Gettysburg Address ... easy question? maybe

[Rob Wick]

Lincoln's antipathy toward organized religion had its genesis in the forests of Indiana when Lincoln would mimic the various itinerant preachers he heard come through the region. He took that with him to New Salem where by that point he had pretty much become an atheist. I also have to think that some of it came about as his rejection of his father continued to gel. By this point his mother was long dead and his sister had died, and he saw no evidence that God played a role in the day-to-day activities of man, hence the claim by many biographers that he was at least a deist.

There are two Lincolns as far as his religious life is concerned. The first came about as a young man who rejected religion and then that started to chip away as he grew older and Eddie died. The second part came when the Civil War started. After suffering the loss of Willie and seeing the suffering that soldiers experienced, his faith grew, more as a salve for his own pain.

My own belief is that had Lincoln not been president and Willie not died, he would have died with the combination of a form of faith along with skepticism of organized religion.

Best
Rob