nation, financially. He died broke. He was also Jewish, as were a significant number of the Founders.
That Franklin sought to identify the common characteristics of all the world's religions does not paint him as a deist. You probably claim Jefferson as a deist. He was a Christian. Thomas Paine was, at the end of his life, a deist. Odds are, you claim him as an atheist, as many atheist websites today do.
Quit trying to leech the religion out of the nation's history and leaders as a set-up for leeching it out of modern politics and society. Neither can be done without falsifying the facts. You wouldn't want to do that, now would you?
Congressman Billybob
The Fifty Five Delegates to the Constitutional Convention
The colonists were familiar with deist thinking. But deism never gained a strong foothold in America. The first Great Awakening, the religious revival of the 1740s, was partially responsible for cutting short the spread of deism,
In many states at the time of the Constitutional Convention, confessed deists were not allowed to hold public office. Deism was generally held in low esteem, as such laws indicate. Additionally, Deism as practiced at the time of America's founding was far different from what we find in our country today, and it certainly was not atheism.
New Hampshire
John Langdon, Congregationalist
Nicholas Gilman, Congregationalist
Massachusetts
Elbridge Gerry, Episcopalian
Rufus King, Episcopalian
Caleb Strong, Congregationalist
Nathaniel Gorham, Congregationalist
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Congregationalist
William Samuel Johnson, Episcopalian
Oliver Ellsworth, Congregationalist
New York
Alexander Hamilton, Episcopalian
John Lansing, Dutch Reformed
Robert Yates, Dutch Reformed
New Jersey
William Paterson, Presbyterian
William Livingston, Presbyterian
Jonathan Dayton, Episcopalian
David Brearly, Episcopalian
William Churchill Houston, Presbyterian
Pennsylvania
Benjamin Franklin, Deist
Robert Morris, Episcopalian
James Wilson, Episcopalian/Deist
Gouverneur Morris, Episcopalian
Thomas Mifflin, Quaker/Lutheran
George Clymer, Quaker/Episcopalian
Thomas FitzSimmons, Roman Catholic
Jared Ingersoll, Presbyterian
Delaware
John Dickinson, Quaker/Episcopalian
George Read, Episcopalian
Richard Bassett, Methodist
Gunning Bedford, Presbyterian
Jacob Broom, Lutheran
Maryland
Luther Martin, Episcopalian
Daniel Carroll, Roman Catholic
John Francis Mercer, Episcopalian
James McHenry, Presbyterian
Daniel of St Thomas Jennifer, Episcopalian
Virginia
George Washington, Episcopalian
James Madison, Episcopalian
George Mason, Episcopalian
Edmund Jennings Randolph, Episcopalian
James Blair, Jr., Episcopalian
James McClung
George Wythe, Episcopalian
North Carolina
William Richardson Davie, Presbyterian
Hugh Williamson, Presbyterian/Deist (?)
William Blount, Presbyterian
Alexander Martin, Presbyterian/Episcopalian
Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., Episcopalian
South Carolina
John Rutledge, Episcopalian
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Episcopalian
Pierce Butler, Episcopalian
Charles Pinckney, III, Episcopalian
Georgia
Abraham Baldwin, Congregationalist
William Leigh Pierce, Episcopalian
William Houstoun, Episcopalian
William Few, Methodist
Actually, the title was meant to be ironic, or sarcastic, or whatever, since the quote suggested the exact opposite.
Also, the snotty assumption that any reference to religion automatically meant "Christian" is historically absurd.
Sorry, the "snottiness", as you call it (though it wasn't intended that way) was directed at the multi-culti historical revisionists. I acknowledge that Jews had a place (in many cases an honored place) in our society at the time. My impression, though, is that their numbers (and the numbers of adherents of other non-Christian religions) were small enough that any official reference to "Religion" was at that time understood to mean the amalgamation of the many flavors of Christianity that existed in the nation. Of course the term means something different today.
Other than the fact that other religious communities existed in America at the time, do you know of any evidence that Franklin meant, for example, that the doctrines of Mohammedanism should "meet with the greater Respect among the common People"?
Look at what actually happened -- did the government at the time pay "the highest publick Honours" to the ministers of any religion other than Christianity (in all of its forms)?
Still not trying to be snotty. I'm willing to be educated on this.
That Franklin sought to identify the common characteristics of all the world's religions does not paint him as a deist. You probably claim Jefferson as a deist. He was a Christian. Thomas Paine was, at the end of his life, a deist. Odds are, you claim him as an atheist, as many atheist websites today do.
I think that comment was supposed to be directed at GarySpFc.