Benjamin Franklin’s proposed Great Seal of the United States, showing the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea.
Thoughts after reading a book on Benjamin Franklin:
It is often stated that Franklin and Jefferson were Deists. This is justified in a sense, because they thought of themselves as Deists. But they really weren’t.
They believed that prayer had value, that God could be petitioned. That is completely opposite to true, continental Deism, which believed in a God who paid no attention to His creation.
What these men actually were, was Christians without the Incarnation. They accepted Christianity as a positive social good, but denied that Christ was God.
In essence they were secular, non-kosher Jews, who would never have considered converting to Judaism for social reasons.
I don’t know if I’d call them secular non-kosher Jews. If anything they would be non-halal Muslims. Islam is much closer to Deism than Judaism. In fact, Muslim apologists have been caught using Deist arguments in the past.