Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Paine, and Franklin

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George Washington, First President of USA:

“The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.”

“As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.”

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation,” Washington wrote. “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

A near-contemporary, the Rev. Dr. Bird Wilson, “perused every line that (President George) Washington ever gave to the public and (did) not find one expression in which he pledges himself as a believer in Christianity. … He was a Deist and nothing more.” Wilson judged all of the first six presidents to be “infidels.”

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John Adams, Second President of the USA, was First Vice President under First President George Washington

“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 tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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.” ~ Tripoli of Barbary. Art. 11. – Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

“The Judeo-Christian religion is the most bloody religion that ever existed.” Adams’ treaty with Tripoli specified that the American government “is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

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Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the USA and Vice President to Second President John Adams

“Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies.”

“Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.”

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are only 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.”

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.”

“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 people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.”

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

“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.” ~ Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to John Adams (April 11, 1823)

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James Madison a.k.a. ‘The Father of the Constitution of the United States of America, and the Fourth President of the United States:

“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 and the State.”

“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.”

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”

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Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Most famous for  ‘The Age of Reason’ (1794) and ‘Common Sense’ (1776). He immigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution:

“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion”.

“Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented, nothing is more … repugnant to reason … than this thing called Christianity.”

“It is from the bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder, for the belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man, and the bible is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind”

“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. … My own mind is my own church.” ~ Thomas Paine ‘The Age of Reason’ (1794)

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Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’. He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania. Franklin earned the title of “The First American” for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity; as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies, then as the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation:

“I can not conceive otherwise than that He, the Intimate Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.”