"we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of or, shall I say at once, of nonsense."--Thomas Jefferson.
Funny, but accurate.
Here's a great page from the Library of Congress on religious tyranny in the early years of the republic:
Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
V. Religion and the State Governments