The "Founders" Weren't Christians

A pal sent me these ruminations on what some of our more prominent founding fathers thought about "Christianity": (Mainly, they were agin it.)

JOHN ADAMS

"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!"--in a letter to Thomas Jefferson

JAMES MADISON

"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."

and

"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."

--both quotes from his 'Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments'

THOMAS JEFFERSON

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god."

--letter to Peter Carr, 1787
plus

"You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know."

--letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, 1819

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here [England] and in New England."

--from his essay, "Toleration"

Also, a Dr. Priestley, an intimate friend of Franklin, wrote of him:

"It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers"

--from Priestley's Autobiography

THOMAS PAINE

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity."

and:

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church."

--from Paine's book, "The Age of Reason"