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History Was America founded on Christianity?

For sake of arguement, lets say the country was founded on christian beliefs. What does that change if anything? Its pretty clear in the constitution that this country wasnt meant to be a theocracy. It doesnt change the fact that thier is a seperation between church and state. It wouldnt give the right to chirstians to inforce thier beliefs or way of lie on others, which some of them do want.
 
SoHiAllTheTime said:
there are quotes to prove both sides of the story. That is why you have to look at more than the quotes!
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nail...hammer...head
 
I agree, great post, DD. Tracing the ebb and flow of spiritualism in America is not as plain as some people today believe. However, I think it might be unfair to compare deism and its contributions from Paine et al to intelligent design, which many see as merely rightist claptrap.
 
SoHi, I think you're thinking about it in totally the wrong way. Hear me out. There is the reality of all the stuff that happened when America was founded. We're trying to figure out what that reality was by looking at the evidence shown to us by various people.

It's not a war between two 'sides'... there are way more than two different viewpoints about what happened. There's no reason that anybody's beliefs about it should ALL be right. Most people may get some things right but be wrong or confused about others. A quote that backs up one thing somebody said doesn't prove anything else they said, though it might provide evidence for it.

So in this particular example... we know that lots of the founding fathers were not Christians, and said that the USA was not founded upon Christianity. And like you said, there are other founding fathers who said that the USA was built on Christianity, or a Christian nation, or whatever. So what's the truth? Obviously for one thing, people back then disagreed about to what extent the USA was 'Christian,' just like they do today.

So I think it's meaningless to argue about whether or not "the USA was founded on Christianity." What does it even mean for a country to be "founded on" some religion? Think about a similar question: was the USA founded on slavery or on freedom for all? On one hand, the Declaration of Independece proclaims that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" which seems to be pretty clear. On the other hand the USA clearly practiced slavery for many years and it's recognized in the Constitution. Some of the founders of the USA supported slavery; many others opposed it, often vehemently. And some (eg Jefferson) claimed to oppose slavery but practiced it themselves. So was the USA "founded on slavery" or not? There's no real answer, because it's not a well-defined, meaningful question.
 
I just needed a snazzy title for the quotes that I found today. The title was meant to be related solely to the quotes. Though I figured that a debate would ensue between supporters of the belief that 'America was founded on Christianity' vs. those who don't hold that belief.

Personally, I think that DD hit the nail on the head with the following statements:

They thought that a god had to exist, a god, a force.. something, some kind of ultimate architect for all this we see around us day in and day out. It had nothing to do with church, bibles, dogmatic ceremonies and traditions. It had nothign to do with official prayer. It had to do with logical reasoning.

And in fact, this logicial reasoning disappeared, when Darwinism gained acceptance Deism fell, as now a new logical explination to our existence started to immerge. When Deism fell b/c these questions were brought up their followers seemed to split, some following reason went towards theories of science, others went to religion.
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Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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Lets think about this, no law RESPECTING religon. In other words, showing favortism of one religion over another.

So to go back to the old arguement of the 10 commandment displays being taken to the federal supreme court.. if they were decide to promote Judge Moore's decision in this matter, don't you think that would be "respecting a religion"? A particular one at that?

What about abortion for instance. Most of your major religions see it as murder, yet there's no scientific evidence to really define it as such. Terms of life and death, in situations such as this lay back on a particular faith. Why should that faith be legislated?

Marriage.. between gays and straights, seems to be fought so hardly for b/c the term marriage is religious in its connotation. Religious groups love the religious word to be confused with the legal terminology. When the easiest thing to do would be "civil unions for all". Showing no respect to religion, and no infringing on religious freedom.

The pledge and dollar bills, christians placed these slogans on these things in the 1950s, a national song, and federally made money. Again, this is our federal government Respecting a religion.

May I also state, it truly saddens me that Christians maintain an arrogance about this amendment, for this amendment was created to protect religion, much more than it was to protect the atheist. The puritans and various protestants fled here to avoid persecution from the angelican church.

Today we have politicians in the Republican, Democrat (and some who never get officei n the Constitution) Parties. They quote scripture, the push legislation based on religious morality.. and Christians cheer it on, claiming that as long as congress doesn't establish a church it will all be A-OK. They seem to think they can control this slippery slope. They seem to think they have the power to keep that fine line from going to an extreme that atheists and christains alike can agree on.. and that's power hungry, greedy politicians using religion for whatever they want to leed the sheep themselves, by twisting the word of god any way the see fit.

