thomas-jefferson Quotes About religion Page 2

“Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

“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.”

Source: Jefferson: Writings

“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.”

People Men Should Believe Matter States Whole Government Action Law Lying Religion Church Religious Christianity Opinion Atheism Building Wall Exercise Worship Accounts Atheist Separation Establishment Reverence Contemplating Sovereign Founding Religious Faith First Amendment Church And State Legislature Separation Of Church And State There Is No God Our Founding Fathers Religious Belief Founding Fathers Christian State Government Organized Religion Us Founding Fathers Founding Fathers Religion Separation Between Church And State Founding Fathers Religious If There Is A God Religion God Christian Church Religious Liberty Founding Fathers Anti Religion Founding Fathers Of America Founding America American Founding Fathers Founding Fathers Atheist Deism There Being No God Christianity From Founding Fathers Christian Atheist Religion Christian Christian Father Us Constitution Religion And Government Anti Christian Christian Right Faith Religion Amendment 1 Deist Religious Truth Christianity And Government Laws And Government

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.”

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State

“The whole history of these books (i.e. the Gospels) is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.”

“Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.”

“It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it (i.e. the Book of Revelations), and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherence of our own nightly dreams.”

Years Book Dream Religion Religious Christianity Capable Worthy Explanation Revelations Fifty Sixty Maniacs Anti Christian Incoherence Book Of Revelation

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion.”

Source: Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way

“The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty...”

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.”

Government Political Religion Church Religious Liberty Atheism Internet Constitution Libertarian Separation Free Speech Secular Coercion Church And State Freedom And Liberty Separation Of Church And State Freedom Liberty Our Founding Fathers Property Rights Religious Freedom Religious Belief Limited Government Founding Fathers Christian State Government Us Founding Fathers Forefathers Founding Fathers Religion Separation Between Church And State Founding Fathers Religious American Government Religious Liberty Limiting Government Founding Fathers Anti Religion Founding Fathers Of America Founding America American Founding Fathers Founding Fathers Atheist Deism Christian Atheist Christian Father Separation Of Powers Religion And Government Theocracy Christian Right Limiting Freedom Constitutional Government Drug Prohibition Religious Truth Power Government Non Religious Christian Freedom Legitimate Government Legitimate Power

Book:The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Inaugural addresses and messages. Replies to public addresses. Indian addresses. Miscellaneous: 1. Notes on Virginia; 2. Biographical sketches of distinguished men; 3. The batture of New Orleans

Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Inaugural addresses and messages. Replies to public addresses. Indian addresses. Miscellaneous: 1. Notes on Virginia; 2. Biographical sketches of distinguished men; 3. The batture of New Orleans

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

Has Beens Government Religion Religious Atheism Discipline Exercise Authority Assuming Church And State Separation Of Church And State Separation Between Church And State Founding Fathers Religious Religious Liberty Founding Fathers Atheist Religion Christian Religion And Government Christianity And Government

Book:Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

Source: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

“Civil officials have no business meddling in private religious affairs.”

Religion Religious Atheism Affair Officials Meddling

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives... But this does not satisfy the priesthood. They must have a positive, a declared assent to all of their interested absurdities. My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest.”

Ifs Doe Has Beens Religion Opinion Atheism Priests Judged Absurdity Priesthood Infidel

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.”

Real Facts Religion Jesus Christ Wealth Simple Atheism Teaching Mankind Engines Construction Artificial Clergy Anti Christ

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth.”

Men Trying May Ends Reason Facts Religion Interesting Atheism Experiments Freedom Of The Press

Book:Jefferson: Political Writings

Source: Jefferson: Political Writings

“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.”

Has Beens States Reason Religion Given President Religious United United States Atheism Mines Exercise Authority Direct Constituents Founding Fathers Atheist

Book:Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers

Source: Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers

“Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself.”

Religion Christianity Atheism Morris

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“What is it men cannot be made to believe!”

Men Believe Made Character Religion Politics Virtue Atheism Honesty Integrity

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State

“I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.”

Thinking Christian Religion Opinion Atheism Merit Latter Concur

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

“If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.”

Ifs Religion Belief Religious Virtue Atheism Morality Foundation Atheist Arise God Love Church And State Separation Of Church And State Organized Religion Separation Between Church And State Founding Fathers Atheist Christian Right

Book:The portable Thomas Jefferson

Source: The portable Thomas Jefferson

“My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.”

Ifs Thinking Has Beens Purpose Religion Moral Opinion Atheism Built Structure Priests Artificial Revolt Infidel

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

“I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.”

Ifs Men I Can Religion Atheism Atheist False Gods

Book:Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States

Source: Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States

“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.”

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

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