Ajax, did you eat a heaping bowl of stupid for dinner tonight? Inquiring minds want to know...
ajax18 wrote:It just seemed peculiar to me that if the vast majority of the founding fathers were Christian that the would have foresaw atheists, Mormons, etc. I doubt it was very PC to espouse or speak against religion in general in favor of atheism in those days. If some of the founding fathers were atheists, I doubt they were very open about it? Am I wrong on this point as well? That's my evidence on why they wouldn't have had this in mind.
Really? Which was why they revolted against England citing the estblishment of a state religion by England as one of the reason, right? Or why they put the Establishment CLause into the Bill of Rights?
ajax18 wrote: If you can show me differently than I'll concede you the point.
Very well. I will hold you to that then. Let's see what the founding fathers had to say...
Quotes from John Adams.
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” President John Quincy Adams, Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli, 1787.
“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.’” President Adams in a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756)
“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 pretence 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.”
How about our Third President, Thomas Jefferson?
“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.” Jefferson’s interpretation of the first amendment in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (January 1, 1802)
“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.”
“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.”
“...that our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry.”
Or how about James Madison, Fourth President of our great nation?
“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.”
“Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
Time to bust out with the Benjamin (Franklin), yo!
“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.” Page 66 of Franklin's autobiography.
How about some Thomas Paine?
“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.” - 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.” - Age of Reason
Or Ethan Allen.
“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”
And then we have the words of our nation's first President, George Washington, from his farwell address.
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. "
Now, not only is there one confirmed Atheist there (Thomas Paine), but several declarations against religion that clearly show that the founding fathers of this nation wanted a clear divide between church and state.
I will hold you to your word and accept your concession.
On Mathematics: I divided by zero! Oh SHI....