http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams
Adams was raised a Congregationalist, since his ancestors were Puritans. According to his biographer David McCullough, "as his family and friends knew, Adams was both a devout Christian, and an independent thinker". In a letter to Benjamin Rush, Adams credited religion with the success of his ancestors since their migration to the New World in the 1630s. He believed that regular church service was beneficial to man's moral sense.
http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/god-in-the-white-house/
In contrast to his predecessor, John Adams was a self-professed "church-going animal" who made no secret of his religiosity. Raised in the Congregational Church, the established church in his home state of Massachusetts, John Adams later became a Unitarian. Unitarianism, a liberal strand of Christianity popular in New England, began in the liberal wing of the Congregational Church. Like other men educated during the period of the Enlightenment, Adams professed belief in a simpler, less mysterious form of Christianity. In a letter to his early political rival and late-in-life friend Thomas Jefferson, Adams wrote “without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company -- I mean hell."
In a second letter to Jefferson, written following the death of his beloved wife, Abigail, Adams ponders the question of the afterlife: "I do not know how to prove physically, that we shall meet and know each other in a future state; nor does Revelation, as I can find, give us any positive assurance of such a felicity. My reasons for believing it, as I do most undoubtedly, are that I cannot conceive such a being could make such a species as the human, merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This Universe, this all would appear, with all of its swelling pomp, a boyish firework. And if there be a future state, why should the Almighty dissolve forever all the tender ties which unite us so delightfully in this world, and forbid us to see each other in the next?"
http://johnadamsinfo.com/was-john-adams-a-christian/92/
There are many famous quotes of John Adams on religion, especially in response to the Atheism of Thomas Paine. For John Adams, Atheist beliefs were a threat to a decent and moral society. He rebuked Thomas Paine's criticism of Christianity by declaring that no other religion had more "wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity." But John Adams was independent of mind to recognize consequences of any established religion. In the view of John Adams, Christianity had been twisted over the centuries by authorities who used superstition and division to control the populace, abuse minorities, and lead large scale wars. In the writing of John Adams on religion, he often criticized the Roman Catholic Church for its corrupted structure of power and deceit. John Adams' religion certainly changed during his life, but he always believed in the virtue of Christianity and attended church regularly throughout his life.
Quotes by John Adams
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
“There is no such thing as human wisdom; all is the providence of God”
“The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion.”
“I cannot conceive such a Being could make such a Species as the human, merely to live and die on this earth”
http://christianity.about.com/od/independenceday/a/foundingfathers.htm.
"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.
"The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.
"Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System."
--Adams wrote this on June 28, 1813, excerpt from a letter to Thomas Jefferson.
"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever."
--Adams wrote this in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776.
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