“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”
-John Adams, October 19, 1756
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.
-John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11
The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.
-Thomas Jefferson, August 14, 1800
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 political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.
-Thomas Jefferson, December 6, 1813
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise
-James Madison, April 1, 1774
when I see throughout the greater part of this book (the Bible) scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name
-Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit
-Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?
-Thomas Paine, May 12, 1797
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason
-Benjamin Franklin, 1758
In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it
-Benjamin Franklin
Are you still so certain?
Well being as how Creationism was being taught -- and prayers were being said and the Bible being read -- in tax funded schools well after Dec. 15 1791, I'd say yes.