Well, I've been neglecting my blog in favor of my new Facebook page. So I need to get back on the write track. FB is a nice break but it can eat up all your time and it can be rather mindless too. I am addicted to FarmTown, I admit that freely!
This time of year I'm also in a fantasy football league. It's Yahoo's free version. If I played for $$$ I'd be a poor man. This is just for bragging rights; of which I am in third place out of twelve teams, leading big in overall points, with my sights on the top spot.
So, I've been distracted and a tad lazy, needing a kick in the ass to get going. Please forgive my absence. With The Kinks cranked, I can create.
Recently I encountered a once in a life time event. Seriously strange, never seen ANYTHING like it as it totally interrupted my life for a few hours. It made me realize how much I count on the ease of communications that comes with today's technology. It put me on a journey I never intended to take, to places I've never been before, but had liked to visit sometime perhaps. I wish I could have enjoyed it more.
Kinda like Gilligans Isle; I left for a short trip that turned into an eternity. I was so close to home, but so far away when nature flexed her awesome might. I marvel at her ability to control and override mankind.
My journey began on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at midnight, 12:00 AM. I left after work and made for my parents who live along Chinook Pass on the east slopes of the Cascade Mountains. "Dear Mountain" as I know it. As close to heaven and God as I've ever been taking in it's wild natural beauty. It's hard to see the hand of man there. I love it. More trees than people. More deer than most ever get to see.
The ride over the pass is very nice, even in the dark. Highway 410 winds it's way into Rainier National Park and crests at approx. 4,500 ft. Driving it at night takes patience. You can easily be the only one on the highway, in car moving vehicle that is. Night time driving requires a slower pace unless you'd like to have a 2,000# elk hood ornament. It happens quite a bit and I can tell you, it's not very pleasant. It's much easier to just slow down a bit. 50 mph is about right.
I saw the first critter on the west side, just above the Cayuse pass jct; A bull elk, with an enormous rack, appeared in my headlights on a tight hairpin turn. He darted up the bank in a split second into the darkness. Coming down the other side I saw many more elk, some cows hanging around along the side of the road. Below there came plenty of deer. Slow as you go to save a life, or lives.
Okay, so I made it to the folks around 3 am and crashed hard (only in a nice soft bed). Dad and I spent Saturday cutting/hauling wood. Talk about a great work out and it's sorta fun to play with the big boys toys. We winched logs off the hillside, sawed 'em into 16" pieces. The best part was launching them with gusto into ol Franken Dodge, Dad's green monster. The pile of shit on wheels; a 1979 Dodge Powerwagon (club cab) death trap; Duck shit green, dented, no tailgate or bumper, a drivers door that opens (and shuts) with a kick, cracks and what looks like bullet holes in the windshield. You can see earth below you when driving. Until Dad slipped in the metal plate there was no place to rest your heel when pressing the gas. It starts up in a blue cloud, disappears in one too.
DODGE = Dear Old Dad's Green Enigma or Dads Old Duckshit Green Enigma...either way, you get the point.
Every piece of wood that bounced and smacked into ol Franky improved it's already sharp looks. I've hit that thing with wood, ice (snow balls), a sledgehammer, splitting maul, logs, poles, my foot, rocks and just about anything else you can pick up and throw. Dad loves it as a utility rig. I hate it because it's a big piece of shit, but even more because I don't want something to snap and send Dad over the bank. I abuse the hell out of it when I drive it too. The sooner it dies, the better I'll feel. Like this time, I got tired of the sticking drivers door and drove it around with the door open. I could get it to shut by coming close to the bank or a tree...
Okay, enough of Franky and wood. I had been in recent contact with a long time friend of mine. We made plans to get together for a beer or something. After a day of high activity, I chose to stay in, so we decided to get together for breakfast at the Woodshed restaurant on Sunday morning around 8:30. I've known Tim since kindergarten and we've managed to keep in touch after not being so for quite some time. I love the man. He's damn funny and we share a history that very few have.