What exactly has to be done before people realize the politician's agenda for using religion.. isn't much different than.. Bin Laden, Hitler, British Kings that established and enforced the Angelican church. What exactly is pushing too far.. and how to you plan to convince the mass public not to listen to a particular poltician promoting a particular religious agenda that going against what even the christians want when it comes to government involvement in the church, religion, and God.

There was a point and time when human beings really didn't distinguish between their political leaders and their religious ones... they were one and the same. Even in the modern day world (last 100 years or so) we see nations reverting back to this time and again.

Why do you think America is "invincible" to this type of religious abuse and tyranny?

Believe me this isn't about political correctness, this isn't about the minority buddhist, hindhu, atheist, agnostic, or shinto practitioner. This is about christiany. This is about the Jews. This is about protecting us all, the freedom we hold sacred, the religion, faith, or lack thereof we hold in our hearts.

No politician will tell me how to get into heaven, no politician holds that key, has the right to judge me on that level. Not even the Supreme Court does. No power hungry shithead needs to be preaching and/or enforcing morality unto me. If there is a God, let him be my judge. Let God rest in my heart, or allow me to reject him. Don't use my tax dollars to "save me".

Tell me why the parties/groups as diverse as theLibertarian Party , the ACLU , some Democrats, and the Green Party (see #7) can pretty much agree on this, yet the war mongering, corporately corrupt, pro-capital punishment Republicans cannot? It doesn't make sense to me. Libertarians who pride themselves on their understanding and strict adherance to the Constitution, the extremely liberal, environmentally friendly..and even socialist Greens, the left mainstream Democrats, the nutjob ACLU all have a pretty common thread on this topic. But nope, not the religious mass that votes Republican. I just don't get it.
 
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Let me be clear: i am not saying that they sat down and wrote the constitution out with the Bible sitting next to it to in some way establish a "christian nation." What i am saying, is that the concepts and ideas and everything else they put into the founding of this country were -in fact- based off of judeo christian values/thoughts/beliefs/doctrine. "All men CREATED equal" Created? By whom? Created equally? Huh? In those days there were slaves and people in the world werent apt to thinking of all men (that means women too) were created equally! These ideas were taken straight from the Good Book my friends.

I am not even going into specifics...i am just showing how the very foundation of our core beliefs and doctrine is almost as if they took it right out of the bible and made a couple tweaks (to better represent all people) and there you have it - a founded country based off of judeo christian beliefs.

I dont want or think we are a theocracy. But, God and specifically the christian God, have played a prominant role in the founding of this country. That simply cannot be denied. And, if there is a foundation to our country, its roots are that of the beliefs taught in the Bible.

Like i said, in those days states actually stated Jesus was Lord in their doctrine! I have posted that before, and i think i have the links saved on my work pc and i will post them later....


I will say one thing i have learned about all of this, and that is what zorn said: "There's no real answer, because it's not a well-defined, meaningful question."

At this point in history it matters not. :\
 
"All men CREATED equal" Created? By whom?


uh, their parents? nature? evolution? just because you hear creator and think of your god doesn't mean everyone else does. And even if some founders were, it doesnt mean they wanted their country to be thought of as a "Christian nation".. obviously they didnt because they wrote it down saying, it in explicit terms that the US isn't a Christian nation


. But, God and specifically the christian God, have played a prominant role in the founding of this country. That simply cannot be denied.


i deny it. =D haha proved you wrong. :p

actually i'll agree that religion played a big role.. many people wanted to get away from a government that was intertwined with religion, specifically Christianity, or even more specifically the Anglican Church. So they moved to America and set up a gov't that was intended to be free of religion so that everyone could worship how they choose and not have the gov't sanction one religion over another.
 
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SoHiAllTheTime said:
Let me be clear: i am not saying that they sat down and wrote the constitution out with the Bible sitting next to it to in some way establish a "christian nation." What i am saying, is that the concepts and ideas and everything else they put into the founding of this country were -in fact- based off of judeo christian values/thoughts/beliefs/doctrine. "All men CREATED equal" Created? By whom? Created equally? Huh? In those days there were slaves and people in the world werent apt to thinking of all men (that means women too) were created equally! These ideas were taken straight from the Good Book my friends.
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Good book? I don't think so. The founders that have been quoted here, are also the people who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independance. These men were Deists, as noted above, along with what deism stood for (logical philisophical reasoning, not fait, that there is a "Creator", "Nature's God", "Supreme Architect").. these are all deist terms. Science, deism, intelligent design, christianity, buddhism...all these things believe in some form of creation or another. But our historical documents point to deism, not atheism, not christianity, but deism. It had nothing to do with the Bible.
 
