Founding Fathers Atheist Quotes

Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.

I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.

The government of the United States of America has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.

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.

Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state'... is absolutely essential in a free society.

The civil Government, though bereft of every thing like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State.

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian.

The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.

Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature.

Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the General Government.

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.

Let us with Caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

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.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.

I can't tell Black people to fight a war that is Israel's war. What kind of leader will you be, or should I be, to allow these babies Black, white and brown, to fight Israel's war, because Zionists dominate the government of the United States of America and her banking system.

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.

I have sworn upon the altar of god.

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

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

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.

The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.

...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous 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. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind.

What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.

The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

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.

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men.

I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be nonsectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiment in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

July 4th ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.