"I put the following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall." -- Thomas Paine, Age of Reason"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"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." -- Thomas Paine"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression, for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach even unto himself." -- Thomas PaineWhen indeed religion is kindled into enthusiasm, its force, like that of other passions, is increased by the sympathy of a multitude. But enthusiasm is only a temporary state of religion, and while it lasts will hardly be seen with pleasure at the helm. Even in its coolest state, it has it has been much "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." -- James Madison

"The people will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Govt (sic) will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." -- James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, 1822

"It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782 ".

.our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry" --Thomas Jefferson

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin:

1. That there are three Gods.

2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, is nothing.

3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit the faith.

4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.

5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals

to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes

of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save."

"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentence toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore him to the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, the roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and imposters, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and the first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus." -- Thomas Jefferson, to W. Short, 1820

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind." -- Thomas Jefferson, to Carey, 1816

"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, to Baron von Humboldt, 1813

"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 soveriegn 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 Baptist Association, CT. "The Complete Jefferson" by Saul K. Padover, pp 518-519

The preachers dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live." -- Thomas Jefferson

"...difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor over each other. Is uniformity attainable? 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." -- Thomas Jefferson,

"Notes on Virginia" Love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself,

Do unto others as you would want others do unto you

Believe in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit and never blaspheme The Holy Spirt

"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity." --Benjamin Franklin, Works, Vol. VII, p. 75

"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." -- Benjamin Franklin

When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are obliged to call for the help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." - Benjamin Franklin, Oct. 9, 1780.

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?" -- John Adams, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

"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

But, my countrymen, the sole purpose and effect of it [omitting any religious test in the Constitution] is to exclude persecution, and to secure to you the important right of religious liberty. ... But in other parts of the world, it has been, and still is, far different. Systems of religious error have been adopted, in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates, to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish, and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error, but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws." -- Oliver Ellsworth, Dec 17, 1787.

And let the history of all nations be searched, from that day to this, and it will appear that the imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world. And I rejoice to see so many gentlemen who are now giving in the rights of conscience, in this great and important matter." -- Reverend Isaac Backus, Feb. 4, 1788.

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion" -- Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

"Under the color of religious tests the utmost cruelties have been exercised. Those in power have generally considered all wisdom centered in themselves, that they alone had a right to dictate to the rest of mankind, and that all opposition to their tenets was profane and impious." -- Baptist clergyman Henry Abbot, July 30, 1788, rebutting James Iredell's desire for including religious tests in the Constitution.

The greatest service that could be rendered the Christian peoples would be to convert them to Christianity. There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not have better

achieved without it.

