DdC

chestnutcafe

"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]

"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]

"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 F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816]

"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, letter to Thomas Jefferson]

Continued... The Distinctly Non-Christian Origins of the United States of America

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth
Extracted Textually from the Gospels
Compiled by Thomas Jefferson
Edited by Eyler Robert Coates, Sr.

. . . Thomas Jefferson believed that the ethical system of Jesus was the finest the world has ever seen. In compiling what has come to be called "The Jefferson Bible," he sought to separate those ethical teachings from the religious dogma and other supernatural elements that are intermixed in the account provided by the four Gospels. He presented these teachings, along with the essential events of the life of Jesus, in one continuous narrative.

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
-- Thomas Jefferson

America was NOT founded on Christianity!

Of Jesus] Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the the most lovely benevolence, and others, again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the dross; restore to him the former and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, the roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and imposters, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus.
Jefferson Letter to W. Short, 1820.

But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his country was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, as is separable from that as diamonds from a dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality of man ... The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent morality, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems invented by ultra-Christian sects (*)... is most desirable.

(*) Jeffersons footnote: "The imaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of hierarchy, etc. -TJ"
Jefferson Letter to W. Short Oct 31, 1819

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, 1823

The United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion
-- George Washington & John Adams, in a diplomatic message to Malta.

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
-- John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
--Thomas Jefferson

In every country and in 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. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1814

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, 1823

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. -- Thomas Jefferson

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise...
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a 1787 letter to his nephew

The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma. -- Abraham Lincoln

Neither the trappings of robes, nor temples of stone, nor a fixed liturgy, nor an extensive literature or history is required to meet the test of beliefs cognizable under the Constitution as religious. So far as our law is concerned, one person's religious beliefs held for one day are presumptively entitled to the same protection as the beliefs of millions which have been shared for thousands of years.
-- Judge Jack Weinstein, New York State, 1977

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.
-- C. S. Lewis

Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.
-- Aldous Huxley

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression: for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach unto himself.
-- Thomas Paine

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
-- Daniel Webster

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. -- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1859

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-- H.L. Mencken

Temple Incense was Hashish!
Did Jesus Inhale?

JC/DC

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Pulling Teeth

great post, once again, DdC.

people often confuse spiritual truth and revelation with fictitious dogma which involves brainwashing and strict control over it's subjects.

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Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

William James