Did Ben Franklin say it best about religion?

And what of the other famous founder, Thomas Jefferson.

I have examined all of the known superstitions of the world and I do not find in our superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all founded on fables and mythology. Christianity has made one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man. -Thomas Jefferson

I'm assuming you got this from Bill Maher's movie, "Religulous". Yes, I just watched this too. Great movie.

Btw, they never did actually ordain this nation a christian one.

And yes, lighthouses are far more helpful than churches. Lighthouses saved lives, Churches took your money, had you submit to their teachings, and in return, gave you an invisible, intangible reward. When will you get it? After your dead. After that money and the time you wasted is gone and cannot be taken back.

The church is a institution of lies and control based on some thousands of years old stories. These stories were separate books meant for separate people in different times, thrown together by men who decided what was "God's Word". Face it, if you really have been duped, and you believe this crap, you're insane. If you've heard God talking to you before, you're either delusional, or a schizophrenic.

Same goes for any other religion. For those that disagree, watch this movie. It's not any doctrine that I'm preaching. Bill isn't the new messiah. It's just a healthy bit of advice from a rational thinker in these crazy, irrational times.

If I've offended you... I don't actually care. That's your problem. Sorry.

It is quite natural that Franklin would have felt this way as he was a deist. As he saw it, God started the clock and just sits back and watches and isn't an active participant in the world. Perhaps some feel that Franklin said it best, but others would be lost without their churches. So, yes and no.

No, Thomas Paine said it best:

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. "

"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. "

"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. "

"Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true. "

Those are public speeches meant for the sheeple, Moody

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies."

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

When Ben said we needed god, I sure he meant the idea of god to keep the masses in line

This is why the Founders were so emphatic about keeping men in office who understood God’s principles. In perhaps the most famous speech ever delivered by Benjamin Franklin—delivered on Thursday, June 28, 1787, on the floor of the Constitutional Convention—Franklin reminded the delegates that we needed God to be our friend, not our enemy; we needed Him to be our ally, not our adversary; we needed to make sure that we kept His “concurring aid” as Franklin called it. Franklin warned:

If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We’ve been assured in the sacred writing that, “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

And thus Franklin called for regular, daily prayer to make sure that we kept God in the midst of what we were doing in the nation.

Jefferson, too, understood this principle. Jefferson declared:

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis—a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever.

A nation does answer to God for the stands it takes.

Abraham Lincoln—during the Civil War—overheard someone in the White House state that he hoped that God was on “our” side in the battle—that God was on the Union side. Lincoln, showing that he understood the principle of national accountability, replied:

Sir, I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.

Notice the quote marks.

The founders were deists. Franklin gave money no matter what denomination of church he was in, why? He wanted everyone to think that he agreed with them.

"If you are in a human body, searching for eternal life"

eternal life make life really insignificant. why would you want to live forever?

Of course he is correct. I live in Alaska, and without lighthouses, our local fishing industry would collapse and so would our town.

Church's around here are nothing but to gain money for the preacher.

Ben was a brilliant man in so many ways.

The more people there are in church on Sunday, the fewer cars there are on the road to run me over on my motorcycle. I'm all for churches.