America was founded as an enlightened multicultural Nation

[ding]

#79 reply to #75

You are literally fighting an argument no one, least of all me, has made. No one is arguing that America was founded as a theocracy.

#79 I’m not saying that anybody is.


In Post #72 I wrote

#72a In case you had not noticed, the point being made here is that America was not founded as a mono cultural Protestant Christian Nation.

#79 That’s not referring to a Theocracy. It’s referring to making Protestant Christianity the established national church as it was in half a dozen states back then. The president is elected by the people all per the terms of the Constitution, but had to be a practicing white male Protestant Christian.

#72b I’m saying the founding fathers wrote a Constitution that from the very first day did not set up a national Federal central government that restricted present and future citizens to a favored citizen status only if they professed a belief in a state sponsored as white Protestant Christian religion.

#79 Same as above.

#72c It took Enlightenment Non- or barely Christian men like Jefferson and Madison to lead white Protestant Christians to accept a national Constitution that did not give white Protestant Christianity state religion (as was the case) in the six States of the new nation.

#79 where do you see a mention of theocracy?

Actually you are. I’m a Christian Nationalist, remember?

You can claim you aren’t, but that’s exactly what you are doing.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#82 reply to #77

As I have zero doubt that the ones posting here are socialist leaning or dupes of socialists. Which is why they attempt to destroy our Christian heritage.

It is worthy of notice that you have begun the process of abandoning all hope of selling the false pollyannish heritage of a Protestant Christian Nation by exposing your irrational fear of socialism, secularism and multiculturalism.

Oh ye of little faith fear not, for if the divine power of Jesus Christ is true, the MULTICULTURAL Christian religion will be around much longer than you will be able to live. Maybe not the white male Protestant version that dominated early colonial times, but why should you care about that if Christianity is all one culture anyway?

The Catholic Christians of Spanish and Native American decent try like hell to come to the USA, but white Protestant America wants to wall them out. Catholics immigrating from the southern Americas is likely most responsible for that as well as their raising bigger families.

My guess is socialism has become your convenient boogeyman who is hellbent in destroying the Christian nation heritage myth that exists in the minds of Christian Nationalists from sea to shining sea.

My wife and I own two homes two cars and one motorcycle and a very precious dog. Don’t owe the bank one penny anymore.

Nobody gets our property except out kids when we are both dead and gone.

So cut the socialist crap if you are actually interested in a rational discussion about the history of the founding of our great and powerful capitalistic nation.

 

[ding]

#82 reply to #77

As I have zero doubt that the ones posting here are socialist leaning or dupes of socialists. Which is why they attempt to destroy our Christian heritage.

It is worthy of notice that you have begun the process of abandoning all hope of selling the false pollyannish heritage of a Protestant Christian Nation by exposing your irrational fear of socialism, secularism and multiculturalism.

Oh ye of little faith fear not, for if the divine power of Jesus Christ is true, the MULTICULTURAL Christian religion will be around much longer than you will be able to live. Maybe not the white male Protestant version that dominated early colonial times, but why should you care about that if Christianity is all one culture anyway?

The Catholic Christians of Spanish and Native American decent try like hell to come to the USA, but white Protestant America wants to wall them out. Catholics immigrating from the southern Americas is likely most responsible for that as well as their raising bigger families.

My guess is socialism has become your convenient boogeyman who is hellbent in destroying the Christian nation heritage myth that exists in the minds of Christian Nationalists from sea to shining sea.

My wife and I own two homes two cars and one motorcycle and a very precious dog. Don’t owe the bank one penny anymore.

Nobody gets our property except out kids when we are both dead and gone.

So cut the socialist crap if you are actually interested in a rational discussion about the history of the founding of our great and powerful capitalistic nation.

You do realize that you were the one who called me a Christian Nationalist first, right?

so applying your logic, you were the first to abandon your ridiculous multiculturalism argument.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#84 reply to #83

You do realize that you were the one who called me a Christian Nationalist first, right?

Are you defending the Christian Nationalist Declaration that America was founded as a Christian Nation or not?

 

[ding]

#84 reply to #83

You do realize that you were the one who called me a Christian Nationalist first, right?

Are you defending the Christian Nationalist Declaration that America was founded as a Christian Nation or not?

I’m pretty certain you think so.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#86 reply to #55

. I say that America was founded as a Christian nation because the evidence for this is overwhelming.

So far your evidence has been;

Tocqueville: your main witness was a French aristocrat who was not born until after the Constitution was written. A witness on America religion who said, “I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion -- for who can search the human heart? “”

Gregg L. Frazer; Your post #67 historian who “argues that the leading Founders (John Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism"“

Your Post #3 Where you admit that only half the states had state established religions which were based upon Christianity. Therefore denying any possibility that the states making up the ‘nation’ in 1790 couid in any way be defined honestly as a Christian nation.

 

[ding]

#86 reply to #55

. I say that America was founded as a Christian nation because the evidence for this is overwhelming.