I drug my lazy butt out of bed on crisp Sunday morning, grabbed some coffee and the keys to Mom's nice new Jeep Wrangler. Now, there's a Chrysler product that's worth keeping, unlike Franky. It's a Jeep, it's green and it's a Jeep! The day greeted me with 20 degrees and a brilliant clear blue sky. Reminding me again of why I love the country there.
Just a few miles down the road the highway was closed. A big sign announced the closure, a bigger DOT truck blocked both lanes at the Upper Nile Loop Rd turn off. Somewhat puzzled I turned onto the loop road and made for the Woodshed, which is located at the lower end of the Nile Loop. I must have driven that gravel road a thousand times or more. Very familiar, although the county is in the process of widening, straightening and paving it.
As I made my way down to lower end, about a 1/2 mile from the Woodshed, I saw a group of people standing along the road in a place where it runs right along the river, where you can see the 410 highway across it. A sheriff had his lights on too. Since I've been a kid, as long as I can remember I would always look across the river there when traveling by. This time, I thought mine eyes were failing me. I could not believe it. The highway was gone, replaced by an enormous bank. Pieces of the highway were twisted and broken up along it's edge.
I pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant and saw that the WSP had the highway closed. A large low hanging brownish cloud in the distance along the ridge on the other side of the highway looked extremely out of place on this dry clear fall day. Upon closer inspection it was not a cloud of vapor. It was dust. Once inside the restaurant the watiress said that a landslide had started there the previous evening, causing some damage to a garage and forcing people from their homes.
Amazed, I sat and waited for Tim. I struck up a conversation with a couple sitting at the next table. They were just as bemused about this landslide business as I was. Tim then arrived and we had breakfast, catching up on recent events, recalling past times and being generally crude, sick and twisted with the innocence of two 10 year old boys (that's what Mom said anyways after I called him).
After filling on saugage and eggs, as well as great conversation we decided to go to my folks since Tim has never been there before. Tim was kind enough to pay for the meal while I tipped the watiress and we left. Once in the parking lot we noted many more people arriving on the scene to gawk. Tim recognized a former co-worker and were briefly chatting when I heard what sounded like a huge crash. Looking up along the ridgeline above the slide it looked as if mountain shivered like a cow shaking off flies.
One long horizontal line began to move downward. Rocks the size of houses tumbling down before being totally obscured by dust. I've heard rockslides before. It's a sound I have a hard time describing other than crashing and smashing. Just then another State Trooper came rolling up in his patrol car and told everyone to evacuate the area now. Someone next to me said they had just closed the Nile Loop road because it was buckling and water from the river was starting to come across. I nearly crapped my pants. That's the only way back, other than by mountain road or highway 12 detour that would take a couple of hours.
We obeyed the Stater and took off for Naches, where I was going to call my Dad. I realized on the way I left my cell phone at Mom and Dads because there's no service up the pass. We stopped along the highway just below the "Y" (Hwy 12/410 Jct) and called. Dad said he was going to see if they could open the gate to the Mud Lake road so I could get around it on the ridge, but that was a no go.
I told Dad that I was going to come back via White Pass to Cayuse and said goodbye to my good friend, with more plans of getting together in the future. At 11:30 am I left Naches after topping off the tank. Just above the "Y" on Highway 12 (White Pass) I drove by the Oak Creek feeding station, where the Bethel Ridge road takes off and connects the White Pass to the Chinook pass side via a network of gravel forest service roads that are usually only passable with 4wd.
I thought about going that way because it's much much shorter in distance and because I was in a Jeep. Probably less than 10 miles, as where I was about 50 from the Cayuse Pass turn off. I knew the area, but haven't been on the road for many years and wasn't too sure of the turns I needed to make to come out on Chinook Pass. The last I told anyone was that I was going Cayuse. A moment of indecision preceeded my common sense; Nobody knows I'd be driving into the woods. It's been quite cold at night and I'm not dressed for over night if it comes to it. I could probaby make it unless something happens. Besides, I know exactly where to go to make it via Cayuse so I motored on.
If I'd only known what I faced once I got there, I would have probably attempted it and been just fine enjoying a nice sunny day four wheeling in a nice Wrangler Sahara, built just for such things. I thought about stopping to call Dad at one of the resorts at Rimrock Lake, but it would have been collect and I don't know if he'd answer a number he doesn't recognize so I kept on. Not only does the Jeep do well off road, it did great on the highway too. Man, I want one of these!
