Robert Todd Lincoln --The vitals

[ScholarInTraining]

(01-10-2018 08:32 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  I did take a lot of time to come up with precise examples and o-sources. None of the anyones who have good things to say has done such so far. I was asking you to corroborate your vague claim and say what exactly you had in mind. Obviously you had something in mind, and it was not an sarcastic but honest request. Sarcastic seems to refer me to search the biographers you said yourself not to agree with. Not very scholarly to escape this way IMO.

Hahaha, who's escaping? Let's be civil.

Time to break it all down. This will be lengthy.

While RTL and his father may not have been the "pomp and circumstance" type of Christians, so to speak, that doesn't mean they didn't believe in God or a Higher Power.

The trouble with the word "nonreligious" is that too many people use it as a go-to word to describe people who doesn't regularly go to church or participate in rituals like Mass.

There's "nonreligious", which means 'not relating to or believing in a religion' and then there's "irreligious", which is 'the absence, indifference, rejection of, or hostility towards religion". Nonreligion is strongly suggestive of atheism, which there was no evidence of.

The only evidence of irreligious Lincoln-related words I've come across so far were Mary Todd Lincoln's when she wrote her "it does not appear that God is good" 1875 letter after she was hospitalized...as well as her spiritual practices in later years, but that is another story.

Now I can imagine why a quote such as "thank God" "God willing" or "God only knows" being viewed as some to be a mere figure of speech - even atheists use the phrase- but here's the thing: Robert did not actively discourage anything related to God, encouraged others to put their trust in Him, and made references to Him - for example, remember his Galesburg speech? The one when he said that "we should never cease our thanks to God that their offered gift (dead soldier's lives) was not in vain"? That had to have been around 1896 or so. Anyway, it isn't like he was trying to imitate his father's speeches. If he were irreligious or atheist, he would have left even that single sentence about God out of it. The same could go for any time he or his father mentioned God ever. If they were nonreligious, or irreligious as the word "nonreligious" connotes, they wouldn't have said anything about Him. In a "being" sense, I mean, rather than a conversational piece.

As for RTL's interest in astronomy, it's studying stars and constellations. Not a nonreligious thing at all. Biographers over time must have taken this and ran with it as "evidence" of Robert being a nonreligious person. But you know what, it isn't. It's just a fun and educative hobby.

I mean, come on, astronomers were around for centuries and still had religious beliefs. Science and religious beliefs do not have to be an "either or" thing.

Maybe they got his interest in astronomy mixed up with astroLOGY, which is seen as occult to some.[/i]

As for the controversial moment when Robert wouldn't allow a Catholic church to be built on the PMR. Irreligion in action? An act against Catholicism???

Nah. I remember that Emerson wrote something like "his refusal, endorsed by Army General Sherman, was based on his opposition to nongovernmental use of federal land without a sanctioning act of Congress."

Now to get back to the topic, more definitions: "religion" itself is defined as 'the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods'. So Deism, the idea that God does not interfere directly with the world, isn't suggestive of "nonreligion" at all, given that the belief in God remains. Theism, a belief in God or gods, and Deism are often used as interchangeable terms. The difference is that Deism rejects revelation (truth or knowledge revealed through communication with deities - remember, they don't believe that God interferes with human actions). Deists pray prayers of thanks and appreciation, not wanting to "dictate" to God.

Given that RTL, after the assassination, told his mother to put her "trust in" God and all would be well (rather than "faith in") seems to suggest a Deist view. (Deists feel that the word "faith" has acquired a different meaning over time, having been "abused" by various religions. So they avoid the word.)

So! I'm not going to jump to conclusions and say that RTL was for sure an 100% confirmed Deist, just that his words and actions suggest it - or simple Theism- rather than actual conclusive "nonreligion".