We think ourselves possessed, or at least we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact. There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny, or to doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself, it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not much better; even in our Massachusetts, which, I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemies upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any arguments for investigation into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Volney's Recherches Nouvelles? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws... but as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed.
{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825}
Tags: america intolerance persecution religious-violence divine-inspiration new-testament europe england genesis old-testament blasphemy massachusetts stake charles-francois-dupuis charles-françois-dupuis christian-world dupuis examination recherches-nouvelles revelations volney
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John AdamsNegro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude and I am utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territories.
John Adams[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.
John AdamsTags: american-revolution
Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, 'that the institution of youth should be accommodated to that form of government under which they live; forasmuch as it makes exceedingly for the preservation of the present government, whatsoever it be.
John AdamsTags: liberty education aristotle
I shall never shine 'til some animating occasion calls forth all my powers.
John AdamsThere is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.
John AdamsA man ought to avow his opinions and defend them with boldness.
John AdamsLet the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
{Letter to his son and 6th US president, John Quincy Adams, November 13 1816}
Tags: superstition dogmatism john-quincy-adams
You and I ought not to die,before we have explained ourselves to each other.
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