Founding Fathers Religious Quotes

It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.

Creeds have been the bane of the Christian church … made of Christendom a slaughter-house.

Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.

. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.

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

My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

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

I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.

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!

The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies, and falsehoods.

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.

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.

I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention.

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

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?

It is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws.

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty.

I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.

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.

The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without the agency of a Supreme Being.

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. What a Utopia! What a paradise this region would be.

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind.

Because we hold it for ‘a fundamental and undeniable truth’, that religion or ‘the duty which we owe to our Creator’ and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.

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.

Let us by wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

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

Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.

We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.

It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.

We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district; all studied and appreciated as they merit; are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.

It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God.

Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?

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.

It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.

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.

Christianity is the only true and perfect religion.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

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.

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

God has appointed two kinds of government in the world, which are distinct in their nature, and ought never to be confounded together; one of which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical government.

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

I … [rely] upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning.

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

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption; all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.

Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle.

… happily the Government of the United States… gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

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

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.

When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

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

There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

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

In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars.

The propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained…

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.

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 is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene.

[V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.

Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God.

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