So far your evidence has been;

Tocqueville: your main witness was a French aristocrat who was not born until after the Constitution was written. A witness on America religion who said, “I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion -- for who can search the human heart? “”

Gregg L. Frazer; Your post #67 historian who “argues that the leading Founders (John Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism"“

Your Post #3 Where you admit that only half the states had state established religions which were based upon Christianity. Therefore denying any possibility that the states making up the ‘nation’ in 1790 couid in any way be defined honestly as a Christian nation.

C'mon man, my evidence is everything about the culture of colonial times, from the founding statements of the universities to the textbook that was used to educate their children to the overwhelming number of Christians who signed the founding documents to the churches that mobilized the masses to fight the British.

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture.

It seems your only evidence of multiculturalism is that a few of the founding fathers were deists. So what? They believed in natural law same as the Christians. They believed that our rights were granted for no other reason than we are God's creatures same as Christians. They believed that those rights are only granted to us as long as we meet our duties and obligations to God same as Christians.

You have no evidence of a deist culture at all. Zero. Nada. Bubkis.

 

[BreezeWood]

#86 reply to #55

. I say that America was founded as a Christian nation because the evidence for this is overwhelming.

So far your evidence has been;

Tocqueville: your main witness was a French aristocrat who was not born until after the Constitution was written. A witness on America religion who said, “I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion -- for who can search the human heart? “”

Gregg L. Frazer; Your post #67 historian who “argues that the leading Founders (John Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism"“

Your Post #3 Where you admit that only half the states had state established religions which were based upon Christianity. Therefore denying any possibility that the states making up the ‘nation’ in 1790 couid in any way be defined honestly as a Christian nation.

C'mon man, my evidence is everything about the culture of colonial times, from the founding statements of the universities to the textbook that was used to educate their children to the overwhelming number of Christians who signed the founding documents to the churches that mobilized the masses to fight the British.

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture.

It seems your only evidence of multiculturalism is that a few of the founding fathers were deists. So what? They believed in natural law same as the Christians. They believed that our rights were granted for no other reason than we are God's creatures same as Christians. They believed that those rights are only granted to us as long as we meet our duties and obligations to God same as Christians.

You have no evidence of a deist culture at all. Zero. Nada. Bubkis.

.

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture ... It seems your only evidence of multiculturalism is that a few of the founding fathers were deists..

your proof is that of a degenerate and frivolous attempt to place your religion before that of the founding of this country for which the first line of its bill of rights stipulates a separation of church and state - the proof you refuse to recognize is simply that of a whining bigot.


e pluribus unum - the motto of the united states

America’s ‘Melting Pot’ Immigrant Culture Made the Country Great, | National Review

The United States has always cherished its “melting pot” ethos of e pluribus unum — of blending diverse peoples into one through assimilation, integration, and intermarriage.

America is history’s exception. It began as a republic founded by European migrants. Like the homogenous citizens of most other nations, they were likely on a trajectory to incorporate racial sameness as the mark of citizenship. But the ultimate logic of America’s unique Constitution was different. So the United States steadily evolved to define Americans by their shared values, not by their superficial appearance. Eventually, anyone who was willing to give up his prior identity and assume a new American persona became American.

there is nothing for bing but bing for himself. the sad truth of their state of affairs.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#89 reply to the ‘several falsehoods’ post #87

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture.

Zero evidence you say? What about the good Christian of South Carolina, Charles Pinckney? An Episcopalian Framer?

It’s in post #71. You should not make comments if you don’t read anything.

#71 reply to the “key founders were not Christian, they were theistic/rationalists” Post #67

America was founded as a multicultural nation because there were multiple cultures in the thirteen colonies during the Revolution and the westward settlements. There were the dominant Protestants as one culture, there were Catholics, unchurched, Judaism. Then there was the African culture. I don’t see how Ding can ignore Native Americans. They had there own culture.


The 55 delegates represented only a few of the cultures, but they negotiated a Constitution that prevented zero opportunity for the central government to favor one over the other or prevent the practice of any choice of conscience no matter how small the minority.

That is why Ding is absolutely wrong when he wrote on a post # 3

The belief in multiculturalism at the time of founding is a pipe dream.

So maybe Ding needs to learn about one Protestant Delegate who I will say gets my pick as the prince of multiculturalism for all the Thirteen Colonies.


South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney,


Moroccan Muslims in Revolutionary South Carolina

A Moroccan-American community lived in South Carolina during the Revolutionary era, though its exact origins are unclear. Some members had likely been brought to North America as slaves and then been freed; others may have arrived as immigrants fleeing the violence of the Barbary Pirates, encouraged to seek refuge by the 1786 Treaty of Friendship between the fledgling United States and Morocco. In any case, by 1790 the community was sizeable enough to necessitate action in the state legislature to clarify the status and citizenship of its members. A law was passed, the Moors Sundry Act, recognizing South Carolina’s Moroccan residents as “white,” thus exempting them from laws governing free or enslaved African Americans and requiring them to fulfill certain civic obligations such as jury duty.