frizzantik said:

actually i'll agree that religion played a big role.. many people wanted to get away from a government that was intertwined with religion, specifically Christianity, or even more specifically the Anglican Church. So they moved to America and set up a gov't that was intended to be free of religion so that everyone could worship how they choose and not have the gov't sanction one religion over another.
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Yeah it was the case of the Puritans escaping religious persecution in the hopes that one day they would be able to persecute a few of their own (see Salem Witch Trials). I'll agree these people, amongst some others, were responsible for alot of the christian and religious "founding" of our nation from a citizen standpoint. Not from a "Framing" standpoint though.

I think it's rather funny though, the puritan settled in the north region of america. People so fucking uptight that the British kicked them out.. and now their decedents (aka the blue states) are pushing for legalization of Gay Marriage as a big fuck you to their stupid elders. lol
 
Banquo said:
I agree, great post, DD. Tracing the ebb and flow of spiritualism in America is not as plain as some people today believe. However, I think it might be unfair to compare deism and its contributions from Paine et al to intelligent design, which many see as merely rightist claptrap.
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And i agree. I just find the two somewhat similar for neither use faith as a reasoning to say there is a god or supreme being of some sort. The difference i find that deism was quite afraid of both atheism and religion (and i would say more so with religion) infiltrating their way of life and reasoning structure, while Intelligent Design seems to be a philosphy supported strongly by the religious right as a means to get a philosophy into the science room, since they have had such a hard time getting religion in.
 
DD, are you saying that most of those men were merely deists??? "Most" being the key word.

Frizz, yeah, they were referring to nature when they said "created equal". 8) Comments like that is what makes it impossible to discuss this in a mature manner. :\ Also, they were getting away from the ANGLICAN church, not Christianity! Come on bro, you know that.

And again, i am not saying our government should be a theocracy...but our nation was founded from judeo christian values and concepts.
 
DigitalDuality said:
It had nothing to do with the Bible.
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Ha! Whether those men were diests or not, they all knew the bible pretty well...wouldnt you agree? It is also important to remember that there were more than juts a handfull of men who founded this country.
 
I think I agree with part of what SoHi is getting at. The way I would put it is that the United States is part of the Western Christian tradition. Most people in the US, since before its inception, have been either Christians of some variety or non-Christians raised in a Christian environment. Throughout American history, people have used Christian ideas & beliefs to make their arguments. Slaveholders cited the Bible to argue that slavery and division of the races were part of God's plan; abolitionists cited the Bible to argue that slavery was an abomination. The whole debate about the relationship of Church and State is part of a long argument going back through the Reformation and beyond.

It's simply impossible to understand US history without a deep familiarity with the Western Christian tradition -- just as it's impossible to understand Iraqi history without a familiarity with the Islamic tradition, or to understand Chinese history without a familiarity with the Confucian tradition (I assume, I don't know much about Chinese history.)
 
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I think that in the end it comes down to one little thing: The beginning of the first amendment, which has already been quoted above and which I presume most everyone in the forum is familiar with.

Had America been founded as a "Christian nation," there is simply no way that this wording would haveb been allowed in the FIRST AMENDMENT to the constitution. If the document upon which this country was founded specifically prohibits the state from passing any legislation with regards to religion, either favoring a particular religious establishment or infringing upon religious expression, then it's pretty damned hard to argue that our country was founded as a Christian nation, or that it is one today.

It is also worth pointing out that almost every government document or phrase which even remotely involves religion invokes either "G_d" or a "Creator." No mention whatsoever of Jesus (Bush's inauguration doesn't count, as that was supposedly part of a personal prayer...and was an unnecessarily divisive action and he should have known better). As I understand Christian teaching, denying Jesus is tantamount to blasphemy. Clearly, had this been a "Christian" nation, our currency would say "In Jesus we trust," Jefferson's would have written "...that all men are endowed by Jesus with certain inalienable rights" etc etc. Similarly, the fact that they reference a generic "G_d" or "Creator" instead of "Adonai Elohim" or "Allah" indicates that this is not a Jewish or Muslim country either.

Can we please end this pointless argument. If you want to live in a religious country, there are many around the world. America, however, is a secular country, it always has been, and it always will be. Anyone who argues otherwise would be well advised to read the Constitution.
 
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