I cleared the White Pass summit, noting the new snow along the higher peaks just above the ski area signalling the soon onset of winter. On I went, down the west side to Cayuse (Hwy 123). From there I passed the Ohanepecosh campground and the Stevens Canyon entrance to the National Park where traffic was backed up behind a closed gate manned by a couple of park rangers. Cars were turning around and I was getting a little anxious. I've come a long way to go quite a ways more from here.
After about 5 minutes, and many idiots behind me attempting to pass me to get to the front of the line, where I spoke to Mr Ranger who had just let a Ford Explorer through the gate. I asked him what the issue was and he told me shortly, "123 is closed".
"I got that much, thanks. I'm trying to get home due to the rockslide on 410" I told him. Dawning comprehension filled his face and he turned to open the gate for me too. He said that the DOT was doing some road work and that they should let us pass. Again I moved on. Cayuse is only a little over 11 miles long between highways 12 and 410. He opened the gate, I thanked him and he just glared at me in silence. At about 11.5 miles I came to the road work. The crew looked surprised to see me, before telling me to go back because the road is closed.
I explained the situation, but it fell on deaf ears. "I don't know what to say" the man in coveralls said. "The whole road is tore up". It was news to him that 410 was even closed.
I said "well, I am in a Jeep, can't you let me through? I wouldn't ask but, the rockslide..."
"No"
"Look, I can't go back it's blocked. If I go westward you're adding a few hundred miles to my trip today", I lamented.
"I don't know what to tell you sir". He said, as if speaking from his ass.
Well I did know what to say, and I told him in words I will not repeat here. Feelings of helplessness, rage, and utter frustration boiled out of me. I suggested he get back to work. More people are going to need this road soon. I turned the Jeep around and flew back down to the closed gate and the friendly park ranger, who looked surprised to see me. "They not letting you in?" he asked.
"Yes, they are", I replied. "I just came back down here to tell you about it. It would be a good idea to not send anymore cars up there, unless you'd like to see if you can persuade them to open the road". Again, I got a blank look that I'd compare to a pale white ass cheek. He wasn't about to move from his post so I made tracks.
Wondering what my next move was, I thought I'd wander into Ohanapecosh and attempt a collect call to Dad hoping he could direct me over Bethel Ridge. If not, I'll be venturing down roads previously untraveled for me. What a fun experience trying to call was. I found the pay phone at the visitors center and attempted about 6 collect calls to Mom and Dad (who were not answering) My wife (who also did not answer at home, her cell does not accept collect calls). My brother, but no one picked up there either. NOBODY uses the payphones anymore!
With every attempt to call, I had to speak my name. After each failed attempt I began to shout my name in a tone of angst. People walking by gave me some interesting looks. Here I am, a telecom tech and I cannot complete a damn phone call! Nobody was at the ranger station at the camp ground so I made my way back to Hwy 12 and farther west to Packwood to sit and think about my next move.
I pulled into the first mini mart along the highway to top of the tank and ponder my travels. Standing next to the Jeep filling it up a little pick up pulled into the next pump and a guy got out. Our eyes met and he said "hello, hows it going?" If he'd only known the full scope of those words.
"Well, do you know a way to get to 410 without using Cayuse Pass?" I asked without hesitation. The man laughed as if I were kidding him. I then explained things and he changed his tone. The only way from there is to go farther west and hit back roads, goat paths and waysides to get back to 410, if not all the way to I5!. Discouraged even more, I topped off the tank and went inside for some refreshment.
I asked the clerk if they had road maps. She wanted to know local or state. I said "Yes". She came back with a cute little community map. I explained my plight and she looked at me much like those deer I passed along the highway the night before. She then gave me the back road way to get me up to Eatonville, from there I'd have to ask for more direction. I went outside and found a payphone and was going to give it one last effort to contact anyone, but after a few calls I was getting the same results. Finally, FINALLY! my daughter answered on my last try home.
