Lance_Zuma
07-28-2004, 11:41 AM
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Thomas Paine discuss organized Religion
"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 of his own. ....they have perverted
the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon,
unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for
their purpose."
[Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio Spofford, March 17, 1814]
"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on
society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual
tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they
have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no
instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people.
Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an
established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government,
instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
[Pres. James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", addressed
to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]
"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 number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and
the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the
total separation of the church from the state."
[James Madison, 1819, in Boston, _Why The Religious Right
is Wrong about the Separation of Church and State_]
"The Christian god can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the
many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three
headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know
more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to
look at the caliber of the people who say they serve him. They are
always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
[Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr]
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of
maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary
operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment
of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less,
in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility
in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
[James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", addressed to
the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]
"As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call
it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions
and a history of bad times and bad men."
[Thomas Paine, writing to Andrew Dean August 15, 1806]
"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are
thos calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted
them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely
incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words.
And 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
classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of
Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of
thought in these United States will do away with this artificial
scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of
this most venerated Reformer of human errors."
[Thomas Jefferson, to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823]
"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the
study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles;
it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing;
and it admits of no conclusion."
[Thomas Paine]
The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the
teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and
unintelligible."
[Thomas Jefferson, in _Toward The Mystery_]
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries,
the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness
with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more
consistant that we call 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; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest
everything that is cruel."
[Thomas Paine, _The Age of Reason_]
"The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever more
dangerous. Jesus had to work on the perilous confines of reason and
religion; and a step to the right or left might place him within the
grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as
cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family
God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.
That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of
God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men
more learned than myself in that lore."
[Thomas Jefferson, to Story, Aug. 4, 1820]
"A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution
[the University of Virginia]."
[Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, October 7, 1814.
From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book
of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 492.]
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the
world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity)
one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and
mythology."
[Thomas Jefferson, _Jefferson Bible_]
"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."
[Thomas Jefferson, in _Toward the Mystery_]
"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 of his own. ....they have perverted
the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon,
unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for
their purpose."
[Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio Spofford, March 17, 1814]
"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on
society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual
tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they
have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no
instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people.
Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an
established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government,
instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
[Pres. James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", addressed
to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]
"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 number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and
the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the
total separation of the church from the state."
[James Madison, 1819, in Boston, _Why The Religious Right
is Wrong about the Separation of Church and State_]
"The Christian god can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the
many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three
headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know
more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to
look at the caliber of the people who say they serve him. They are
always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
[Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr]
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of
maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary
operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment
of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less,
in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility
in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
[James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", addressed to
the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]
"As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call
it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions
and a history of bad times and bad men."
[Thomas Paine, writing to Andrew Dean August 15, 1806]
"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are
thos calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted
them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely
incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words.
And 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
classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of
Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of
thought in these United States will do away with this artificial
scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of
this most venerated Reformer of human errors."
[Thomas Jefferson, to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823]
"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the
study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles;
it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing;
and it admits of no conclusion."
[Thomas Paine]
The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the
teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and
unintelligible."
[Thomas Jefferson, in _Toward The Mystery_]
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries,
the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness
with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more
consistant that we call 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; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest
everything that is cruel."
[Thomas Paine, _The Age of Reason_]
"The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever more
dangerous. Jesus had to work on the perilous confines of reason and
religion; and a step to the right or left might place him within the
grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as
cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family
God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.
That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of
God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men
more learned than myself in that lore."
[Thomas Jefferson, to Story, Aug. 4, 1820]
"A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution
[the University of Virginia]."
[Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, October 7, 1814.
From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book
of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 492.]
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the
world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity)
one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and
mythology."
[Thomas Jefferson, _Jefferson Bible_]
"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."
[Thomas Jefferson, in _Toward the Mystery_]