Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers are the leaders who founded the United States, and especially those who were at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to draft the U.S. Constitution.

The following persons are commonly included as Founding Fathers, roughly in order of significance:

George Washington
Alexander Hamilton
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
Benjamin Franklin
John Jay
Gouverneur Morris
John Witherspoon
George Mason
John Adams
Roger Sherman
Charles C. Pinckney
Patrick Henry
Samuel Adams

There is much contention over the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers, re: whether or not America was intended to be a Christian nation. Atheists will claim that countless letters exchanged between the founding fathers in which religion on the whole (and sometimes Christianity in particular) is declared false prove that they were atheists. This is probably not the case.

America is demographically Christian but governmentally secular because the founding fathers were deistic Freemasons who founded America on secular principles inspired by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In order to be a Freemason one must profess belief in some sort of God, so while the founding fathers appeared to be secular thinkers intent on separating church and state in order to protect religion from government interference, they certainly held some sort of belief (no matter how mild) in the general idea of God.......Except for Benjamin Franklin, he said outright that he was an atheist. The rest were deists.

Here you will find a number of quotes illustrating the distaste for organized religion shared by the founding fathers, as well as their intention that America be governed in a secular manner:

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” 
-George Washington 

“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man” 
-Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
-Abraham Lincoln

“Religions are all alike -- founded upon fables and mythologies”

-Thomas Jefferson 

“Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men” 
-Voltaire 

"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

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.” 

-James Madison

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

"Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
-James Madison

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
-John Adams

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." -James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." -James Madison

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion... has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." -Benjamin Franklin

"The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained." -Thomas Jefferson

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
-James Madison

"No man on Earth has less taste or talent for criticism than myself, and the least and last of all should I undertake to criticize works on the Apocalypse (Revelations). It was between fifty and sixty years since I read it and then I considered it as merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherence of our own nightly dreams."
-Thomas Jefferson

"The Christian god can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of the people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites." -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 upon fables and mythologies."
-Thomas Jefferson