No Need for God (p250-p252)

(Setting:  Jefferson explains to the group why separating government from religion is essential in order for mankind to be free).

"I’m not afraid of priests, and neither should you be. They’ve tried upon me their pious whining, hypocritical canting, and deceitful slandering, without giving me one moment of pain. In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He’s always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own. As Pascal noted, 'Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.' And whenever those with religious conviction cast a longing eye on public office, a rottenness begins in their conduct."

"Careful, Jefferson", said the Honcho. "The Safari Golfer is now the Prime Orchestrator of the universe. He has dominion over life, death, and sand traps. Some reverence is in order."

"Nay, heresy is in order", retorted Jefferson. "Civil and ecclesiastical rulers, who are themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have set up their own opinions as true and infallible and imposed them on others in order to establish and maintain false religions over all the world and throughout all time. The Safari Golfer knows no more of the way to heaven than I do, and is less concerned to direct me right than I am to go right of my own inclination. I have no need of him to understand what God means to Thomas Jefferson. No man should abandon the care of his salvation to another, because it is a matter that lies solely between him and his god. Even less involved should be the government, because it can’t impose opinions. Therefore, I revere the American revolutionaries who built a wall of separation between church and state.

"Separating church from state was the most profoundly courageous and momentous act ever executed on this planet. The American revolutionaries recognized that the Holy Spirit and the Common Good are simply different manifestations of the same desire--to coerce people into accepting a non-reality through which they can be manipulated, because this non-reality is outside the realm of logical discussion and therefore unchallangeable. There is very little difference in style, substance, and purpose between a pulpit pounding reverend and a podium-pounding politician. It is immeasurably important to remove mysticism from the realm of politics, leaving it flooded in the cold harsh light of reason. This was the quintessence of the American Revolution. State must be separated from church, or more precisely, from secular and divine mysticism. Our lives depend on it."

"Government without either secular or divine religion is inconceivable", sniffed the Safari Golfer haughtily. "How will people know what to believe without religion?"

"How will they know what to believe with religion?" Jefferson retorted. "The Inquisition was established by Pope Gregory IX of the Catholic Church to stop people from thinking. At one point, the Inquisition included the Bible on its infamous Index of Forbidden Books to keep common folks from reading it without ecclesiastical guidance. True understanding doesn’t require religion, it abhors religion. When Napoleon asked the astronomer Laplace where God fit into his view of the universe, he replied, 'I have no need of that hypothesis.' Laplace’s message was that the universe can function without God, just as men can flourish without the dogmas, faiths, and myths that have marched in lockstep with the organized oppressors of mankind from civilization’s dawn. Those who claim mythical knowledge while suppressing free thought inevitably seek to oppress. As Dostoevski’s Cardinal Inquisitor put it, ‘In return for salvation, the church takes our freedom."