I spoke to my wife for the first time this began. Thinking back, I should have had her call Mom and Dad and gave them the pay phone # to have them call me back so I could backtrack to Bethel Ridge. My wife told me that my brother had spoken with our folks and that the power was off. I was wondering if their phones had gone too...so I made a command decision and proceeded west down roads I've never traveled. It was 1:00 by now I was getting a little more frustrated.
I left Packwood on "Skate Creek Rd". Yikes, you couldn't skate here at all. The pavement was roughed up that you couldn't do much over 30. With my angst rising, I did notice the beautiful country and the angle that I've never seen Rainier from. This went on for 26 miles to Ashford and onto highway 706, west bound to Elbe. From Elbe up to Eatonville by about 2:30 pm where I stopped at a roadside mini mart to pee and get a little direction from there, to Orting.
The clerk was kind enough to provide me with some directions; "Go up the road to the first light and turn right onto 288th" he said. "Then go to the next one and turn left, then follow the road and wind your way down into Orting. Turn left at the main intersection, that's basically 410 from there". I thanked him and hit the road again. After a few country miles and no traffic lights I came to a four way stop at 288th. Chagrined, I turned right and looked for the next "traffic light".
More country miles later, I came to a T intersection, I could only go left or right onto the "Orting/Kapowson" Highway. On a hunch I turned left and drove for many many more country miles before the road started to wind around and I finally came into some other cars. We were above a small burgh in the valley below, which must be Orting. It took ages to finally get there. Traffic got really heavy as I got closer to stop and go as we found what must have been Main St with a banner over it; "Orting Pumpkin Festival". OH BOY!!!
Finally at the light I noticed that it was not 410 and there were no signs directing to it. It was Hwy 165. Left or right, north or south. So I went right into downtown Orting. Closed side streets, booths, tents, music, carnivals amongst a ton of foot traffic and a long stop and go line of cars. At least the Seahawk game was playing on the radio and they were actually winning.
Wondering whether or not I was on the right path by the time I got to the outskirts of town I saw sign for the city of Buckley, which I know is on 410 so I kept on keeping on. Another pretty stretch of highway. I wish I had the time to enjoy it!
At about 4:00 I finally made it to 410! ONWARD!!! Enumclaw by 4:30. For a third time I top off the gas tank. Now I can sense that I'm close as I barrel down the highway. 5:30 pm I make it to the 410 side of Cayuse Pass. Still closed with line of vehicles waiting to get through. Five minutes later, I clear the summit at Chinook Pass to find the road closed and cars turning around. I nearly cried. NO WAY are they gonna stop me now!
As I made it to the front of the line & rolled down the passenger window as the guy from the DOT walked up and rested his arms on the passenger door. We both exchanged looks and he didn't appear too happy. "I'm local traffic" I said and his eyes lit up.
"Really, where?" he asked. I told him where , and he said; "GO! we're just stopping through traffic here. I didn't need to be told twice. I launched forward and I took off around the barriers, and making my way down the east side. Below Morse Creek the road straightens out with a few short hills. With no one behind or in front of me I decided to see what Moms Jeep could do on the open road. 85 seemed just about right, slowing for corners and the occasional rig going the other direction, which was few.
On I sailed, counting down the mile posts as I flew by. Passed the Bumping River turn off and met an RV and a car going the other way. Nothing going my way so I sped on. At Cliffdell, the speed limit slows to 35, and out of habit I alway slow down because there's usually a trooper or sheriff at the restaurant. Then I considered the emergency going on farther down the road again, but still I hold my speed eventhough I am five miles out.
I glanced in the rear view mirror and spotted a red car coming around the corner into Cliffdell too. It came up on me in a big hurry right up to my bumper. Must be in the same boat I thought. It stuck with me around the next curve and up the hill to Whistlin Jacks restaurant. Clearing the hill and back down where the speed limit goes back to 55. With the car right on my tail I jump on it pretty good and fly by the speed limit sight at about 70 and gaining speed. The little care dropped back and I lost it in my mirror. I'm so close now, NOTHING is going to stop me! I hit 75, then 80 before slowing for more curves and catch up to a pick up doing about 70 and follow it to where my folks driveway is. I notice the little red car again catching me as I slowed. Since the driveway is hidden I turned on my signal early to announce my intentions.