The presence of this Muslim American population contributed to two significant statements on religion in the new nation. The only reference to religion in the body of the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, avowed that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office.” This provision was drafted in part by South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney, who also served as one of the authors of the Moors Sundry Act. During debates in the South Carolina about ratifying the Constitution, Pinckney unequivocally defended the “no litmus test” clause. In response to a question posed by a fellow legislator, Pinckney stated not only that the clause would allow a Muslim to run for office in the United States, but also he hoped to live to see that happen.

In case you can’t read the link;

The presence of this Muslim American population contributed to two significant statements on religion in the new nation. The only reference to religion in the body of the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, avowed that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office.” This provision was drafted in part by South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney, who also served as one of the authors of the Moors Sundry Act. During debates in the South Carolina about ratifying the Constitution, Pinckney unequivocally defended the “no litmus test” clause. In response to a question posed by a fellow legislator, Pinckney stated not only that the clause would allow a Muslim to run for office in the United States, but also he hoped to live to see that happen.

MULTICULTURAL DIVERSITY IN REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA AUGUST 19, 2014
https://scholars.org/brief/roots-multicultural-diversity-revolutionary-america
​

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#90 reply to #81

Actually you are. I’m a Christian Nationalist, remember?

I am a “real” Christian in rhe Jeffersonian sense. Did you forget?

I am not ignoring the influence that Christianity contributed to the founding of America. You are seriously wrong if you think that. This explains why;

My line of thinking or argument on this debate is valid whether it is myself as the thinker being (1) non-Christian but not anti/Christian.

My argument works if I am a (2) Protestant Christian in the traditional sense taking Jesus as a personal savior, etc.

My argument works if I am a (3) Real Christian in the Jeffersonian sense that’s been discussed here and on another on this thread.

That is having strong affinity and respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, the mortal man who Is not divine, not the Son of God, or not supernatural in any way.

Many of the Founding Fathers were (3) Real Christians subdivided into Deists, Unitarians etc Jefferson and Adams for sure rejected the Holy Trinity of (2) Christendom.

As I said, I was married in a Unitarian Church. I attended the Unitarian Congregation where I grew up. The Unitarians and Quakers were the only churches that officially came out against the war in Vietnam that I could find.

My religious views were formed from as young as I can remember and going through high school at the peak of casualties on both sides of the Vietnam War.

I was baptized shortly after arriving on the good earth as a Protestant Christian in a Lutheran Church. i had no choice in the matter.

I never attended Catechism which I was reminded by my mother my entire life.

Around the age of ten I was the second oldest in a family of six kids. We lived in a former old wooden office building in a rural area that was converted into a duplex. My paternal grandparents lived in the other half. My Grandmother was extremely religious as typical in a farming community during the 1950’s. She raised Irish and Gordon Setters, hunting and show dogs. I worked for my grandmother feeding and watering dogs and cleaning the pens and kennels. My grandmother never showed any kindness or gentleness toward me.

I do not know why but I would not go as a young child to church. My Grandmother expected that from my brothers and sisters and they all went. I refused and succeeded in convincing my mom and dad that I did not need to go to church and Sunday school with my grandmother.

I loved the woods and nature in the thousands of acres of Ohio State Game Preserve Land that surrounded my home. I loved wild animals and the dogs I took care of. I explored every inch of it. I had a cousin, Butch. A year younger than me. Butchie visited often and every Sunday dressed in a jacket and tie and went to a church with Grandma. He was her pride and joy.

Trouble was Butchie provided me with my first concept of what an asshole was.

In the woods my friends and I spent much time building forts and tree houses. A Tom Sawyer dream. My cousin led a gang that hunted down our forts and knocked them down. One day they showed up while we were there. They brought buckets of rocks from the roadway a mile away. There were no rocks in the woods. They threw rocks at us so we picked them up and threw them back. I watched one stone I threw fly in a perfect arch toward the spot when Butchie popped up and it hit him square on the forehead. Bleeding and screaming he ran back to grandma. I thought I killed him, but from that point on any chance that I would not burn in Godless Hell was over.

Around that time I rescued a rejected puppy born in the winter and the only puppy in a rare litter of one. He was all black. A mix somehow. I fed him with bottle dropper into a beautiful strong little puppy that I assumed would be mine. WRONG. Butchie said he wanted the puppy and I guess the puppy was not going to be raised in an unchristian home.

One day, I went to my cousins house and found Butch and his buddies throwing my dog off a twenty foot high bridge. I Picked up Blackie and took him home and kept him as my dog.

My parents got divorced years later, moved to the city. My Grandmother died rather young, never asked why, and then sometime after that Butchie was killed around the age of 13 14 thrown from the back of pickup truck that failed to make a curve at high speed.

My religious views resurfaced a few years later when the Vietnam War was on TV and I ended up reading about that foreign land and people and it led to an interest in religion.

