The United States IS a Christian Nation

[Old Rocks]

Actually, our democracy is based upon BIBLICAL tenets. Hence "all men created equal" by GOD.....

And we have separation of church and state thanks to CHRISTIANS, i.e., the BAPTISTS, who felt strongly that in order to protect FREEDOM OF RELIGION it was necessary.

The First Amendment is against the first Commandment.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Well you obviously have something in common with the president then.

Although I don't think you've made the presidency, yet.

Something in common with Monkey Boy Bush Jr? Nope.......

I actually did WELL in school.

I also turned profits for the companies I worked for........

Bush Jr. did poor in school and bankrupted almost every fucking thing that he touched.

 

[AllieBaba]

If no religious imagery is allowed in government, you're suppressing those of faith who choose to acknowledge their faith openly. Also known as "oppression".

No person employed by the government is prevented from talking or writing about their faith. Nor are they prevented from saying that their proposed legislation is inspired by their religion. They may not however use the power of the state to advance their religion. Forcing their religion on the general public is oppression.

Referring to your religion if you are a politician is NOT forcing your religion on others. Neither is wearing a cross, or putting up a Christmas tree in public areas.

You are saying that nobody can attain a position in government if they reference their religion.

That's oppression.

Thank you constitution for protecting our rights to speak openly and exhibit our beliefs freely, whether we are preachers, housepainters or politicians.

 

[AllieBaba]

Freedom of speech means freedom of expression, boys. Our public employees are not exempt.

Sorry. I know how that chafes. I also know you're just trying to level the playing field in the hopes that this will make it easier for you to succeed in oppressing the majority.

 

[rayboyusmc]

How many of our founding fathers were Deists? Why did they insist on seperation of church and state?

We are a nation of many faiths and many backgrounds.

Get over it.

Obama gets it.

 

[AllieBaba]

Baptists are the reason we have separation of church and state, idiot.

 

[AllieBaba]

And they were all Deists, to my knowledge.

 

[AllieBaba]

John Adams and John Hancock, April 18, 1775:

"We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!"

John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved:

"The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity...I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."

John Adams:

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798

Let's see..Benjamin Franklin:

"God governs in the affairs of man.....We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that built it. I FIRMLY BELIEFVE THIS. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel"

Alexander Hamilton:

I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me."


John Hancock:
"In circumstances as dark as these, it becomes us, as Men and Christians...."

"All confidence must be withheld from the means we use; and reposed only on that God rules in the armies of Heaven, and without His whole blessing, the best human counsels are but foolishness....Resolved; Thursday the 11th of May...to humble themselves before God..."

etc. and so forth.

 

[AllieBaba]

Jefferson:

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

"God who gave us life gave us liberty."

 

[AllieBaba]

I guess Obama and you are equally stupid, if you both think our forefathers were anything other than Christian, and motivated ever to eliminate reference to God from our public places.

 

[AllieBaba]

How about George Washington?

From his farewell address:
"...reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle..."

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” Speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779.

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian" May 2, 1778, at Valley Forge

 

[AllieBaba]

But carry on with whatever blither blather you were saying about the founding fathers and religion.

 

[Pyrite]

Jefferson, as you should note, had some rather unusual theological opinions:

... Jefferson expressed himself strongly on that larger apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, in a letter to Alexander Smyth of 17 January 1825: it is "merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams." Apocalyptic writing deserved no commentary, for "what has no meaning admits no explanation"; therefore, apocalyptic prophecies associated with Jesus deserved and would receive no attention from Jefferson in his Life and Morals of Jesus. (E. S. Gaustad, "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, p. 287.)

... If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814. From Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 358.)

In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 371)

As for Benjamin Franklin:

[Benjamin] Franklin drank deep of the Protestant ethic and then, discomforted by church constraints, became a freethinker. All his life he kept Sundays free for reading, but would visit any church to hear a great speaker, no doubt recognizing a talent he himself did not possess. With typical honesty and humor he wrote out his creed in 1790, the year he died: "I believe in one God, Creator of the universe.... That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children.... As to Jesus ... I have ... some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." (Alice J. Hall, "Philosopher of Dissent: Benj. Franklin," National Geographic, Vol. 148, No. 1, July, 1975, p. 94.)

When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. (Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American statesman, diplomat, scientist, and printer, from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780; from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 93.)

 

[AllieBaba]

Interesting but still doesn't support the assertion they ever wanted a "God-free" government.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Didn't want a "God free" nation, just one with a separation of church and state.

 

[mattskramer]

How about George Washington?

