The Founding Fathers on Religion

As the quotes on this page illustrate, the claim that America was founded on Christianity is a
myth. Many of the Founding Fathers and Revolutionary War leaders were Deists, and upheld
a firm separation of church and state.
Webster's New World Dictionary -- Third College Edition
Deism: (1) The belief in the existence of a God on purely rational grounds without reliance
on revelation or authority; especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. (2) The doctrine that
God created the world and its natural laws, but takes no further part in its functioning.

United States Constitution

The First Amendment
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."
Article VI, Section 3
"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust
under the United States."
John Adams (the second President of the United States)
Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797). Article 11 states:
"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out,
'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'"
From a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief
which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that
engine of grief has produced!"
Additional quotes from John Adams:
"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and
whole carloads of trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?"
"The Doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
"...Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of
the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to
spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in
favor of the rights of mankind."
Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the United States)
Jefferson's interpretation of the first amendment in a letter to the Danbury Baptist
Association (January 1, 1802):
"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."
From Jefferson's biography:
"...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, 'Jesus Christ...the holy author of
our religion,' which was rejected 'By a great majority in proof that they meant to
comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and
the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.'"
Jefferson's "The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom":
"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in
physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as
are 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."
From Thomas Jefferson's Bible:
"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."
Jefferson's Notes on Virginia:
"Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these free
inquiry must be indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse ourselves?
But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have
established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?"
Additional quotes from Thomas Jefferson:
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
"They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in
opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the alter of god
eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular
superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and
mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of
Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of
this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support
roguery and error all over the earth."
"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."
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question
with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve
of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear....Do not be frightened from this
inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will
find incitements to virtue on the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the
love of others which it will procure for you."

"Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever shone on

man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by
a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of
Jesus."
"...that our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than our
opinions in physics and geometry."
James Madison (the fourth President of the United States)
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments:
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble
enterprise....During 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 laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."
Additional quote from James Madison:
"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
Benjamin Franklin
From Franklin's autobiography, p. 66:
"My parents had given me betimes religious impressions, and I received from my infancy a
pious education in the principles of Calvinism. But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of
age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them
combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself."
From Franklin's autobiography, p. 66:
"...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect
on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which
were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I
soon became a thorough Deist."
Thomas Paine
From The Age of Reason, pp. 89:
"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....Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and of my own part, I
disbelieve them all."
From The Age of Reason:
"All natural 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."
From The Age of Reason:
"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that
have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or
revealed religion."

From The Age of Reason:

"What is it the Bible teaches us? -- rapine, cruelty, and murder."
From The Age of Reason:
"Loving of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has beside no
meaning....Those who preach the doctrine of loving their enemies are in general the
greatest prosecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical,
and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches."
From The Age of Reason:
"The Bible was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use of it -- not to
terrify but to extirpate."
Additional quote from Thomas Paine:
"It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of
the Bible."
Ethan Allen
From Religion of the American Enlightenment:
"Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am
no Christian."