Quote:
Originally posted by sugar and spice
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." - John Adams
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And, as a quick lesson for Conniebama, here is why you need to GIVE CITATIONS and keep context in mind.
This quote comes from the following letter written by Adams:
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!!!" But in this exclamati[on] I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without Religion this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in polite Company, I mean Hell. So far from believing in the total and universal depravity of human Nature; I believe there is no Individual totally depraved. The most abandoned Scoundrel that ever existed, never Yet Wholly extinguished his Conscience, and while Conscience remains there is some Religion. Popes, Jesuits and Sorbonists and Inquisitors have some Conscience and some Religion. So had Marius and Sylla, Caesar Cataline and Anthony, an Augustus had not much more, let Virgil and Horace say what they will.
(Excerpt of letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1817 -- John Adams, quoted from Charles Francis Adams, ed., Works of John Adams (1856), vol. X, p. 254; The Adams Jefferson Letters, The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, Edited by Lester J. Cappon, University of North Carolina Press (1959, 1987) p.509)
This letter was part of a series of such letters between Jefferson and Adams, in which Adams spoke largely of his views on Christianity and Jefferson spoke of his disillusionment with organized religions. Note the date - this quotation is from 40 years after the framing of the Declaration of Independence and 30 years after the Constitution, making it wholly irrelevant when commenting on the frame of mind of the framers with regard to the nation's founding.
Here's a hint, Connie - many of your quotations have similar endemic flaws. This is not, and never has been, a Christian nation.