What do the Founding Fathers have to say?
Robert Treat PaineWhenever we read the obscene stories [of the Bible], the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the Word of God.
Thomas JeffersonThe 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.
George WashingtonThe United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.
Benjamin FranklinAs to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion . . . has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity.
James MadisonDuring almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have 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.
John AdamsThe government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.