Ben's Pen 2

What did Benjamin Franklin think about God? He stated it quite nicely in a letter.

This next quote is taken from a letter that Ben sent to the *Reverend Ezra (1790) who was at that time Yale's president. Ben was 84 years old and answers with the common sense that he always showed. This is the 1st time that he has been asked his religious beliefs.( http://livinghour.org/blog/sbnr_motivationals/benjamin-franklins-religion-jesus-... )

"You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I do not take your curiosity the wrong way, and will try in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed: I believe in one God, creator of the universe; that He governs it by his providence; that He ought to be worshipped; that the most acceptable service we can render Him is to do good to his other Children. And that the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.

These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religions, and I admire them, as you do, in whatever sect I meet them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, to be the best the world has ever seen, or is likely to see. But I believe it has received various corrupting changes, and I am in accord with the present dissenters in England in having some doubts regarding Jesus's divinity: although it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon the opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.

I see no harm however in it being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed. I shall only add respecting myself that having experienced the Goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long Life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, even though I hold not the smallest conceit of meriting such Goodness."

*Reverend Ezra Stile: Ezra Stiles (November 29, 1727 -- May 12, 1795) was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian and author. He was president of Yale College (1778--1795). (Welch, Lewis et al. (1899). Yale, Her Campus, Class-rooms, and Athletics, p. 445.)