I studied on my own and read all I could find. I searched for answers to what religion meant to others and myself. My interests led me at one point to religion and war. That led to reading about Buddhism, Gandhi and Tolstoy, MLK and what Jesus said in the Bible.

I worked as dishwasher at 14, then my mom was getting married to a man I could not tolerate. I moved out at fifteen and have worked and paid my way through high school and signed my own grade cards forging my fathers name. I worked after school all through high school

At 17 a 1964 Pontiac LeMans hit my motorcycle head on. It’s fault. I survived all that and at twenty I was married and my first of three daughters were born.

My reading about religion and war was on and off but over time I started a notebook cutting and pasting Quotes from the people I read about. Jesus’ sermon on the mount was in that booklet. A photo of a Buddhist Monk setting himself on fire to protest the Vietnam War,

Then after cutting and pasting from the Bible myself I came across the Jefferson Bible

My natural religion was settled, My appreciation for the works of Jesus was fine. I did not have to believe in anything else about him that my Christian Grandmother wanted.

I’m not anti-Christian at all. As Jefferson wrote, “I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.”

I welcome and accept all faiths and no faiths, I am jopposed to coercion from anyone or any organization telling me what to think about God and why want to rewrite the history of the American Revolution and the enlightenment men who fought it won it and established the great nation we have.


So I am here to make the case that America was not founded as a Christian Nation, I am regarded as a Jesus hating atheist commie troll.

 

[Andylusion]

#1. We will start with the Puritans

The first group of “Mayflower” Christians to set foot on what was to become Massachusetts’s soil were separatists meaning they left the Church of England behind. Those separatists were eventually absorbed into the following groups of non-separatist Puritans who under Congregationalist Churches maintained a loyal relationship with the Church of England until the revolt against King Charles in 1776 was declared.

In no way should the early separatist Puritans be confused with the Revolutionary War Separatists. Many of the 1776 separatists were not Christian in a Puritan/Calvinistic sense at all. They were more philosophically aligned with the modern liberal mindset of the times when the Declaration of Independence was signed.

“So who, then, were the Puritans? While the Separatists believed that the only way to live according to Biblical precepts was to leave the Church of England entirely, the Puritans thought they could reform the church from within. Sometimes called non-separating Puritans, this less radical group shared a lot in common with the Separatists, particularly a form of worship and self-organization called “the congregational way.” https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/pilgrims-puritans-differences​

I'm not sure why you even think this makes a point. Regardless of minor, and in truth, very minor differences is non-biblical orthodoxy, does not change the fact that people came here to have a different culture, a new and unique culture, from the European based nations they came from.

Having ties to the Church of England, does not by any logical leap, make them multicultural. It's not like they went to church on Thursday instead of Sunday, or that they didn't celebrate Easter, or have a Cross prominent in the church.

You are taking something that is by any estimation, is footnote in history, and trying to make that footnote into a paradigm shift in premise. I do not think you can make such a unlikely claim.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#92 reply to #91

Having ties to the Church of England, does not by any logical leap, make them multicultural. I

You need to read quite a bit more carefully. It’s not the early Puritans I’m setting up as multicultural. They were not actors in the founding.

This from post #2

Yes, Christian settlers came to the New World with leaders such as Governor Winthrop to set up a Christian government tied to the British Crown.​

All true, but one century later - an European and very non-Christian influence engaged the minds of many of Colonial America’s leaders who led during the Revolution and the founding of the United Stars of America.​

I’m saying the Founding Founders established a multicultural nation when enlightenment non-Christian, highly educated men, namely Jefferson and Madison and several others convinced a majority of Christian men that the best way to go in the Constitution was for absolute religious liberty which meant that separation of church and state.

And kudos has gone to Charles Pinckney, an Episcopalian, and now I will mention:

John Leland (May 14, 1754 – January 14, 1841) was an American Baptist minister who preached in Massachusetts and Virginia, as well as an outspoken abolitionist. He was an important figure in the struggle for religious liberty in the United States.[1][2][3] Leland also later opposed the rise of missionary societies among Baptists.[4]​

More about Rev John Leland coming soon.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#94 Reply to #87

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture.

Our General was a theistic/rationalist who was
quite multiculturally open to absolute freedom of religion and freedom of conscience for Mahometans, Jews, Catholics, and Atheists.

George Washington expressed little preference as to the religion practiced by the Mount Vernon workforce. Writing in March of 1784, Washington noted: "If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans [Mohammedans/Muslims], Jews, or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists."1. Islam at Mount Vernon

 

[Andylusion]

#92 reply to #91

Having ties to the Church of England, does not by any logical leap, make them multicultural. I

You need to read quite a bit more carefully. It’s not the early Puritans I’m setting up as multicultural. They were not actors in the founding.

