Some Actual Quotes from the Founding Fathers on Christianity

What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy. -- James Madison Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, June 12, 1785

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 the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. --Thomas Jefferson

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 the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. -- James Madison Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, June 12, 1785

Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days? -- John Adams

The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. -- Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli signed by President John Adams

“...the church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.” -- Thomas Paine “Age of Reason” pp8-9

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society. -- George Washington in a letter to Sir Edward Newenham, 22 June 1792

Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion. -- John Adams letter to Benjamin Rush June 12, 1812

It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven. . . . Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery . . . are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. -- John Adams, 1786

How has it happened that millions of myths, fables, legends and tales have been blended with Jewish and Christian fables and myths and have made them the most bloody religion that has ever existed? Filled with the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud? -- John Adams in letters to F.A. Van Der Kamp 1809-1816

The serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is ominous. -- Thomas Jefferson, Works, Vol. iv., p. 322

There are in this country, as in all others, a certain proportion of restless and turbulent spirits - poor, unoccupied, ambitious - who must always have something to quarrel about with their neighbors. These people are the authors of religious revivals. -- John Quincy Adams, diary January 21, 1844

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. It has been the most destructive to the peace of man since man began to exist. Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses, who gave an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and then rape the daughters. One of the most horrible atrocities found in the literature of any nation. I would not dishonor my Creator's name by attaching it to this filthy book. -- Thomas Paine, “Age of Reason” pp 183-188

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 in a letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

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

History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. -- Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814