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This is from an earlier post of FR.

“I have sworn upon the altar of GOD, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of

man.” – Thomas Jefferson

On whether of not Jefferson was a Christian he answered, “I am a Christian, in the only sense that he (Jesus) wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to
himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.”

“1. That there is one only GOD and he is perfect.

2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.

3. That to love GOD with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.”

On believing in nature rather than GOD, Jefferson wrote: “I hold, (without appeal to revelation), that when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal force and centripetal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all the minutest particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible I say, for the human mind not to believe, that there is in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms; and their regeneration into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order. So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent, that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed through all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to unit, in the hypothesis of an external preexistence of a Creator, rather than in that of a self-existent universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable, than that of the few in the other hypothesis.

On God’s nature Jefferson was not alone in his position, he said, “Jesus told us only that GOD is good and perfect, but has not defined HIM. I am therefore of His theology, believing that we have neither words nor ideas adequate to this definition, and it is a weight which human strength cannot lift, I think ignorance in these cases, is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head.”

Jefferson stated in a letter to John Adams, “I feel, therefore I exist. On the basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties we can have or need. I can conceive thought to be an action of a particular organization of matter, formed for the purpose by its Creator, as well as that attraction is an atom of matter, or magnetism of lodestone. To talk of immaterial existence’s, is to talk of nothings. To say the human soul, angels, GOD are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no GOD, no angels, no soul.”

Thomas Jefferson said that the life of individuals is the test of religion, “If that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion that has regulated it cannot be a bad one.” Thus Jefferson concluded that, “The interests of society require observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree; for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness. Moreover, he who steadily observes those moral principles in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven, as to the dogmas in which they all differ.”