History is filled with inaccuracies. Incorrect quotes are one example. If they fit a certain program, they will spread like wild fire and be more difficult to stamp out than a holocaust. The internet has made finding inconsistany easier but resolving it quite difficult. Both points of view are documented so you must sort it out to the best of your ability.
The quote that brought me to this question is
It is impossible to govern without God and
the bible..George Washington
A famous "quotation: by George Washington:
According to about 580 web
sites, George Washington stated:
"It is impossible to rightly govern the
world without God and the Bible." 7
According to Wikipedia:
"Washington is
known to have made some official statements of public piety, but this is not one
of them. Though this assertion is very widely reported to have been said in Washington's
Farewell Address (17 September 1796), this is not actually the case, as any
search of the documents would reveal. It has also been presented as having been part of his Proclamation on
1795-JAN-01 of 1795-FEB-19 as a day of national Thanksgiving in this
form:
"It is in an especial manner our duty as a people, with devout
reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great
obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue and confirm the
blessings we experienced. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without
God and the Bible. It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe,
without the agency of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to govern the universe
without the aid of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to reason without arriving
at a Supreme Being. Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to
religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose
his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he
not a Supreme Being to refer to."
In the above paragraph the
italicized portion appears to be entirely bogus, and there is no actual record
of such a statement ever having been made by Washington. The first sentence is
an almost accurate rendition of one from Washington's
official proclamation, being a portion of this segment:
"In such a state
of things it is in an especial manner our duty as a people, with devout
reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great
obligations to Almighty God and to implore Him to continue and confirm the
blessings we experience.
Deeply penetrated with this sentiment, I, George
Washington, President of the United States, do recommend to all religious
societies and denominations, and to all persons whomsoever, within the United
States to set apart and observe Thursday, the 19th day of February next as a day
of public thanksgiving and prayer, and on that day to meet together and render
their sincere and hearty thanks to the Great Ruler of Nations for the manifold
and signal mercies which distinguish our lot as a nation..."
It
is to be noted that there is genuine piety expressed in this statement, but it
is not of any sectarian kind, Christian or otherwise. The last portion of the
bogus statement which uses it is a truncation of what might also be another
genuine statement. In A Life of Washington (1836) by James K. Paulding,
Washington is quoted as having stated:
It is impossible to reason
without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is as necessary to reason as
reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being
would lose his reason in attempting to account for the great phenomena of
nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that
if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one.
In the spurious version of the Thanksgiving proclamation which
uses a portion of this, Washington's allusions to Voltaire's famous statement
that "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" has been
omitted. In the cases of these "quotations" it seems that if statements suitable
to their sectarian interests do not exist, some people feel it necessary to
invent them. 8
References used:
James Hutson. "The Founders on Religion:
A book of quotations," Princeton University Press, (2005). Read
reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
This long quote is from http://www.religioustolerance.org/badquotes.htm
This is a serious problem in historical research where there are rigorous steps taken to avoid error by the best practionners. My hope is that when faced with a religious quote all of us would check it for accuracy and be prepared to support or debunk it. James Hutson's book would be a good place to start.
Religious quotes that never were: "Concerning the accuracy of religious quotes:
There has been an enormous proliferation of false quotations of a religious nature attributed to American political and religious leaders. In particular, many authors and webmasters attribute sayings to the American Founding Fathers that appear to have been made up out of thin air. I suppose that this extends to sayings by the Founding Mothers on religion as well, except we don't recall having ever seen any of the latter."
James Hutson, Chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress has written a book titled "The Founders on Religion: A book of Quotations." The cover states:
"Partisans of various stripes have long invoked quotations from the founding fathers to lend credence to their own views on religion and politics. This book by contrast, is the first of its genre to be grounded in the careful examination of original documents by a professional historian." 1
Hutson cites only quotations known to be valid. We hope that he has a second book in mind: one which documents the common forgeries attributed to the founders. That would be a fascinating study.
