Was Benjamin Franklin a Deist?

Labels are dangerous. Particularly when it comes to religion. But in his autobiography Benjamin Franklin states; "Some volumes against Deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the Deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appealed to me much more forcibly than the refutation itself. In a word, I soon became a thorough Deist"

As for his opinion of the Bible...this is what he said about the Old Testament; "So much for that letter; to which I may now add, that there are several things in the Old Testament impossible to be given by divine inspiration; such as the approbation ascribed to the angel of the Lord of that abominably wicked and detestable action of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. If the rest of the book were like that, I should rather suppose it given by inspiration from another quarter, and renounce the whole" As I understand his words he just suggested if the Old Testament were inspired it was inspired by the devil and not God.

Let me leave you with a final thought on all religion from Ben Franklin; "When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support, itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one," As I understand these words Ben Franklin said ..... If you need the government's help to support you religious rules; either your God is weak or your God has abandoned you. So anyone who calls on the government to support their religious beliefs is by their actions acknowledging the failure of their religion.