Turn away from a pointless argument? that's unpossible.

Obviously I think that Jim should beat these dumb hicks like a drum until they beg for mercy. Here are some nice quotes from Jefferson and Madison about America and religion. The doesn't mean that NONE of the founders wanted American to be a 'christen nation' but it's pretty clear that the man who wrote the declaration of independence and that father of the US constitution didn't. I've bolded the better quotes. For what it's worth Jefferson created a version of the bible, called the Jefferson bible that had ALL references to miracles and the supernatural removed from the account of Jesus's life. Madison thought the office of Congressional chaplain was a violation of the separation of church and state and opposed it. Feel free to include me on the mailing list.

A. Thomas Jefferson wrote: ← ↑ →
3rd President (1801-1809)
· “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.” · “The serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is ominous.”
· “I join you [John Adams], therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character.”
· “In every country and in every age the priest [any and every clergyman] has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
· “I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.” · “His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man worshiped a false God, he did.”
· “Their [Presbyterian’s] ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival if they had power.”
· “It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist.”
· “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” · “If by religion, we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your [John Adams’] exclamation on that hypothesis is just, ‘that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it’.”
· Christianity neither is, nor ever was apart of the common law. Feb. 10, 1814 · “Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another.” (Letter to Thomas Whittemore, June 5, 1822)
· In support of Thomas Paine:
o “No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language.”
o “That you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept the assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.” (letter to Thomas Paine written after publication of Age of Reason)


B. James Madison wrote: ← ↑ →
The 4th President (1809-1817) feared organized religion. Quotations here excerpted from James Madison on Religious Liberty edited by Robert S. Alley, ISBN 0-87975-298-X.
· “During almost fifteen centuries, the legal establishment of Christianity has been on trial. What have been the fruits of this trial? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; and in both, clergy and laity, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” (Speech to the General Assembly of Virginia, 1785)
· From a document in Madison’s own hand and re-published in the William and Mary Quarterly of October 1946.
o “The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S.”
o “Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, my be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their shorty history.”
o “But besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & the civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded agst in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The power of all coprporations , ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acuired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”
o “Are the U.S. duly awake to the tendency of the precedents they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations of Religious Congregations with the faculty of acquiring & holding property real as well as personal? Do not many of these acts [of Congress] give this faculty, without limit either as to time or as to amount? Ad must not bodies, perpetual in their existtence, and which may be always gaining without ever losing, speedily gain more than is useful, and in time more than is safe?”
o “Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taqxes.”
o “The establishment of the chaplainship to Cong[res]s is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority.” o If Religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associaated, and it be proper that public functionaries, as well as their Constituents should discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents, do so at t heir own expense.”
o “Better also to disarm in the same way, the precedent of Chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matters of religion.”
o “Religious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings & fasts are shoots from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed. Altho’ recommendations only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers.”