Some of our readers (who may have spoken for many) have let us know that they disagree with Pat Condell – and so with us too – on what he says in the video we posted yesterday.

Contra Condell, they think a nativity scene on state property is a serious violation of the Constitution and should be protested against.

They insist that the Founding Fathers intended there to be “total separation of Church and State” although the phrase is not used in the Constitution.

One reader, Frank, sent us these quotations:

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” ~ Thomas Paine

“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.” ~ Thomas Paine

“I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

“The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State.” ~ James Madison

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect.” ~ James Madison

“The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?” ~ John Adams

By “the God of nature” we understand John Adams to have meant the laws of nature. (That was the only “god” that Spinoza and Einstein believed in.)

“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?” ~ John Adams

With this last one we have some disagreement. We don’t believe in revelation. And we think Islam has shown itself to be at least as bloody as Christianity.

But all the quotations are treasures worth remembering.

(Our thanks to Frank)