"America was founded as a Christian nation and the Founding Father's made that as plain as the nose on our faces. "
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptists, 1802
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all." The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.
Thomas Jefferson's Autobiography
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, chapter 2;
EVERY national church or religion has established
itself by pretending some special mission from God,
communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have
their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their
apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as
if the way to God was not open to every man alike.
Each of those churches shows certain books, which
they call revelation, or the Word of God.
The Jews say that their Word of God was given
by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say,
that their Word of God came by divine inspiration;
and the Turks say, that their Word of God
(the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven.
Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief;
and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.
And;
It is a contradiction in terms and ideas
to call anything a revelation that comes
to us at second hand, either verbally or
in writing. Revelation is necessarily
limited to the first communication.
After this, it is only an account of
something which that person says was
a revelation made to him; and though
he may find himself obliged to believe it,
it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it
in the same manner, for it was not a
revelation made to me, and I have only
his word for it that it was made to him.
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous
debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions,
the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than
half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent
that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God.
It is a history of wickedness that has served to
corrupt and brutalize mankind."
-Paine
"If we look back into history for the character
of the present sects in Christianity, we shall
find few that have not in their turns been persecutors,
and complainers of persecution. The primitive
Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in
the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The
first Protestants of the Church of England blamed
persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced
it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops,
but fell into the practice themselves both here
(England) and in New England."
-Franklin
"I looked around for God's judgments,
but saw no signs of them."
-Franklin
"Millions of innocent men, women and children,
since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt,
tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced
an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect
of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and
the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and
error all over the earth."
-Jefferson
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments,
instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion,
have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries
has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial.
What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places,
pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility
in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
-Madison
"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is,
a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of
fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish
and Christian revelation that have made them the most
bloody religion that ever existed?"
-Adams
"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."
[George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 726]
"The day will come when the mystical generation of
Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin,
will be classed with the fable of the generation of
Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -Thomas Jefferson
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be
mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not
consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists
in professing to believe what one does not believe.
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief,
if I may so express it, that mental lying has
produced in society. When man has so far corrupted
and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to
subscribe his professional belief to things he
does not believe, he has prepared himself for
the commission of every other crime."
-Thomas Paine, patriot: "Give me Liberty or Give me Death".
"The Christian God is a being of terrific character - cruel,
vindictive, capricious, and unjust." Thomas Jefferson
"[T]he government of the United States of America is not,
in any sense, founded on the Christian religion[...]" - Thomas Jefferson
Ethan Allen From Religion of the American Enlightenment:
“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”
John Adams From a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”
And John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797). Article 11 states:
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
--Thomas Jefferson
