Comment Re:Indiana and say Saudi Arabia are not the same (Score 1) 653
Now you're going to founder intent, despite having earlier dismissed founder intent. But sure, I'll give you one: Thomas Jefferson. He even made his own version of the Bible which removed any references to Jesus as a divine being, as opposed to a mortal philosopher with some good ideas.
Several of the founders were what we'd call agnostic, in this day and age.
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
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 civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
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, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
The term 'separation of church and state' is from a letter, from Jefferson, explaining the First Amendment to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association.
Madison also wrote:
Strongly guarded. . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States.
in a similar vein.
I can also quote other official American law, such as the 'Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary,' 1797. Article 11:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.