Freethinking for Dummies

The Founding Fathers and Religion

Date: March 2, 2010 6:36 PM
Topic: The Founding Fathers and Religion

I was reading a really interesting webpage today about the U.S. Founding Fathers and how most of them were what would today be termed ‘humanists.’ They were freethinkers who believed that the best way for a free, open society to flourish was for religion to be kept out of government at all levels.

When you read quotes from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, Ben Franklin and others who were instrumental in creating this great country of ours, you realize that the idea that this country was founded as a Christian nation on Christian values can’t be further from the truth. If anything, all of these great men not only weren’t Christians, they bore a open and obvious distrust of religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Although they all firmly believed that everyone has a right to believe and practice their faith as they wish, they were equally firm in their belief when government and religion are allowed to intermingle, intolerance subjugation, blood and disaster would inevitably follow.

Links to the articles I read can be found here:

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

http://www.skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia72.html

James Walker
jwalker1960@me.com

March 4, 2010 - Posted by James Walker | Skeptical | America, freethinking, rational, Science, scientific, skeptic, Skeptical, skepticism, skeptics, thinking