> Jeffrey Fisher
>
>
> I know it's a sort of commonplace in certain circles that Madison (and
> other Federalists) had sort of absorbed certain Congregationalist
> Calvinist ideas, particularly a commitment to the idea of "total
> depravity" -- that human beings are hopelessly enslaved to sin. And so
> this then is understood to explain his concern about "faction." But I
> admit I don't understand why one has to believe that humans are
> irredeemably sinful to think that one should be worried about how to
> deal with conflict within a polity. It's hard to characterize Locke as
> Calvinist, but he thinks atheists are not to be trusted as members of
> a society, since their oaths are not divinely sanctioned and so
> worthless.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Agree. A historical materialist hypothesis would be that rather
> than theology Madison was mainly concerned about farmers, mechanics,
> sailors, "pioneers" ( maybe woment, slaves and Indians) "uniting"
> against the slavowning and manufacturing bourgeoisie when he put the
> anti-democratic provisions in the Constitution.
>
> Maybe his concern about atheists was that they had obviously disgarded
> a main form of mass brainwashing. Did Madison really believe in God ?
> He was as smart as Jefferson.
>
>
Well, Locke was the one who had trouble with atheists, not Madison, who to
my knowledge did not. I'm ready to believe that Jefferson and Madison both
believed in God, in that deist way.