This from post #2

Yes, Christian settlers came to the New World with leaders such as Governor Winthrop to set up a Christian government tied to the British Crown.​

All true, but one century later - an European and very non-Christian influence engaged the minds of many of Colonial America’s leaders who led during the Revolution and the founding of the United Stars of America.​

I’m saying the Founding Founders established a multicultural nation when enlightenment non-Christian, highly educated men, namely Jefferson and Madison and several others convinced a majority of Christian men that the best way to go in the Constitution was for absolute religious liberty which meant that separation of church and state.

And kudos has gone to Charles Pinckney, an Episcopalian, and now I will mention:

John Leland (May 14, 1754 – January 14, 1841) was an American Baptist minister who preached in Massachusetts and Virginia, as well as an outspoken abolitionist. He was an important figure in the struggle for religious liberty in the United States.[1][2][3] Leland also later opposed the rise of missionary societies among Baptists.[4]​

More about Rev John Leland coming soon.

So I've read through the federalist papers, and both Jefferson and Madison. I don't see anything suggesting a separation of church and state, only that the state should not dictate religion.

But beyond that, religious liberty and multiculturalism are not the same thing. You have people that believe in very different things, have the same basic culture. I'm an evangelical protestant, for example, and I know Catholics. We both have the exact same culture, while we believe in extremely different religious faiths.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#95 reply to #94

But beyond that, religious liberty and multiculturalism are not the same thing. You have people that believe in very different things, have the same basic culture. I'm an evangelical protestant, for example, and I know Catholics. We both have the exact same culture, while we believe in extremely different religious faiths.

#95 Going back in history to the period between 1750 and 1800 it it’s not true that Catholics and Protestant shared the same culture:

Catholicism and the American Founding

Where were the Catholics in the settlement of the thirteen colonies? Aside from living in an over-the-top exaggerated horror in the paranoid fears of American Protestants, almost nowhere. Certainly, there had been some settlement in Maryland (but Catholics were illegal there by 1689 and would remain so until 1774), and the Jesuits and Franciscans were quite active on the frontier. But, as to any sizable population? That would have to wait until the Irish and the Germans came in the late 1840s.
​

#95 Protestant Anti-Catholic bigotry prevailed among just about all Protestant secst back then.

The ”late act” was the passage of a bill for the removal on religious and liturgical restrictions of French Roman Catholics living in Quebec. With the passage of the Quebec Act, they could practice their Catholicism without political hinderance.
​

#95 The British Parliament passed the Quebec Act and it riled up the Protestant to the south so much the first act of the Continental Congrats was renounce Catholicism ever so stunningly:

With the passage of the Quebec Act, they could practice their Catholicism without political hinderance.

John Sullivan, who would play one of the most important roles in the Continental Army, feared that the Quebec Act “Most dangerous to American Liberties among the whole train.” Should the Catholics gain power, he lamented “no God may as well exist in the universe.”

Passed on October 21, 1774, the resolution claimed that the Quebec Act was to designed to put “in the hands of power, to reduce the ancient, free Protestant colonies to . . . slavery. . . Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island with blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the world.”
​

I honestly cannot put Roman Catholic and English Colonial Protestants in the SAME culture when understanding the above to be true.

How about you? Any comment?

 

[whutTHEYsay]

#96 reply to #87

They believed that those rights are only granted to us as long as we meet our duties and obligations to God same as Christians.

Jefferson and many of the key founding fathers had little to no personal use for the duties and obligations of either one of the mainstream Christian churches, Protestant or Catholic.

How can you make such an absurd statement?

What are the duties and obligations to God if you are a Protestant Christian or Catholic?

Pleased be kind enough to tell me as a Christian what those essential duties and obligations are in your own words.

Church history throughout Europe was filled with bloodshed for centuries over duty and obligations to God and his Son as defined in the Holy Bible.

Jefferson cut the Bible up to rid it of political dung. His words not mine.

The rational theists who carried the most influence among all the founders made it their most important contribution to make sure Protestant Christian religious duties and obligations had no place in the national Constitution.

They went so far as to protect a minority of one’s right to disbelief in all your Christian duties and obligations. Because they themselves did not adhere to the duties and obligations of Christianity.

But you seem to be confused in that such a disbelief in duties and obligations of Christianity was not anti-Christian in the founders minds.

They sought to restrict the power that religious dogma had over the minds off its followers and that is what they accomplished by writing a secular Constitution and getting orthodox Christians to agree.

Deism and the Founding of the United States, Divining America, TeacherServe®, National Humanities Center​

“The natural religious language of the Declaration served as a neutral expression acceptable to all denominations rather than a deist creed precisely because a tradition of natural theology was shared by most Christians at the time. Deist phrases may thus have been a sort of theological lingua franca, and their use by the founders was ecumenical rather than anti-Christian. Such ecumenical striving sheds fresh light on the first amendment and the secular order it established. This secularism forbade the federal government from establishing a national church or interfering with church affairs in the states. However, it did not create a policy of official indifference, much less hostility toward organized religion. Congress hired chaplains, government buildings were used for divine services, and federal policies supported religion in general (ecumenically) as does our tax code to this day. The founding generation always assumed that religion would play a vital part in the political and moral life of the nation. Its ecumenical secularity insured that no particular faith would be excluded from that life, including disbelief itself.​

Yes including disbelief itself.

