> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lyons, Larry [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 11:55 AM
> To: CF-Community
> Subject: RE: County in Oregon Bans all Marriages!
>
>
> They are uttering pure bullshit. Both Madison and Jefferson
> actively talked about the separation as afar back as 1795,
> and both gave indications in their personal writings that
> they had considered it for even longer. Madison himself came
> up with the phrase "Separation of Church and State" around 1800 or so.
>
> I'll send some of the appropriate quotes. They are on the
> ibook at home.
>
> larry
As I mentioned here are a few quotes from James Madison on the separation of
Church and State. Sort of refutes the bs in that article.
"We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is
abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly
exempt from its cognizance."
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity,
in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any
particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? That the
same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of
his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to
conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"
"Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to
observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny
an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence
which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against
God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it
be rendered."
"5. Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent
Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of
Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the
contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the
second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation."
"9. Because the proposed establishment is a departure from the generous
policy, which, offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every
Nation and Religion, promised a lustre to our country, and an accession to
the number of its citizens. What a melancholy mark is the Bill of sudden
degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an Asylum to the persecuted it is
itself a signal of persecution."
Jefferson also made a few interesting comments about the same issue:
-------
I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about
a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.
[Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799.]
-------
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole
American people which declared that their legislature should
'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall
of separation between church and State.
[Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association]
-------
They [the clergy] 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.
[Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, 1800]
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We discover [in the gospels] a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of
things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication.
[Thomas Jefferson, _Jefferson Bible_]
-------
Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.
[Thomas Jefferson, in _Toward the Mystery_]
-------
If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may
hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.
[Thomas Jefferson]
-------
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one
redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
[Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Woods]
-------
They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach
of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions
of the duperies on which they live.
[Thomas Jefferson]
-------
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
[Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814]
-------
The hocus-pocus phantasy of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body
and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and
thousands of martyrs.
[Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson s Works, Vol. IV, 360, Randolph's ed.]
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