Checking my mirrors again, I expected the car behind me to back off, but instead it was stil right with me, and lo and behold, it's left turn signal was flashing too! Another downshift and I check my mirror closer. I can see the license plate now. It's personalized. It's my folks car! Turning in just past the mailboxes, onto their gravel road I pull to the side and roll down my window @ 6:00 as my Dad came rolling up. I experienced a feeling that I haven't felt in a long damn time, like I was 16 again.
He stopped next to me and rolled down the passenger window. "Didn't you see me at the Bumping Lake turn off? he asked.
"Nope."
"I had a hell of a time keeping up with you!"
"I bet you did. Just to let you know, Mom's new Jeep does well on the highway at 80!".
Dad's nose wrinkled but he smiled. Again, I hadn't seen that for quite some time. Here I was 43, in Moms Jeep and driving like a bat out of hell in front of Dad. OH! The memories it brought back. Dad then said, "Your sister called to say the highway was closed at the Chinook Pass summit. I was going up there to see if you needed help getting in".
It also brought back the realization that I just completed a full 360 around Mt Rainier in about 6.5 hrs. "They couldn't have kept me out. I'd come too far and would have driven over/through the closed signs, or over the bank, or up on the Pacific Crest Trail. No way was I going to be denied"!
Dad was kind enough to load my pickup with wood during my journey so I could head for home that night. After another steaming bowl of Mom's home made clam chower I made for home.
DAMROD = Drive Around Mt Rainier in One Day...
What a trip! Maybe next time I will take the time to plan and enjoy it...
10.21.2009
10.06.2009
Founding Father Roll Call
I'm sure that in most families there are great divides when it comes to religion. It has flared up recently in mine which always causes me (and my own family) great angst and grief. For some, it is the only way. For me not so much. Many are just going with the flow, believing in Jesus because others did without study or inquiry. I know I did. The more I read and learn about our history the more I feel validated in my beliefs that are not church based. Some of the words below I discovered after what I believed in my heart but had not found validation, that indeed matched my feelings. How wonderful it is to read these words of the architects of our way of life. To find that I am thinking along their lines soothes my soul.
I'm sure that many would be surprised to know how they felt about organized religion. The likes of George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams to name a few. They were no fans of Christianity. They felt that influence was poison to our democracy and I fully agree with them. These are the folks that we owe our way of life to and I will not stand idly by to have their meanings twisted into support for organized religion.
For a few of us, we are totally and completely blinded by our beliefs, putting them above everything and everyone else. I hate it when it invades my family. It causes me great anguish to the point it interrupts my sleep and ramps up my stress and anxiety so much that it takes hold of me and won't let go. My mind becomes obsessed with it, mulling it over and over in my head.
I've tried being a believer only to come back to my common senses. I do believe in a creator of some sort, but what comes next? I have no idea and would never claim to. Only when we can actually speak to someone who has already died, we remain woefully ignorant as to what comes next. I refuse to put all my faith in works written when the earth was considered flat and the sun revolved around the earth in the center of the universe. Written centuries before the age of science and reason and heavily edited by the church.
So many questions with so little info given. What we do know about Christ is all second hand knowledge, as we don't have anything written by him. Nothing. His history is recounted very briefly, of which I find interesting since we're talking about the Son of God here.
Is this Gods plan? Am I being tested?
I DON'T KNOW. What I do know is that I am not about to let the Christian Right in this country attempt to paint our founding fathers as Christians who founded a Christian nation. That's sorta hard to do in my mind, since our Constitution guarantees your right to believe as you choose. Putting one religion above others is a direct contradiction of that ideal which leads me to believe that the founding fathers were indeed correct, and the church they had to deal with at the time was full of shit, much like I see today.
What I do know is this; the very words of our founding fathers. Fathers that we do have plenty of information about and from;
George Washington (1732-1799)
"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In the enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States."
letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
"How then is it that they [the Church] lose their native mildness, and become morose and intolerant? It proceeds from the connection which Mr. Burke recommends. By engendering the church with the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called The Church established by Law. It is a stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother, on whom it is begotten, and whom in time it kicks out and destroys. The inquisition in Spain does not proceed from the religion originally professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between the church and the state. The burnings in Smithfield proceeded from the same heterogeneous production; and it was the regeneration of this strange animal in England afterwards, that renewed rancour and irreligion among the inhabitants, and that drove the people called Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity."
