Replies

But Edwin Gaustad, a professor emeritus of history and religion at the University of California Riverside, disagreed, saying James Madison and Thomas Jefferson – the two men most responsible for the First Amendment – believed government and religion ought to be kept as far apart as possible.

Thomas Jefferson, as a state legislator, voted for laws respecting the establishement of religion.

Now what?

I continue to read posts asserting that Jefferson was a Christian, not a deist, and a supporter of a state declared to be one that was Christian. We can play dueling quotes if you like, but I just don't see his LOVE of Christianity as the religion of our state. Perhaps we should consider that he was a politician that lied in his public pronouncements, but affirmed the truth of what he believed in his private conveyances. I do not believe that he supported establishing state religions.

"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.

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779.

"[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] 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. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion." - Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800.

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Works, Vol. IV, p. 365, Randolph's ed.

I have only two simple questions for you that will end the matter of Jefferson and religion between you and I.

Do you believe Jefferson actually wrote and spoke these words?
Do you believe he meant them?

I think he both wrote/spoke those words and MEANT them. My guess is, you don't.