God is an essence we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is gotten rid of there will never be any liberal science in the world.

Attributed to Adams in A Brief History of Disbelief BBC Four (2005) by Jonathan Miller, Online video. The two sentences are derived from two different letters to Thomas Jefferson, written five years apart, juxtaposed to give a misleading impression of Adams' meaning. The first comes from his letter of 17 January 1820, and the second from his letter of 22 January 1825.