Originally Posted By: swampwalker"The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
~1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by Founding Father John Adams
The purpose of that quote from John Adams was intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. John Adams and the Senate needed to make clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli
John Adams also made these statements in other documents:
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.1
Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company: I mean [beeep].2
The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.3
Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!4
I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.5
End notes:
1.Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XIII, p. 292-294. In a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.
2. John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), Vol. X, p. 254, to Thomas Jefferson on April 19, 1817.
3. John Adams, Works, Vol. III, p. 421, diary entry for July 26, 1796.
4. John Adams, Works, Vol. II, pp. 6-7, diary entry for February 22, 1756.
5. John Adams, Works, Vol. X, p. 85, to Thomas Jefferson on December 25, 1813.
https://wallbuilders.com/founding-fathers-jesus-christianity-bible/