Thomas Jefferson once asked whether these minor points of division could ever be eliminated and uniformity attained. He thought not: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.” The religious coercion made “one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites” and “support[ed] roguery and error all over the earth.”
