Founding Fathers Atheist Quotes

• I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Christian, Spiritual, Atheist

  23 Copy quote

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

  John Adams

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state'... is absolutely essential in a free society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Wall, Religion

  32 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Law, Presidential

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Reports of Cases Determined in the General Court of Virginia: From 1730, to 1740; and from 1768, to 1772”, p.140

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

  James Madison

  Patriotic, Blood, Europe

  88 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Paine

  Inspirational, Christian, Atheist

  Thomas Paine (1821). “The Theological Works of Thomas Paine”, p.2

  78 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.... During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Ignorance

  85 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Paine

  Bible, Believe, Religion

  84 Copy quote

• The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.

  George Washington

  Should Have, America, Religion

  21 Copy quote

• Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.90, Rowman & Littlefield

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  John Adams

  Religious, Government, Religion

  John Adams, Benjamin Rush (1892). “Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle... Series A-[B]”

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Faith, Spiritual, Religious

  Benjamin Franklin (1987). “Poor Richard's Almanack: Being the Choicest Morsels of Wisdom, Written During the Years of the Almanack's Publication”, p.16, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

  74 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  George Washington

  Religious, Godly, Indulge In

  George Washington, United States. President (1789-1797 : Washington) (1847). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America: Published in September, 1796”, p.9

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Life, Birthday

  "Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness".

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Fighting, Faith Religion

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.42, Cosimo, Inc.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.428, Penguin

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Atheist, Religion, President

  "Christianity: the One, the Many: What Christianity Might Have Been and Could Still Become, Volume 1". Book by John F. Nash (p. 11), February 14, 2008.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Religious, Believe, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.193, Cambridge University Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Atheism

  Thomas Paine “The Writings of Thomas Paine”, Jazzybee Verlag

  85 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Religious, Jesus, Atheist

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1970, Library of America

  83 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Motivational, Death, Faith

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Wall

  Reply to Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, and Stephen S. Nelson (committee of the Danbury, Conn., Baptist Association), 1 Jan. 1802

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Atheism

  Thomas Paine (1861). “The Age of Reason, etc”, p.7

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  George Washington

  Differences, Religion, Acrimony

  George Washington (1858). “The Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts : with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.309

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  James Madison

  Exercise, Secular Society, Law

  Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates, J. W. Randolph, James Madison (1850). “The Virginia Report of 1799-1800: Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws; Together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, Including the Debate and Proceedings Thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia and Other Documents Illustrative of the Report and Resolutions”, p.136

  74 Copy quote

  Show source