Disbelief is not fulfilling the duties and obligations of Christianity as far as I know.

 

[ding]

#96 reply to #87

They believed that those rights are only granted to us as long as we meet our duties and obligations to God same as Christians.

Jefferson and many of the key founding fathers had little to no personal use for the duties and obligations of either one of the mainstream Christian churches, Protestant or Catholic.

How can you make such an absurd statement?

What are the duties and obligations to God if you are a Protestant Christian or Catholic?

Pleased be kind enough to tell me as a Christian what those essential duties and obligations are in your own words.

Church history throughout Europe was filled with bloodshed for centuries over duty and obligations to God and his Son as defined in the Holy Bible.

Jefferson cut the Bible up to rid it of political dung. His words not mine.

The rational theists who carried the most influence among all the founders made it their most important contribution to make sure Protestant Christian religious duties and obligations had no place in the national Constitution.

They went so far as to protect a minority of one’s right to disbelief in all your Christian duties and obligations. Because they themselves did not adhere to the duties and obligations of Christianity.

But you seem to be confused in that such a disbelief in duties and obligations of Christianity was not anti-Christian in the founders minds.

They sought to restrict the power that religious dogma had over the minds off its followers and that is what they accomplished by writing a secular Constitution and getting orthodox Christians to agree.

Deism and the Founding of the United States, Divining America, TeacherServe®, National Humanities Center​

“The natural religious language of the Declaration served as a neutral expression acceptable to all denominations rather than a deist creed precisely because a tradition of natural theology was shared by most Christians at the time. Deist phrases may thus have been a sort of theological lingua franca, and their use by the founders was ecumenical rather than anti-Christian. Such ecumenical striving sheds fresh light on the first amendment and the secular order it established. This secularism forbade the federal government from establishing a national church or interfering with church affairs in the states. However, it did not create a policy of official indifference, much less hostility toward organized religion. Congress hired chaplains, government buildings were used for divine services, and federal policies supported religion in general (ecumenically) as does our tax code to this day. The founding generation always assumed that religion would play a vital part in the political and moral life of the nation. Its ecumenical secularity insured that no particular faith would be excluded from that life, including disbelief itself.​

Yes including disbelief itself.

Disbelief is not fulfilling the duties and obligations of Christianity as far as I know.

I can make the statement that they believed rights are only granted to us as long as we meet our duties and obligations to God because it is true.

https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3506&context=wlulr

Selected excerpts but read the whole thing....

"The philosophy of natural rights was championed by such Founding Fathers as Richard Bland, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, James Madison, George Mason, Robert Carter Nicholas, Peyton Randolph, George Washington, and George Wythe. Indeed, it would be amazing if any Revolutionary leader of the Commonwealth could be found who did not subscribe to the doctrines of natural law and right..."

"...In their most generalized expressions the Founding Fathers spoke of their natural rights to life and liberty, adding at times, property, and on other occasions, the pursuit of happiness. To some contemporaries the alternative use of property and the pursuit of happiness may seem strange, but to many of the Fathers property meant the right to develop one's properties, that is, his faculties. The particular natural rights on which there was the largest measure of agreement among the Virginians were (i) freedom of conscience, (2) freedom of communication, (3) the right to be free from arbitrary laws, (4) the rights of assembly and petition, (5) the property right, (6) the right of self-government, to which were frequently appended (a) the right of expatriation and (b) a right to change the form of government..."

"...The Virginia Founding Fathers were in substantial agreement that the ultimate source of our natural rights was our Creator. Men "are endowed by their Creator" with inherent and inalienable rights, said Thomas Jefferson in the memorable language of the Declaration of Independence.14 Earlier Jefferson had written in his Summary View that "the God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time."' 5 We have natural rights of the intellect, he indicated, "because Almighty God hath created the mind free . .. "16 Speaking of the natural right of expatriation, Jefferson said in the Summary View: "The evidence of this natural right, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of kings."' 7 In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson wrote: "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?"18 Speaking there of our natural rights, he concluded: "We are answerable for them to our God."' 9..."

"...Later in life Jefferson wrote that we must follow "those moral rules which the Author of our being has implanted in man as the law of his nature to govern him in his associated, as well as individual character."21 That the natural rights of man came from God, in Jefferson's belief, was beyond doubt. His fellow Virginians were ready to join in asserting that our rights came from "the great Author of nature, '22 which assertion was simply sharing in such a view held by practically all of our Revolutionary leaders. Typically, John Adams wrote in his Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, "I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government,-Rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws-Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe."23..."

