posted on Jul, 14 2009 @ 04:52 PM
founding father quotes, ignored in video
"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 F.A. Van
der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816
"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!" --- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson
"What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope
Gelasius? Where are the forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because suspected of heresy? Remember the
'index expurgatorius', the inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine." --- John Adams, letter to John Taylor
"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or
dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is
patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the
clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
--- John Adams, letter to John Taylor
"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe
rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to
fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800.
"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... 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 Spafford, March 17, 1814
"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined,
imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other
half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." --- Thomas Jefferson, from "Notes on Virginia"
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her
tribunal for 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." --- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787
"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that
the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests." --- Thomas Jefferson to
John Adams, 1803
"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who
professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State." ---
Thomas Jefferson to S. Kercheval, 1810
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance,
"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." --- James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785
"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", 1785