* President James Madison ~ Primary Author of Our Secular U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights

James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836)

The Social Utility of Religion: Risks vs. Rewards

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. . . .

Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.”
~ James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785

"On this date in 1751, James Madison was born in Virginia. The Deist, who became primary author of the secular U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and fourth President of the United States, originally contemplated the ministry as a career. After graduating from Princeton, Madison was appointed a delegate to the Virginia state convention. There he was responsible for the adoption of a freedom of conscience clause in the state constitution. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect," Madison wrote William Bradford (April 1, 1771)."

Freedom From Religion Foundation

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."
~ James Madison in his letter to William Bradford (April 1, 1771).

See Amendment I (Religion), James Madison, Detached Memoranda

The government of the United States of America is secular, in principle, but not in fact. George W. Bush, its current president, would have it be a Christian nation which has not fared well for the US, Iraq, or the world because of his warped ideology.