posted on Sep, 24 2003 @ 06:24 PM
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not
advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded
fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
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.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
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.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote
"Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
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.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
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 civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
The whole history of these books [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.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for
protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
Enjoy the RUSH of the man's actual writings.
Authority is an illusion in the mind of govenors - Lao Tse