Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutt
news to me, show me some evidence.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tony286
(Post 19167873)
Treaty of tripoli signed by John Adams says we are not a Christian nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,?as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],?and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
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There's this. Adams also said: - "Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?" -letter to Thomas Jefferson
- "Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?"
- "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."
James Madison- "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." -letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774
- "Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
- "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries." -1803 letter objecting use of gov. land for churches
Ben Franklin- "Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." -in Poor Richard's Almanac
- "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." -in Poor Richard's Almanac
- "It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers" (Priestley's Autobiography)
Thomas Paine- "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."
- "We do not admit the authority of the church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins. It was by propagating that belief and supporting it with fire that she kept up her temporal power."
- "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. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
George Washington
The father of this country was very private about his beliefs, but it is widely considered that he was a Deist like his colleagues. He was a Freemason. - Historian Barry Schwartz writes: "George Washington's practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian... He repeatedly declined the church's sacraments. Never did he take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary... Even on his deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and expressed no wish to be attended by His representative." [New York Press, 1987, pp. 174-175]
- Paul F. Boller states in his anthology on Washington: "There is no mention of Jesus Christ anywhere in his extensive correspondence." [Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 14-15]
- "Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself." -Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, Feb. 1800
Last but not least, Thomas Jefferson- "The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs." -- Letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822
- To claim that Jefferson was a Christian is outright dishonest. He was a MATERIALIST, and he said so:
"But while this syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in its true light, as no imposter himself, but a great reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with him in all his doctrines. I am a materialist; he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it." -- letter to William Short, April 13, 1820; Definition of a Materialist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism
- "Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814
- "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever." -Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
- And about a million more. Jefferson really hated religion.
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