Our country was founded in part for religious FREEDOM, not religious DOMINANCE. Practice how you feel you are called to. Love your god. Love your ministers. Love your fellow congregationalists. Just don't tell me to believe in something, and worship something based in fear of future retribution. I choose to be kind to people because it is right, not because a book guides me, or because I'll spend eternity upstairs or downstairs based on how I lived my life. Be good because it is right.
Our founding fathers, the people who wrote, debated, and eventually signed the Constitution, were quite energetic about religion. (I've been collecting these for years now.)
George Washington, 1st President, General who won America's freedom from England,
Signer of The Constitution
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”
John Adams, 2nd President, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it”
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion”
Thomas Jefferson, 3th President, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.” In a letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
“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.”
James Madison, 4th President, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
"In the course of the opposition to the bill in the House of Delegates, which was warm & strenuous from some of the minority, an experiment was made on the reverence entertained for the name & sanctity of the Saviour, by proposing to insert the words "Jesus Christ" after the words "our lord" in the preamble, the object of which would have been, to imply a restriction of the liberty defined in the Bill, to those professing his religion only. The amendment was discussed, and rejected by a vote of against.”
Thomas Paine, Author of significant influence to the American Revolution
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish [Muslim], appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
Alexander Hamilton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
“The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.”
Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
“To follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.”
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President, and signer of the Emancipation Proclamation
“When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read: ‘All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer immigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty–to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
Campy Out!
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