From his farewell address:
"...reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle..."

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” Speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779.

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian" May 2, 1778, at Valley Forge

Yep. Those founding fathers had their biases. They also owned slaves and thought it okay to prohibit women from voting. No one is perfect.

 

[Pyrite]

Didn't want a "God free" nation, just one with a separation of church and state.

What do you think seperation of church and state means? Who do you think is calling for a "god free" nation? A "god free" government, perhaps, but no one reasonable is trying to suppress anyone's individual religious expression.

 

[Cecilie1200]

This is not a Christian nation. The words 'god' and 'Christ' never appear in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Myth believing right wingers always latch onto the word 'Creator' as some proof that this is a Christian nation, never understanding it seems, that the word's definition is open to the reader. I know who I was created by, my parents and I have the DNA to prove it. Who were you created by?

Good to know the time-honored practice of microscopic word parsing is still in vogue. Unfortunately, the specific words "God" and "Christ" do not have to appear for this to be a Christian nation. Nor is the word "Creator" open to definition by the reader. Shockingly, words are chosen by their USERS for their specific meanings to those USERS. That would apply especially in this case, since they were writing a document to be read by people hundreds of years down the road, and they had no idea what those people would be like. All they could do was express things based on THEIR interpretation. And if you really believe that the people who lived in the United States in the late 1700s meant someone other than the Judeo-Christian God when they said "Creator", then you must be a public school mouthbreather.

We are a Christian nation because we were founded by people who were primarily - overwhelmingly, even - Christian and who were influenced by a Christian worldview and philosophy. We are also a Christian nation because we are populated now primarily by people who identify as Christian and/or hold Christian worldviews, even though some of them do so without realizing that's what they're doing.

If the Framers had wanted to, they could easily incorporated the Ten Commandmants into the Constitution. They did not. They left out all references to the divine because they were men of the Enlightenment and this government they were creating was to be based in reason not myth.

When did the Ten Commandments become the be-all and end-all of Christianity and Christian philosophy?

The Enlightenment, like it or not, was NOT the primary influence on the Founding Fathers' thinking. They left religious references out of our laws - but NOT out of all of our founding documents, whether you want to admit it or not - because that isn't the purpose of laws. I also think they had trouble picturing a nation where people were so willfully blind that they tried to pretend our Founders were something they weren't. So what can I say? They weren't psychic.

The question is, where did the Founding Fathers get their ideas about what was right and wrong, what should and shouldn't be law, when they were framing the Constitution?

Those who want to turn this into a Christian nation are working against the intended purpose of the Constitution which was to create a new morality based on reason which can work for all people regardless of which if any religion they believe.

The Constitution was most certainly NOT to create any "new morality". It was to create a new type of nation founded on a very old morality. I know you're just dying to project your personal belief that Christianity is silly and illogical and unreasonable onto the Founding Fathers, but that isn't what they thought, and no amount of wishing on your part will make it so.

 

[garyd]

A proper interpretation of of the first amendment is clear to all but the most turgid of minds.

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.

An establishment of religion would be a church mosque synagogue or whatever. And the Congress of the United States cannot tell you when where or how to build such a building or whther or not you can.

The second clause means the congress of the Unted States cannot tell you when where or how to worship the God of your choice or for that matter what God you ought to worship. Jeffersons wall of seperation is clearly designed to protect Religion from undo iterference by the government not the government from undo interference by religious or unreligious folk.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Interestingly enough, this country really wasn't founded on Christian principles like everyone believes either......it was founded on the beliefs of fanatical Christians who were called Puritans.

Personally? I don't think that religion has any place in the government of this country, as we include too many different people of too many different faiths, so, we should just leave religion out of the government.

Because think about it......if we are a "Christian" nation, what happens to all the Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, muslims, and Jewish people? Do we then subjugate them to second class citizens like the blacks of the early history of this nation?

Actually the Puritans were over a hundred years before the Constitution was written. Their influence had wained and the period of the Enlightenment was the motivating force in the creation of the Country.

Subjugating all others than Christians is exactly what the 'Christian nation believers' want to do. Thay want to use the power of the government to make everyone live according to their understanding of the Bible.

If the Enlightenment was such a driving force in the framing of the Constitution, why do the notes of the Constitutional Convention show more references to the Bible than any other source mentioned?

And I will thank you to keep your putrid ideas of what Christians do and don't believe to yourself, because I have no need of your filthy, uninformed words being shoved into MY mouth. Stick to vainly attempting to articulate your own thoughts, and leave me to express mine. YOU certainly are not qualified to speak to them.