The Rights of Man, 1792
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."
The Age of Reason, 1794
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. … I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."
The Age of Reason, 1794
"As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book. The fable of Christ and his twelve apostles, which is a parody on the sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac, copied from the ancient religions of the eastern world, is the least hurtful part. Everything told of Christ has reference to the sun. His reported resurrection is at sunrise, and that on the first day of the week; that is, on the day anciently dedicated to the sun, and from thence called Sunday — in Latin Dies Solis, the day of the sun; as the next day, Monday, is Moon-day."
letter to Andrew Dean, 1806
"It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among mankind, to expel all ideas of a revealed religion as a dangerous heresy, and an impious fraud. What is it that we have learned from this pretended thing called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful to man, and every thing that is disbonourable to his Maker. What is it the Bible teaches us? — rapine, 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."
The Age of Reason, Part II, 1795
"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 Age of Reason, 1794
"Now, had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it."
"Examination of the Prophecies," 1807
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
"We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness;"
his "original Rough draught of the Declaration of Independence"
"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 repentence toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, of so much absurdity, so much untruth and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross, restore to him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some and the roguery of others of his disciples."
letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desireable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
"Notes on the State of Virginia," 1782
"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 blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, etc. But it is said, that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time gave resumed its revolution, and that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, and the second by exile, or death in fureâ.…
"Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision. I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics."
letter to his nephew Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
"[T]he successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U.S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalian & Congregationalist. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me;"
letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800;
"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever was adopted, therefore, into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the laws of this period we have a tolerable collection by Lambard and Wilkins, probably not perfect, but neither very defective; and if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
"I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."
letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799
"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it would read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;’ the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."
Thomas Jefferson in his Autobiography, 1821
"The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a Virgin Mary, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
"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."
letter to Horatio Spafford in 1814
"I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature."
letter to Charles Thomson, January 9, 1816
"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."
letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
"For if we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods and the charlatanisms which his biographers father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind, that he was an impostor."
letter to William Short, August 4, 1820
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"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 oblig'd to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
"Poor Richard's Almanack" 1758
"Serving God is doing good to Man, but praying is thought an easier service, and therefore more generally chosen."
Poor Richard's Maxims, 1753
James Madison (1751-1836)
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
"Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" June 20, 1785
"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 the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822
"What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. 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."
"Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments," June 20, 1785
John Adams (1735-1826)
"Allegiance to the Creator and Governor of the Milky Way and the Nebulae, and Benevolence to all his Creatures, is my Religion."
letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813
"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!"
letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816.
"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; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion's Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years"
letter to John Taylor
"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
a letter to John Taylor, The Life and Works of John Adams, 1851
"Had you and I been forty days with Moses on Mount Sinai and admitted to behold, the divine Shekinah, and there told that one was three and three, one: We might not have had courage to deny it, but We could not have believed it. The thunders and Lightenings and Earthqu[ak]es and the transcendant Splendors and Glories, might have overwhelmed Us with terror and Amazement: but We could not have believed the doctrine, We should be more likely to say in our hearts, whatever We might say with our Lips, This is Chance. There is no God! No Truth. This is all delusion, fiction and a lie: or it is all Chance. But what is Chance? It is motion; it is Action; it is Event; it is Phenomenon, without Cause. Chance is no cause at all. It is nothing. And Nothing has produced all this Pomp and Splendor; and Nothing may produce Our eternal damnation in the flames of Hell fire and Brimstone for what we know, as well as this tremendous Exhibition of Terror and Falshood.
"God has infinite Wisdom, goodness and power. He created the Universe. His duration is eternal, a parte Ante, and a parte post. His presence is as extensive as Space. What is Space? an infinite, sphericle Vaccuum. He created this Speck of Dirt and the human Species for his glory: and with the deliberate design of making, nine tenths of our Species miserable forever for his glory. This doctrine of Christian Theologians in general: ten to one.
