rights come from God

Jefferson misquote doesn't go unnoticed

Becky Yeh - OneNewsNow California correspondent - 11/1/2011 3:40:00 AM

According to a Christian apologist, a billboard put up by a California atheist group as an attack against Christianity has no historical basis.

Backyard Skeptics recently unveiled a billboard in Orange County that reads, "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature. It is founded on fables and mythology" -- a quote they claim is by Thomas Jefferson. But experts at the Jefferson Library Collection in Monticello tell The Orange County Register that no evidence shows that the principal author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence ever made the statement. In response, the atheist group's director, Bruce Gleason, says he does not know where the quote came from, and he admits that he should have done more research before the billboard went up.

"[This] atheist says, "Well, Thomas Jefferson said this.' Well, Thomas Jefferson also said, 'All our rights come from a Creator,'" notes Neil Mammen, a Christian author and apologist and founder of NoBlindFaith.com.

The Register says the quote is an abridged version of a line from the book, Six Historic Americans by John E. Remsburg, which notes that the quote was in a letter from Jefferson to a Dr. Woods. But the Jefferson Library points out that no evidence shows that Jefferson ever wrote a letter to a Dr. Woods. Further, Mammen contends that Jefferson obviously did "find some redeeming qualities" in Christianity, because the entire Declaration of Independence was penned by a man who was greatly influenced by the sermons he read and heard.

"Inside the United States and outside the United States, you will find the very same concept being preached over and over again in churches [and] from pulpits that rights come from God, not from government, and government's role is to protect the rights that God has given us," the apologist concludes.