Changes

I think we can say Franklin was a deist because he identified himself as one. He respected Christianity, but did not embrace it, as shown in his "creed," written a month before his death.

I think we can say Franklin was a deist because he identified himself as one. He respected Christianity, but did not embrace it, as shown in his "creed," written a month before his death.

:First, I believe he identified himself as ''having been'' a deist for a short period in his youth.  

:First, I believe he identified himself as ''having been'' a deist for a short period in his youth. Have you got a source for him self-identifying as a deist later in life?

 

:Second, his self-identification isn't relevant if the word meant something different to him than it does today. It would be very misleading to say "Professor Ormsby Macnight Mitchell was a computer," even though there's a source that says "for some time he worked as a computer at one of the Royal Observatory desks."[http://books.google.com/books?id=1AsAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA133&dq=%22worked+as+a+computer%22&as_brr=1]. Today the word computer means a machine that performs calculations, not a human being that performs them. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:07, 9 May 2007 (EDT)

:Second, his self-identification isn't relevant if the word meant something different to him than it does today. It would be very misleading to say "Professor Ormsby Macnight Mitchell was a computer," even though there's a source that says "for some time he worked as a computer at one of the Royal Observatory desks."[http://books.google.com/books?id=1AsAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA133&dq=%22worked+as+a+computer%22&as_brr=1]. Today the word computer means a machine that performs calculations, not a human being that performs them. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:07, 9 May 2007 (EDT)