Hi (name withheld),

I sent the page of quotations to everyone in my address book. It was not meant as an attack on your personal beliefs. I believe everyone has a right to believe as they wish. The point I was trying to make is that contrary to the propaganda that the right wing religious extremists constantly spew, this country was not founded on the ten commandments nor on Christianity.
Quite often I receive emails from friends and acquaintances that are of a religious nature. My cousin's wife forwarded one to me yesterday that claimed the country was founded on the ten commandments, so I decided to do a little research to counter this claim. In addition to what I already sent you, here is some of what I found:

From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian
faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."

Quotes from Founding Fathers of the U.S.

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
Benjamin Franklin

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the
Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I
know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of
unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
Thomas Payne

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
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

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."
John Adams

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
James Madison

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Many, if not most of the Founding Fathers were Deists, Unitarian Universalists or Congregationalists.

Deists believe in God as a creator only. They do not believe that God interacts or intervenes in human events.

Unitarian Universalists are very liberal. They do not follow the Christian bible. Some believe in a higher power, some are agnostic & some are atheist.

Congregationalists believe that each individual church should determine its own belief.

Many religious extremists like to cite the pilgrims fleeing England because of religious persecution. They are a very poor example! Here is the truth about the pilgrims, they were Puritans. The Puritans in England wanted to purge all Catholic influences from the Church of England which was established by King Henry VIII. When Charles I became king, he took a French Catholic to be his queen. The Puritans were outraged. They kidnapped Charles I and executed him. They then instituted what was called the Rump Parliament, which was not freely elected. They installed Oliver Cromwell and called him the Lord Protector. The Puritans then attacked Catholic villages, convents & monasteries, slaughtered everyone and destroyed the church buildings. Cromwell then Invaded Ireland because at that time it was a Catholic country. Again, they slaughtered everyone that opposed them and destroyed entire towns and castles. That is why there is so much hatred between the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland today. When I was in Ireland, I saw hundreds of ruins that have been preserved as a reminder of what Cromwell and the Puritans did to the Irish. When I was in England, I noticed that most of the cathedrals had graffiti from the 1600's carved on the tombs and that most of the statues and coffin effigies had been damaged. I asked a guide at Salisbury Cathedral how this had happened and she explained that the Puritans used some of the cathedrals as prisons. They defaced the tombs of saints and church officials. They took hammers to the statues and whitewashed over all the paintings on the walls.

Before Charles I was captured by Cromwell and the Puritans, his young son Charles II was spirited away to France. When he became old enough, Charles II raised an army and conspired with the Scots to invade England and drive out Cromwell and the Puritans. He was defeated and fled back to France. Cromwell later died of natural causes and his son took his place. His son was incompetent and abdicated. Parliament was dissolved and a new parliament was elected. They invited Charles II to take the throne and he began a period called the Restoration, thereby removing the Puritans from power.

The English Civil War had a great deal more complexity than I have described here, but I am making the point that for the Puritans to claim they came to America to flee religious persecution is the same as saying that the Nazis fled to South America to escape persecution after World War 2. The Puritans are also the same lunatics that executed people for being "witches" in Salem and other colonial towns. The Puritans even made it illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts.

Hope I didn't bore you, but I am very passionate about the truth and separation of church and state. My family has lived in Indiana since it was a territory. My ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War that created this country. They are buried in a family cemetery near Mechanicsburg in Henry County. It is sadly ironic to think that Scott and I may have to move to Canada to find the freedom to live our lives without persecution from the government and religious loons when my ancestors fought to create a country that was supposed to represent freedom from persecution for ALL people.

Well, I'll get off my soap box.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: (name withheld)
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 8:15 AM
To: 'Jeff Jones'
Subject: RE:

Is there a good reason why you sent this to me? I realize that you do not believe in God, that's your right, I do not share your belief, but I do respect that it's your right to feel that way!