America's Christian Heritage

[NotfooledbyW]

How hard atheists work to argue America has no Christian heritage.

I am not an atheist and I am telling you that America had a Christian Heritage,

It’s just that Thomas Jefferson and 80 percent of the founding generation are not part of our Christian Heritage.

 

[ding]

I am not an atheist and I am telling you that America had a Christian Heritage,

It’s just that Thomas Jefferson and 80 percent of the founding generation are not part of our Christian Heritage.

They all affirmed the existence of the God of Nature whose attributes included being a providential, moralistic creator whose existence and causal relation to the world was essential to the foundations of natural-rights. Just like every other Christian did. That's Christianity in a nutshell.

 

[ding]

Example #47 of America's Christian Heritage

From the Library of Congress:
Against a prevailing view that eighteenth-century Americans had not perpetuated the first settlers' passionate commitment to their faith, scholars now identify a high level of religious energy in colonies after 1700. According to one expert, religion was in the "ascension rather than the declension"; another sees a "rising vitality in religious life" from 1700 onward; a third finds religion in many parts of the colonies in a state of "feverish growth." Figures on church attendance and church formation support these opinions. Between 1700 and 1740, an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population attended churches, which were being built at a headlong pace.

Religion in Eighteenth-Century America - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

www.loc.gov

 

[ding]

Example #48 of America's Christian Heritage

From the Library of Congress:
Toward mid-century the country experienced its first major religious revival. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. In America, the Awakening signaled the advent of an encompassing evangelicalism--the belief that the essence of religious experience was the "new birth," inspired by the preaching of the Word. It invigorated even as it divided churches. The supporters of the Awakening and its evangelical thrust--Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists--became the largest American Protestant denominations by the first decades of the nineteenth century. Opponents of the Awakening or those split by it--Anglicans, Quakers, and Congregationalists--were left behind.

Religion in Eighteenth-Century America - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

www.loc.gov

 

[ding]

Example #49 of America's Christian Heritage

From the Library of Congress:
Another religious movement that was the antithesis of evangelicalism made its appearance in the eighteenth century. Deism, which emphasized morality and rejected the orthodox Christian view of the divinity of Christ, found advocates among upper-class Americans. Conspicuous among them were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Deists, never more than "a minority within a minority," were submerged by evangelicalism in the nineteenth century.

Religion in Eighteenth-Century America - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

www.loc.gov

 

[Grumblenuts]

That's Christianity in a nutshell.

Like horse chestnuts and raw almonds.

 

[ding]

Example #49 of America's Christian Heritage

From the Library of Congress:

The Appearance of Eighteenth-Century Churches​

Churches in eighteenth-century America came in all sizes and shapes, from the plain, modest buildings in newly settled rural areas to elegant edifices in the prosperous cities on the eastern seaboard. Churches reflected the customs and traditions as well as the wealth and social status of the denominations that built them. Hence, a new Anglican Church in rural Goose Creek, South Carolina, was fitted out with an impressive wood-carved pulpit, while a fledgling Baptist Church in rural Virginia had only the bare essentials. German churches contained features unknown in English ones.

Religion in Eighteenth-Century America - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

www.loc.gov

 

[ding]

Example #50 of America's Christian Heritage

From the Library of Congress:
St. James Church, built in South Carolina's oldest Anglican parish outside of Charleston, is thought to have been constructed between 1711 and 1719 during the rectorate of the Reverend Francis le Jau, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

Religion in Eighteenth-Century America - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

www.loc.gov

 

[ding]

Example #51 of America's Christian Heritage

Growth of the Eighteenth-Century Church​

The growth of the American church in the eighteenth century can be illustrated by changes in city skylines over the course of the century. An empty vista in 1690 had become a forest of eighteen steeples by 1771. Clearly discernable in the 1730 engraving are the spires of Trinity Church (Anglican), the Lutheran Church, the "new" Dutch Reformed Church, the French Protestant Church (Huguenots), City Hall, the "old" Dutch Reformed Church, the Secretary's Office and the church in Fort George.

Religion in Eighteenth-Century America - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

www.loc.gov

 

[ding]

Example #51 of America's Christian Heritage

Christ Church of Philadelphia is an example of how colonial American congregations, once they became well established and prosperous, built magnificent churches to glorify God. Enlarged and remodeled, the Christ Church building was completed in 1744. A steeple was added ten years later. Contemporaries were in awe of the finished house of worship, one remarking that "it was the handsomest structure of the kind that I ever saw in any part of the world; uniting in the peculiar features of that species of architecture, the most elegant variety of forms, with the most chaste simplicity of combination."

Religion in Eighteenth-Century America - Religion and the Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

www.loc.gov

 

[kjw47]

The official platform of the Republican Party, which appears as a link on the RNC’s “About” page, states: “The unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.”


Just imagine if the English Settlers to the New World’s Thirteen Colonized Coastal Jurisdictions had brought Saint Ding’s “Biblical Morality” to the indigenous people who were in the way, and the Eleventh Commandment states “Every born child of all newly discovered indigenous people has a fundamental right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness which cannot be infringed.”

