It wasn't a question of whether the Founding Fathers themselves were religious. It is a question of whether they wanted to give themselves and all Americans the freedom to follow one's conscience in questions of religious belief. Jefferson was a skeptic about the myths associated with the figure of Jesus. The Jefferson Bible is proof of that statement. Like many others of the Enlightenment in the US, Jefferson believed in science. Jefferson admired Joseph Priestley, a Unitarian minister and the discoverer of oxygen and several other elements.
The American revolutionaries, the men who adopted Bill of Rights, remembered the many religious wars, the persecutions, the religious terrorists in various religions who had mixed politics and religion, killed people and forced people even the Pilgrims to move, to leave their homes, just to follow the guidance of their consciences.
Thanks so much for posting this.
Our religious freedom (including the freedom not to conform, not to be religious and the freedom to believe and pray as you wish) is a great gift. We should treasure it. All of us should treasure it. Religious and atheist alike.
In a letter to Joseph Priestley, Jefferson wrote of Jesus and, harshly, of certain Christians:
Dear Sir,--While on a short visit lately to Monticello, I received from you a copy of your comparative view of Socrates & Jesus, and I avail myself of the first moment of leisure after my return to acknolege the pleasure I had in the perusal of it, and the desire it excited to see you take up the subject on a more extensive scale. In consequence of some conversation with Dr. Rush, in the year 1798--99, I had promised some day to write him a letter giving him my view of the Christian system. I have reflected often on it since, & even sketched the outlines in my own mind. I should first take a general view of the moral doctrines of the most remarkable of the antient philosophers, of whose ethics we have sufficient information to make an estimate, say of Pythagoras, Epicurus, Epictetus, Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, Antoninus. I should do justice to the branches of morality they have treated well; but point out the importance of those in which they are deficient.
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I should then take a view of the deism and ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation. I should proceed to a view of the life, character, & doctrines of Jesus, who sensible of incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform their moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state, This view would purposely omit the question of his divinity, & even his inspiration. To do him justice, it would be necessary to remark the disadvantages his doctrines have to encounter, not having been committed to writing by himself, but by the most unlettered of men, by memory, long after they had heard them from him; when much was forgotten, much misunderstood,& presented in very paradoxical shapes. Yet such are the fragments remaining as to show a master workman, and that his system of morality was the most benevolent & sublime probably that has been ever taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any of the antient philosophers. His character & doctrines have received still greater injury from those who pretend to be his special disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated his actions & precepts, from views of personal interest, so as to induce the unthinking part of mankind to throw off the whole system in disgust, and to pass sentence as an impostor on the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that ever has been exhibited to man. This is the outline; but I have not the time, & still less the information which the subject needs. It will therefore rest with me in contemplation only. You are the person who of all others would do it best, and most promptly. You have all the materials at hand, and you put together with ease. I wish you could be induced to extend your late work to the whole subject. I have not heard particularly what is the state of your health; but as it has been equal to the journey to Philadelphia, perhaps it might encourage the curiosity you must feel to see for once this place, which nature has formed on a beautiful scale, and circumstances destine for a great one. As yet we are but a cluster of villages; we cannot offer you the learned society of Philadelphia; but you will have that of a few characters whom you esteem, & a bed & hearty welcome with one who will rejoice in every opportunity of testifying to you his high veneration & affectionate attachment."
http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/135/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_Joseph_Priestley_1.html
About Joseph Priestley
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/priestley.html
Priestley was also a friend and letter correspondent with Benjamin Franklin and a friend of John Adams. These were men with scientific curiosity who thought for themselves and were willing to speculate freely about religious issues without the constraint or traditional dogma. The spirit of the time called for religious freedom.
Religious freedom is a precious right.
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