Yesterday I attended a meeting of the Arizona Chapter of the National Speakers Association. One of the presenters, Rick McPartlin, spoke of “Myths and Principles” as they relate to professional speakers. It was extremely interesting.

Rick defined myths as: “a partially true idea or story that is believed by many people but is not true.” A principle is “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.” Pretty interesting stuff.

The lesson taught made me consider Myths about our Founding Fathers. There are many. It’s amazing to me how many untruths about our American Founding Fathers are held to be true, when they are so completely and historically false!!

Let me give you one example. It is often held and even taught in our schools that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was an atheist or a diest or a non-believer in Christ. I don’t know how they reconcile this with his wording in the Declaration of Independence. Yet this myth prevails today. It is a myth.

Let me give you just some of Thomas Jefferson’s own written words. “I too have made a wee-little book . . . which I call ‘The Philosophy of Jesus.” It is made by cutting the texts out of the book, (the Bible) and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time and subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me an infidel and themselves Christians and Preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristics dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which . . . were He to return on earth would not recognize one feature.” (Dickenson W. Adams, Jefferson’s Extracts from the Gospels, 1983, pages 364365, as quoted in Steven W. Allen, Founding Fathers—Uncommon Heroes, 2003, page 178).

Myths certainly abound. Here’s another one off the top of my head. Many also assert that Mormons are not Christians. The true name of that church is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”.

Sometimes Mormons are thought not to be Christians because they espouse “the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me an infidel and themselves Christians and Preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristics dogmas from what its author never said nor saw.” Much like Thomas Jefferson!!