Those same false christian religions back then, sent conquistadors to south america and wiped out a whole race of humans-Why? Because they practiced fornication( sex out of marriage) all the while in Europe the clergy who ordered that annihilation were the #1 attendees of the brothels-fornicating.
Not all is as appears in this satan ruled system of things. Ones best beware of these-2Cor 11:12-15= 99% of all religion on earth, including 99% of those claiming to be christian.

 

[NotfooledbyW]

It's your lack of a realistic perception of God and your inability to override your bias which is keeping you from even considering your understanding of the God of Abraham is flawed.

God of Abraham you say Saint Ding?

Thomas Jefferson and the Jews

Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org

While Jefferson advocated for Jewish liberty, he held certain aspects of Judaism in low regard. In fairness, Jefferson opposed all religions based on divine revelation. He believed that God’s existence could be proven by reason and common sense rather than faith. A detractor of all priests, he found those of the Hebrew Bible “a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family of god of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.”

In 1787, Jefferson summed up his view of Jewish revelation in a letter to his nephew, warning him to be skeptical of “those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature.” As one example, he cited the assertion in the Book of Joshua that the sun stood still for several hours. Since that would have meant, in scientific terms, that the earth stood still, Jefferson asked his nephew to consider how the earth, spinning on its axis, could have stopped suddenly and started rotating again without enormous destruction to natural and manmade structures. Similarly, the rationalist Jefferson doubted that God personally inscribed the Ten Commandments on a tablet which Moses later destroyed and then re-wrote.

It bothered Jefferson that the God of the ancient Hebrews was, in his words, “a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.” He could also not understand how Jews could believe that “the God of infinite justice” would “punish the sins of the fathers upon their children, unto the third and fourth generations.” He agreed with the view expressed by John Adams that, in respect to God, “the principle of the Hebrew is fear.”

Jefferson thought that reason and logic demanded a belief in an afterlife, an area in which he found Judaism deficient. Jefferson argued that, without fear of punishment beyond the grave, individuals lacked an incentive to behave well and that, without hope of reuniting with loved ones, family commitments and friendships would lose their gravity. Since a definitive afterlife was not universally accepted in Judaism, Jefferson thought it a religion without utility. Thomas Jefferson and the Jews By Michael Feldberg​

 

[Grumblenuts]

Jefferson thought that reason and logic demanded a belief in an afterlife, an area in which he found Judaism deficient. Jefferson argued that, without fear of punishment beyond the grave, individuals lacked an incentive to behave well and that, without hope of reuniting with loved ones, family commitments and friendships would lose their gravity. Since a definitive afterlife was not universally accepted in Judaism, Jefferson thought it a religion without utility. Thomas Jefferson and the Jews By Michael Feldberg

Proof that even the most rational can be idiots about such things.

without fear of punishment beyond the grave, individuals lacked an incentive to behave well

Weirdness. How's that supposed to work? "Individuals" suddenly become anti-social? Don't care how their friends, family, and associates view their behavior? Why should anyone care about what might transpire after they're dead? None of that has ever made a bit of sense to me. Does seem like the power of ridiculous suggestion simply repeated ad infinitum makes something "rational" even to a Jefferson.

 

[NotfooledbyW]

Does seem like the power of ridiculous suggestion simply repeated ad infinitum makes something "rational" even to a Jefferson.

There were no true atheists in western civilization when Jefferson grew up. When Jefferson refers to utility in the excerpt that I quoted, and he is looking at what happens if the civil order breaks down among the uneducated masses.

Jefferson was way too radical for his time.

He was opposed to the oppression over the mind committed by all the European Christian churches.

Jefferson had faith in humanity, that they could get there if they could be liberated from the church, and educated as to how to use reason in order to live a good life and maintain a civil society. ZHe thought I believe America would become a great agrarian based society if family farms and Deism and Unitarianism would provide the guiding light - Unfortunately he was wrong about the power the Christian churches had over the mind of irrational human beings

There was no society of atheists that a rational man like Jefferson could study and learn how it could work. The Christian churches of Europe, made sure of that.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

How Christian Slaveholders Used the Bible to Justify Slavery

Read an excerpt from 'The Great Stain: Witnessing American Slavery' by Noel Rae

time.com

How Christian Slaveholders Used the Bible to Justify Slavery​

 

[Grumblenuts]

Yes, atheists/agnostics are relatively commonplace today. Excerpt from Dan Barker (1995):

Millions of Americans are chagrined by the pretense that "family values" are an exclusive province of Christians or Jews, suggesting that the rest of us lack a compass for ethical behavior. Morality existed on this planet long before the Ten Commandments. Reason and kindness are all we need. We don't need a Bible or Lord to know how to live.

Jesus never used the word "family." He said, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." He never married or fathered children, and actually discouraged parenthood (Matthew 19:12). To his own mother, Jesus said, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" When a disciple requested time off for his father's funeral, Jesus rebuked him: "Let the dead bury their dead." These are hardly "family values."

Nowhere in the Bible do you find the warm-fuzzy nuclear family that modern American Christians champion.

Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword." The shameful litany of Christian oppression and warfare has fulfilled this prophecy. History and current headlines show that much evil has been committed in the name of religion. Are we all supposed to pretend otherwise?