"Now, my friend, can Prophecies, or miracles convince You, or Me, that infinite Benevolence, Wisdom and Power, created and preserves, for a time, innumerable millions to make them misserable, forever; for his own Glory? Wretch! What is the Glory? Is he ambitious? does he want promotion? Is he vain? tickled with Adulation? Exulting and tryumphing in his Power and Sweetness of his Vengeance? Pardon me, my Maker, for these Aweful Questions. My answer to them is always ready: I believe no such Things.
letter to Thomas Jefferson, Sept. 14, 1813
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815
Ethan Allen (1738-1789)
"In the circle of my acquaintance (which has not been small), I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter; for I have not in the least disguised my sentiments, but have written freely without any conscious knowledge of prejudice for, or against any man, sectary or party whatever; but wish that good sense, truth and virtue may be promoted and flourish in the world, to the detection of delusion, superstition, and false religion; and therefore my errors in the succeeding treatise, which may be rationally pointed out, will be readily rescinded."
Reason the Only Oracle of Man
I'm sure that many would be surprised to know how they felt about organized religion. The likes of George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams to name a few. They were no fans of Christianity. They felt that influence was poison to our democracy and I fully agree with them. These are the folks that we owe our way of life to and I will not stand idly by to have their meanings twisted into support for organized religion.
For a few of us, we are totally and completely blinded by our beliefs, putting them above everything and everyone else. I hate it when it invades my family. It causes me great anguish to the point it interrupts my sleep and ramps up my stress and anxiety so much that it takes hold of me and won't let go. My mind becomes obsessed with it, mulling it over and over in my head.
I've tried being a believer only to come back to my common senses. I do believe in a creator of some sort, but what comes next? I have no idea and would never claim to. Only when we can actually speak to someone who has already died, we remain woefully ignorant as to what comes next. I refuse to put all my faith in works written when the earth was considered flat and the sun revolved around the earth in the center of the universe. Written centuries before the age of science and reason and heavily edited by the church.
So many questions with so little info given. What we do know about Christ is all second hand knowledge, as we don't have anything written by him. Nothing. His history is recounted very briefly, of which I find interesting since we're talking about the Son of God here.
Is this Gods plan? Am I being tested?
I DON'T KNOW. What I do know is that I am not about to let the Christian Right in this country attempt to paint our founding fathers as Christians who founded a Christian nation. That's sorta hard to do in my mind, since our Constitution guarantees your right to believe as you choose. Putting one religion above others is a direct contradiction of that ideal which leads me to believe that the founding fathers were indeed correct, and the church they had to deal with at the time was full of shit, much like I see today.
What I do know is this; the very words of our founding fathers. Fathers that we do have plenty of information about and from;
George Washington (1732-1799)
"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In the enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States."
letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
"How then is it that they [the Church] lose their native mildness, and become morose and intolerant? It proceeds from the connection which Mr. Burke recommends. By engendering the church with the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called The Church established by Law. It is a stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother, on whom it is begotten, and whom in time it kicks out and destroys. The inquisition in Spain does not proceed from the religion originally professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between the church and the state. The burnings in Smithfield proceeded from the same heterogeneous production; and it was the regeneration of this strange animal in England afterwards, that renewed rancour and irreligion among the inhabitants, and that drove the people called Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity."
The Rights of Man, 1792
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."
The Age of Reason, 1794
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. … I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."
The Age of Reason, 1794
"As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book. The fable of Christ and his twelve apostles, which is a parody on the sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac, copied from the ancient religions of the eastern world, is the least hurtful part. Everything told of Christ has reference to the sun. His reported resurrection is at sunrise, and that on the first day of the week; that is, on the day anciently dedicated to the sun, and from thence called Sunday — in Latin Dies Solis, the day of the sun; as the next day, Monday, is Moon-day."
letter to Andrew Dean, 1806
"It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among mankind, to expel all ideas of a revealed religion as a dangerous heresy, and an impious fraud. What is it that we have learned from this pretended thing called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful to man, and every thing that is disbonourable to his Maker. What is it the Bible teaches us? — rapine, 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."