"...Thomas Jefferson and many of his contemporaries understood that the natural rights of man depended upon teleological considerations. So viewed, and accepting the premise that man's goal is being with his Creator for eternity, man has the duty to abide by His will and directions, because they are necessary to satisfy man's duties. Jefferson wrote that "the true office is to declare and enforce our natural rights and duties."24 The existence of natural duties and the relationship of rights to duties were quite apparent to Jefferson, and anyone who has studied the man should realize that the only natural duties Jefferson acknowledged were not to temporal kings, but to the Creator. James Madison was even more explicit that the source of rights exists in man's duty to his Creator. Writing of the unalienable right of religion in his Memorial and Remonstrance, he stated that the right is unalienable "because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homeage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to Him. His duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate Association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority; much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign." 25 Another leading Virginian, George Mason, was equally clear in asserting that the obligation of man to his Maker was the source of natural rights. In 1772 he wrote: "Now all acts of legislature apparently contrary to natural right and justice, are, in our laws, and must be in the nature of things, considered as void. The laws of nature are the laws of God: A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to him from whose punishments they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey. Such have been the adjudications of our courts of justice." 26 The imperative necessity of understanding ends and duties in order to delineate natural rights was appreciated not only by Messrs. Jefferson, Madison, and Mason, but also by Virginians generally in our formative period. The members of the Virginia convention that ratified the United States Constitution saw and stated that the natural rights of conscience and religion are predicated upon an obligation to God. They contended that it was because of "the duty which we owe to our Creator," that "all men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience." 27..."

 

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#94 Reply to #87

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture.

Our General was a theistic/rationalist who was
quite multiculturally open to absolute freedom of religion and freedom of conscience for Mahometans, Jews, Catholics, and Atheists.

George Washington expressed little preference as to the religion practiced by the Mount Vernon workforce. Writing in March of 1784, Washington noted: "If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans [Mohammedans/Muslims], Jews, or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists."1. Islam at Mount Vernon

You have zero examples of any deist culture in colonial America.

Show me examples of this so-called culture in America. You can't.

Here are my examples of America's Christian culture in colonial times.

Vanderlyn, John. Landing of Columbus. Architect of the
Capitol. Commissioned 1836/1837, placed 1847 in United
States Capitol Rotunda.

Chapman, John Gadsby. The Baptism of Pocahontas.
Architect of the Capitol. Commissioned 1837, placed 1840 in
United States Capitol Rotunda

Weir, Robert W. The Embarkation of the Pilgrims. Architect
of the Capitol. Commissioned 1837, placed 1844 in United
States Capitol Rotunda.

 

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#86 reply to #55

. I say that America was founded as a Christian nation because the evidence for this is overwhelming.

So far your evidence has been;

Tocqueville: your main witness was a French aristocrat who was not born until after the Constitution was written. A witness on America religion who said, “I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion -- for who can search the human heart? “”

Gregg L. Frazer; Your post #67 historian who “argues that the leading Founders (John Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism"“

Your Post #3 Where you admit that only half the states had state established religions which were based upon Christianity. Therefore denying any possibility that the states making up the ‘nation’ in 1790 couid in any way be defined honestly as a Christian nation.

C'mon man, my evidence is everything about the culture of colonial times, from the founding statements of the universities to the textbook that was used to educate their children to the overwhelming number of Christians who signed the founding documents to the churches that mobilized the masses to fight the British.

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture.

It seems your only evidence of multiculturalism is that a few of the founding fathers were deists. So what? They believed in natural law same as the Christians. They believed that our rights were granted for no other reason than we are God's creatures same as Christians. They believed that those rights are only granted to us as long as we meet our duties and obligations to God same as Christians.

You have no evidence of a deist culture at all. Zero. Nada. Bubkis.

.

You claim multiculturalism but you have offered zero evidence of any actual culture ... It seems your only evidence of multiculturalism is that a few of the founding fathers were deists..

your proof is that of a degenerate and frivolous attempt to place your religion before that of the founding of this country for which the first line of its bill of rights stipulates a separation of church and state - the proof you refuse to recognize is simply that of a whining bigot.


e pluribus unum - the motto of the united states

America’s ‘Melting Pot’ Immigrant Culture Made the Country Great, | National Review

The United States has always cherished its “melting pot” ethos of e pluribus unum — of blending diverse peoples into one through assimilation, integration, and intermarriage.

America is history’s exception. It began as a republic founded by European migrants. Like the homogenous citizens of most other nations, they were likely on a trajectory to incorporate racial sameness as the mark of citizenship. But the ultimate logic of America’s unique Constitution was different. So the United States steadily evolved to define Americans by their shared values, not by their superficial appearance. Eventually, anyone who was willing to give up his prior identity and assume a new American persona became American.

there is nothing for bing but bing for himself. the sad truth of their state of affairs.

Again... the establishment clause in the first amendment was written to prevent the federal government from interfering with state established religions of which half the states had at the time the constitution was ratified.

 

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#90 reply to #81

Actually you are. I’m a Christian Nationalist, remember?

I am a “real” Christian in rhe Jeffersonian sense. Did you forget?

