"In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. They declared that "all
governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." This was a
contradiction of the then political ideas of the world; it was, as many believed, an act of
pure blasphemy a renunciation of the Deity. ...It was a notice to all churches and priests
that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically it tore down every
altar and denied the authority of every "sacred book" and appealed from the Providence of
God to the Providence of man."
..........Robert Ingersoll
The Founders would have disagreed with Ingersoll. They separated the Church from the government so that neither the religious nor any others seeking personal liberty would be subject to either monarch or pope without his/her explicit consent.
At the same time they were, almost to a man, firmly convinced that the Constitution would work only for a religious and moral people and, because the people consented to it, they exercised their own religious faith openly and zealously..
The first national government of the United States, was convinced that the "public prosperity" of a society depended on the vitality of its religion. Nothing less than a "spirit of universal reformation among all ranks and degrees of our citizens," Congress declared to the American people, would "make us a holy, that so we may be a happy people."
Religion and the Congress of the Confederation - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions - Library of Congress
There is a huge difference between disallowing religion to rule people without the consent of the people and disallowing religion. The Founders knew the difference and knew the USA would not survive as the nation they intended that it be without the blessings of God.
and most of the founding father were deists not christians, they didn't believe in the christer god or the bible.
The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.
These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as "the father of the American Revolution." To this day, many mistakenly consider him an atheist, even though he was an out spoken defender of the Deistic view of God. Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe.
Fundamentalist Christians are currently working overtime to convince the American public that the founding fathers intended to establish this country on "biblical principles," but history simply does not support their view. The men mentioned above and others who were instrumental in the founding of our nation were in no sense Bible-believing Christians. Thomas Jefferson, in fact, was fiercely anti-cleric. In a letter to Horatio Spafford in 1814, Jefferson said, "In every country and 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. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes" (George Seldes, The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey Citadel Press, 1983, p. 371). In a letter to Mrs. Harrison Smith, he wrote, "It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read. By the same test the world must judge me. But this does not satisfy the priesthood. They must have a positive, a declared assent to all their interested absurdities. My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest" (August 6, 1816).
Jefferson:
"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
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 political as well as
religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
..........To Baron von Humboldt, 1813
John Adams
"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it
happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and
Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
..........To F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816
"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!"
..........To Thomas Jefferson
"What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where
are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are the
forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope,
because suspected of heresy? Remember the 'index expurgatorius', the inquisition, the
stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine."
..........To John Taylor
James Madison
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity
and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has
the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less,
in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both,
superstition, bigotry and persecution."
..........."A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785
Thomas Paine
"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the
Bible)."
"It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of
the Bible."
Ben Fraklin
I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue.
The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought
but what we did."
..........Letter to his father, 1738
"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no
worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."
.........."Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion", Nov. 20, 1728
"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ...
not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and
compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity."
..........Works, Vol. VII, p. 75
Deism Defined, Welcome to Deism, Deist Glossary and Frequently Asked Questions