The Age of Reason, Part II, 1795
"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 Age of Reason, 1794
"Now, had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it."
"Examination of the Prophecies," 1807
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
"We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness;"
his "original Rough draught of the Declaration of Independence"
"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 repentence toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, of so much absurdity, so much untruth and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross, restore to him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some and the roguery of others of his disciples."
letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desireable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
"Notes on the State of Virginia," 1782
"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 blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, etc. But it is said, that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time gave resumed its revolution, and that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, and the second by exile, or death in fureâ.…
"Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision. I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics."
letter to his nephew Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
"[T]he successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U.S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalian & Congregationalist. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me;"
letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800;
"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever was adopted, therefore, into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the laws of this period we have a tolerable collection by Lambard and Wilkins, probably not perfect, but neither very defective; and if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
"I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."
letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799
"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it would read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;’ the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."
Thomas Jefferson in his Autobiography, 1821
"The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a Virgin Mary, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
"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."
letter to Horatio Spafford in 1814
"I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature."
letter to Charles Thomson, January 9, 1816
"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."
letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
"For if we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods and the charlatanisms which his biographers father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind, that he was an impostor."
letter to William Short, August 4, 1820
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"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 oblig'd to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
"Poor Richard's Almanack" 1758
"Serving God is doing good to Man, but praying is thought an easier service, and therefore more generally chosen."
Poor Richard's Maxims, 1753
James Madison (1751-1836)
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
"Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" June 20, 1785
"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 the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822
"What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. 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."
"Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments," June 20, 1785
John Adams (1735-1826)
"Allegiance to the Creator and Governor of the Milky Way and the Nebulae, and Benevolence to all his Creatures, is my Religion."
letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813
"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!"
letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816.
"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; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion's Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years"
letter to John Taylor
"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
a letter to John Taylor, The Life and Works of John Adams, 1851
"Had you and I been forty days with Moses on Mount Sinai and admitted to behold, the divine Shekinah, and there told that one was three and three, one: We might not have had courage to deny it, but We could not have believed it. The thunders and Lightenings and Earthqu[ak]es and the transcendant Splendors and Glories, might have overwhelmed Us with terror and Amazement: but We could not have believed the doctrine, We should be more likely to say in our hearts, whatever We might say with our Lips, This is Chance. There is no God! No Truth. This is all delusion, fiction and a lie: or it is all Chance. But what is Chance? It is motion; it is Action; it is Event; it is Phenomenon, without Cause. Chance is no cause at all. It is nothing. And Nothing has produced all this Pomp and Splendor; and Nothing may produce Our eternal damnation in the flames of Hell fire and Brimstone for what we know, as well as this tremendous Exhibition of Terror and Falshood.
"God has infinite Wisdom, goodness and power. He created the Universe. His duration is eternal, a parte Ante, and a parte post. His presence is as extensive as Space. What is Space? an infinite, sphericle Vaccuum. He created this Speck of Dirt and the human Species for his glory: and with the deliberate design of making, nine tenths of our Species miserable forever for his glory. This doctrine of Christian Theologians in general: ten to one.
"Now, my friend, can Prophecies, or miracles convince You, or Me, that infinite Benevolence, Wisdom and Power, created and preserves, for a time, innumerable millions to make them misserable, forever; for his own Glory? Wretch! What is the Glory? Is he ambitious? does he want promotion? Is he vain? tickled with Adulation? Exulting and tryumphing in his Power and Sweetness of his Vengeance? Pardon me, my Maker, for these Aweful Questions. My answer to them is always ready: I believe no such Things.
letter to Thomas Jefferson, Sept. 14, 1813
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815
Ethan Allen (1738-1789)
"In the circle of my acquaintance (which has not been small), I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter; for I have not in the least disguised my sentiments, but have written freely without any conscious knowledge of prejudice for, or against any man, sectary or party whatever; but wish that good sense, truth and virtue may be promoted and flourish in the world, to the detection of delusion, superstition, and false religion; and therefore my errors in the succeeding treatise, which may be rationally pointed out, will be readily rescinded."
Reason the Only Oracle of Man
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