"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
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.
When Moses told the children of Israel
that he received the two tables of the
commandments from the hand of God, they
were not obliged to believe him, because
they had no other authority for it than
his telling them so; and I have no other
authority for it than some historian telling
me so, the commandments carrying no internal
evidence of divinity with them. They contain
some good moral precepts such as any man
qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator
could produce himself, without having recourse
to supernatural intervention. Note it is,
however, necessary to except the declamation
which says that God 'visits the sins of the
fathers upon the children'. This is
contrary to every principle of moral justice.
"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
