The Founding Fathers were not "Good Christians"

Every once in a while, or rather, every day, some crazy babbling Christian will come around and tell you something like:
"LOLZ AMERICAN IS CHRIZTIANSZ! GOEGRGE WASHINGTONS WAS CVHRISTANSZ!!! LOZL"

Generally, however, they will say it even louder, with more misspellings, and even more idiocracy jammed into a few sentences.

This is, of course, not true.

While a few Founding fathers were Christians(and a few were clearly not), they showed criticism of Christianity, especially the church and the fundamentalists.

They all clearly supported the Separation of Church and State.

Here are some quotes, originally posted as a Youtube bulletin.


Ben Franklin:

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."
[Benjamin Franklin from "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion", Nov. 20, 1728]

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."
[Benjamin Franklin, in _Toward The Mystery_]

"The way to see by Faith is to shut the eye of Reason."
[Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard, 1758]

"Revealed religion has no weight with me."
[Benjamin Franklin]

"in short, I soon became a thorough deist"

[Benjamin Franklin, "Autobiography,"p.66 as published in *The American Tradition in Literature,* seventh edition (short), McGraw-Hill,p.180]

George Washington:
There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. [George Washington, address to Congress, 8 January, 1790]

...I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution. [George Washington, May, 1789 from The Washington papers]

"I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did."
-- Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, February, 1800, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572

"Sir, Washington was a Deist."
-- The Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie, rector of the church Washington had attended with his wife, quoted from John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans

Thomas Jefferson:
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 1787

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography

I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions?")


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.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

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 to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825

John Adams:
John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli, which said:
""As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion""

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, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815


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 FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
-- John Adams, letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816, from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
-- John Adams, "this awful blashpemy" that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ, from Ira D Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief


Cheers,
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