a few quotes:


Lighthouses are more useful than churches. -- Benjamin Franklin

This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it!  -- John Adams

Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man. -- Thomas Jefferson

From the Treaty of Tripoli (1797):
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. -- Thomas Jefferson

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?  -- John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.  -- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, undated

When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice....he never did say a word of it in any of his public papers...Governor Morris has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that (Christian) system than he himself did.
-Thomas Jefferson, diary entry, 2/1/1799

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible...Some books on Deism fell into my hands...It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared much stronger than the refutations; in short I soon became a thorough deist.
-Benjamin Franklin, "Toward the Mystery" (autobiography)

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! -- John Adams

more on early america: http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html



not founding fathers, but nice nonetheless:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.  -- Albert Einstein

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. -- Gene Roddenberry


also further reading:
http://mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com/2006/11/secular-quotes-reinforcing-rationality.html

Just to add something. I've been thinking lately about freedom. I'm fairly positive that our founding fathers would not find our society "free" by their standards.

That is all. You can ponder it on your own.

Aww. Thanks. =p Just joking. 


I really didn't want to elaborate because I wanted you to ponder about this yourself. We base everything off of our own experiences and we have different experiences, so different conclusions. (Theoretically.)


If you want me to elaborate, read ahead. Otherwise STOP!


Okay, I really owe Penn Jillette here. (And other subsequent people that influenced his thoughts.) The biggest concern in our country today is safety. It is everywhere. "Don't do Mary Jane because it is dangerous! Don't be whack and do crack! It'll kill you! Don't drink and drive! etc."

Our concerns with safety are vastly overstepping our rights to freedom. The patriot act is the best example. People defend this with the thought that if they did catch a terrorist cell, then we would be grateful for it because people wouldn't die. The move V for Vendetta also shows how safety takes precedence over freedom in our world.

Why is it that we are so safety bound? Because people abused their freedom to do things that harmed others. (I.E. Drunk driver killed someone while driving; guy on mary jane shot someone; guy brought a gun on an airplane on shot someone etc.)

Freedom and responsibility run parallel. More freedom, more responsibility. Less responsibility, less freedom. In the world of our founding fathers, people were (for the most part) responsible with their freedom. Someone could walk down the street with a gun resting against their shoulder and no one would care. If you did that today, you would be arrested. (Another freedom gone.)

Ultimate freedom would be being able to do whatever you wanted. Reasonable freedom would be doing things that didn't harm your society. Carrying a gun down the street doesn't harm our society. But because someone shot someone out on the street, we now are losing our reasonable freedoms. (Like doing pot.)

We aren't even reasonably free in our country. It is sad, no pathetic.

It is sad but necessary, I think. Our founding fathers lived in an age where they probably knew half the people walking down the street. Today, you might live in the same city as someone else and never pass by them. There's something to be said about the amount of freedom we still do have given the number of people overall and how little we do know each other.

It's amazing and wonderful that the U.S. has expanded like it has, but the clash of cultures mixed with enough freedom would put a lot of people in unnecessary danger. Personally, I don't think ultimate freedom is necessary in a society. I think it's important to have structure and rules.

Sure, you could go with a slippery slope argument and say that the government is ever-so-slowly turning the knob from freedom to a full-blown conspiracy theorist's dream. "Sure, today it might be my fully automatic rifle but tomorrow, it might be my right to vote!" You could do that, but it's absurd to think a country like ours would puss out and not fight back if it came to that.

.

I realize that. I did remark about reasonable freedom. Like being able to smoke/eat whatever I wanted in the confines of my own house/bar. Of course there would be laws against doing substances that impair you mentally, and doing something like driving.

Structure and rules are good, and it keeps people safe, yet. However, we are losing our reasonable freedoms. This is sad.

(We can drink alcohol, and we have a law against driving with alcohol in your system, why not the same with pot?) 

I was really happy to read that story. Thank you.

Also, I know that we aren't losing anything recently, I was saying that our founding fathers wouldn't find us "free" by their standards. (Or at least I think they wouldn't.)

I agree that we have lost many freedoms unreasonably as you explained, but the passage above implies that you would be cool with people carrying guns down the street? or no? If so, how is that relative. I understand freedoms that people want to have for themselves should be allowed, just like with smoking pot; pot and many things should definitely be allowed by the law. But in opinion, what good could come from letting everyone carry guns? That's not a necessary freedom is it? I would think most of us want to move towards a society that wouldn't need weapons, and giving everyone the chance to carry weapons seems like a step backwards no?

I don't know exactly, but I think most likely it wouldn't have much of an effect on how things are now. I do think that if everyone carried guns, that at least until it was well established in society crime would temporarily be increased, because there would probablly be some sort of transition period when criminals would use the freedom of using guns to thier advantage, at least to try and get ahead for however short that period is. The world is just full of irrational beings, and the rational people can't always help the irrational ones understand the importance of things.

To add to what you were saying though, I am not sure exactly where this used to be, but either in canada or europe somewhere, police officers used to not carry guns, because it had a positive effect on crime. Many of the criminals didn't use guns either because they didn't have to worry about being gunned down. It is a sort of effect of reverse psychology that was working for this country, wherever it was... I forgot exactly where.