The Founding Fathers:Christians, Atheists, Agnostics or Deists?
"Unanimity of opinion may be fitting for a church, for the frightened or greedy victims of some (ancient or modern) myth, or for the weak and willing followers of some tyrant. Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge." —Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, 1975
"Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message." —Umberto Eco, Foucalt's Pendulum, 1988
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
—Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
—James Madison, letter to William Bradford, January 1774
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."
—James Madison, letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774
". . . no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
—Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter, 1787
"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see, but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity, though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure."
—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Ezra Stiles, March 9, 1790
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794
"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. My own mind is my own church."
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called 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."
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
—John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813
"Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he has known nothing but what has passed under his own eye."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1823
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