[Late in 1816 . . . ]
He now undertook quickly to return to the United States. After he and Louisa moved into London to prepare for sailing, he fortified himself against the political harshness ahead by spending many memorable hours with a new friend, Jeremy Bentham. One of England�s leading intellectuals and social critics . . . His latest statement, Catechism of Reform, had just been published, to Adams� great interest.
Bentham sought out John immediately after the Adamses returned to the city, invited him to dine at his home in St. James Park, engaged him in lively conversation, and persuaded him to join in three- to five-hour walks every other morning before breakfast. At first taken aback by Bentham�s startling ideas ['about social change . . .'], Adams was soon captivated by the scholar�s brilliant talk. The only topic on which they
were reserved was religion. When John announced that he was a Christian believer, his atheistically disposed friend changed the subject.
Comment : J. Bentham had eventually abandoned the term �utilitarianism� in favor of the less abstract �principle of happiness�. Please be not mislead by any arguments over an '-ism', which in this case was abandoned because the term was eventually found to suggest a 'vague idea'. This has been seldom noticed by subsequent writers, to the detriment of anyone and everyone concerned.
"The only topic on which they [i.e. Bentham and Adams]
were reserved was religion." That did not mean Bentham was "atheistically disposed" except insofar as he was reported to have been "reserved" on such topice in the company of Adams.
Not to multiply entities without necessity could be the principle rather than any other particular disposition on the part of Bentham : such an attitude could be easily misunderstood by another — certain perceptions could have been formed based on his own disposition. This seems a likely explanation of this particular report.
Some statements by Betham indicate he was not at all 'atheistically' disposed, the overall content of his entire opus suggests that he would not "take the name of the Lord in vain", rather. His sharp scrutiny of the Christian religion, found in some of his works, does not seem to have amounted to an outright rejection but rather to an entirely rational interpretation.
He could not have discerned an actual system in the Gospels, based on that, he concluded that the purposes of the Nazarene were strictly political, that is, exactly of what the latter had been accused.
It seems to me (for one) that that was not necessarily the most accurate interpretation. The authorship of the Gospels was not the work by the Nazarene himself. Inspired or not, those texts seem to allow a wide lattitude of interpretation, T. Jefferson's being one which also seems worthy of being considered.
(WPT)