Quotes from American Deists
Thomas Paine
From The Age of Reason, p. 8-9:
"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 of my own part,
I disbelieve them all."
From The Age of Reason:
"All natural 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."
From The Age of Reason:
"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries
that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation,
or revealed religion."
From The Age of Reason:
"What is it the Bible teaches us? - rapine, cruelty, and murder."
From The Age of Reason:
"Loving of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has beside no
meaning....Those who preach the doctrine of loving their enemies are in general the greatest
prosecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and
it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches."
From The Age of Reason:
"The Bible was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use of it - not
to terrify but to extirpate."
Additional quote from Thomas Paine:
"It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against
the evils of the Bible."
Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the United States)
Jefferson's interpretation of the first amendment in a letter to the Danbury
Baptist Association (January 1, 1802):
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and
his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the
legislative 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."
From Jefferson's biography:
"...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, "Jesus Christ...the
holy author of our religion," which 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 the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of
every denomination.'"
Jefferson's "The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom":
"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on
our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend
to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my
neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg."
From Thomas Jefferson's Bible:
"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."
Jefferson's Notes on Virginia:
"Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for
these free inquiry must be indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we
refuse ourselves? But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion.
No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of
establishments?"
Additional quotes from Thomas Jefferson:
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by
itself."
"They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be
exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn
upon the alter of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man."
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find
in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all
alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children,
since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned.
What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and
the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."
"In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he
is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection
to his own."
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every
opinion. 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 blindfolded fear....Do
not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a
belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue on the comfort and
pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure
for you."
"Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever shone on
man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of
Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter
of the teaching of Jesus."
"...that our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than
our opinions in physics and geometry."
James Madison (the fourth President of the United States)
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments:
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble
enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity
been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence
in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and
persecution."
Additional quote from James Madison:
"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed
together."
Benjamin Franklin
From Franklin's autobiography, p. 66:
"My parents had given me betimes religious impressions, and I received from my
infancy a pious education in the principles of Calvinism. But scarcely was I arrived
at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets,
according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to
doubt of Revelation itself."
From Franklin's autobiography, p. 66:
"...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought
an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the
Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations,
in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
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 (the second President of the United States)
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."
From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of
breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no
religion in it.'"
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!"
Additional quotes from John Adams:
"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and
Oaths, and whole carloads of trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these
days?"
"The Doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for
absurdity."
"...Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural
authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery, and which are
destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a
great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."
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