I am not ignoring the influence that Christianity contributed to the founding of America. You are seriously wrong if you think that. This explains why;

My line of thinking or argument on this debate is valid whether it is myself as the thinker being (1) non-Christian but not anti/Christian.

My argument works if I am a (2) Protestant Christian in the traditional sense taking Jesus as a personal savior, etc.

My argument works if I am a (3) Real Christian in the Jeffersonian sense that’s been discussed here and on another on this thread.

That is having strong affinity and respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, the mortal man who Is not divine, not the Son of God, or not supernatural in any way.

Many of the Founding Fathers were (3) Real Christians subdivided into Deists, Unitarians etc Jefferson and Adams for sure rejected the Holy Trinity of (2) Christendom.

As I said, I was married in a Unitarian Church. I attended the Unitarian Congregation where I grew up. The Unitarians and Quakers were the only churches that officially came out against the war in Vietnam that I could find.

My religious views were formed from as young as I can remember and going through high school at the peak of casualties on both sides of the Vietnam War.

I was baptized shortly after arriving on the good earth as a Protestant Christian in a Lutheran Church. i had no choice in the matter.

I never attended Catechism which I was reminded by my mother my entire life.

Around the age of ten I was the second oldest in a family of six kids. We lived in a former old wooden office building in a rural area that was converted into a duplex. My paternal grandparents lived in the other half. My Grandmother was extremely religious as typical in a farming community during the 1950’s. She raised Irish and Gordon Setters, hunting and show dogs. I worked for my grandmother feeding and watering dogs and cleaning the pens and kennels. My grandmother never showed any kindness or gentleness toward me.

I do not know why but I would not go as a young child to church. My Grandmother expected that from my brothers and sisters and they all went. I refused and succeeded in convincing my mom and dad that I did not need to go to church and Sunday school with my grandmother.

I loved the woods and nature in the thousands of acres of Ohio State Game Preserve Land that surrounded my home. I loved wild animals and the dogs I took care of. I explored every inch of it. I had a cousin, Butch. A year younger than me. Butchie visited often and every Sunday dressed in a jacket and tie and went to a church with Grandma. He was her pride and joy.

Trouble was Butchie provided me with my first concept of what an asshole was.

In the woods my friends and I spent much time building forts and tree houses. A Tom Sawyer dream. My cousin led a gang that hunted down our forts and knocked them down. One day they showed up while we were there. They brought buckets of rocks from the roadway a mile away. There were no rocks in the woods. They threw rocks at us so we picked them up and threw them back. I watched one stone I threw fly in a perfect arch toward the spot when Butchie popped up and it hit him square on the forehead. Bleeding and screaming he ran back to grandma. I thought I killed him, but from that point on any chance that I would not burn in Godless Hell was over.

Around that time I rescued a rejected puppy born in the winter and the only puppy in a rare litter of one. He was all black. A mix somehow. I fed him with bottle dropper into a beautiful strong little puppy that I assumed would be mine. WRONG. Butchie said he wanted the puppy and I guess the puppy was not going to be raised in an unchristian home.

One day, I went to my cousins house and found Butch and his buddies throwing my dog off a twenty foot high bridge. I Picked up Blackie and took him home and kept him as my dog.

My parents got divorced years later, moved to the city. My Grandmother died rather young, never asked why, and then sometime after that Butchie was killed around the age of 13 14 thrown from the back of pickup truck that failed to make a curve at high speed.

My religious views resurfaced a few years later when the Vietnam War was on TV and I ended up reading about that foreign land and people and it led to an interest in religion.

I studied on my own and read all I could find. I searched for answers to what religion meant to others and myself. My interests led me at one point to religion and war. That led to reading about Buddhism, Gandhi and Tolstoy, MLK and what Jesus said in the Bible.

I worked as dishwasher at 14, then my mom was getting married to a man I could not tolerate. I moved out at fifteen and have worked and paid my way through high school and signed my own grade cards forging my fathers name. I worked after school all through high school

At 17 a 1964 Pontiac LeMans hit my motorcycle head on. It’s fault. I survived all that and at twenty I was married and my first of three daughters were born.

My reading about religion and war was on and off but over time I started a notebook cutting and pasting Quotes from the people I read about. Jesus’ sermon on the mount was in that booklet. A photo of a Buddhist Monk setting himself on fire to protest the Vietnam War,

Then after cutting and pasting from the Bible myself I came across the Jefferson Bible

My natural religion was settled, My appreciation for the works of Jesus was fine. I did not have to believe in anything else about him that my Christian Grandmother wanted.

I’m not anti-Christian at all. As Jefferson wrote, “I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.”

I welcome and accept all faiths and no faiths, I am jopposed to coercion from anyone or any organization telling me what to think about God and why want to rewrite the history of the American Revolution and the enlightenment men who fought it won it and established the great nation we have.


So I am here to make the case that America was not founded as a Christian Nation, I am regarded as a Jesus hating atheist commie troll.

I don't need your origin story.