Answering a "Christian Nation" E-mail

[Freedom_from_Chains]

There is an e-mail making the rounds with a set of arguments alleging to prove that the US is a "Christian Nation." The entire e- was taken directly, word for word, from this webpage: which was in turn taken from an article in Worldnetdaily, and which is quoted verbatim on what seems like hundreds of other webpages. I've put the original in italics and my responses in normal text.

We are a Christian nation.

A loaded beginning right off the bat. This statement could mean two very different things, and has been used to mean both things depending on who is speaking. Does this mean we are a nation made up mostly of Christians, whose culture has been highly influenced by Christianity? No one in their right mind would deny that very obvious truth. Or does it mean that we are an officially Christian nation, a nation whose government should endorse Christianity in a de jure or de facto manner? That is a far more controversial statement, one that even most Christians would likely oppose. Since the first one is painfully obvious to everyone, and thus pointless to argue on behalf of, we can safely assume that the author here is advocating the second option.

Immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of Scripture for the people of this nation.

Not quite true. The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776. The decision to import the bibles was not made until a year later. Some of the members of the Continental Congress were not even the same people who signed the declaration a year earlier. A little background here is important. After we declared independence from England, we lost access to nearly all imports from England, which was our primary source for English language books. A group of Presbyterians was concerned that there was no longer a source for English-language bibles and petitioned the Continental Congress to find a new source from which to import them. They began to look around and had settled on a source in Holland, but it never happened because the British took over Philadelphia and the Congress fled. An American printer began the job of printing them as a business decision, without any government prompting or money behind it.

More importantly, the Continental-Confederation Congress governed the US from 1774 to 1789 and wrote the articles of confederation, the first "constitution" of the US. The Articles of Confederation contained no provisions whatsoever preventing the government from declaring an official religion or endorsing a particular religion. But the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the US Constitution, written in 1787 and ratified in 1789. The US Constitution did contain clear language forbidding the federal government from declaring or endorsing a religious belief. So while the statement is true that the Continental Congress did this, it's also true that the constitutional system that allowed the action was changed by some of those same men to forbid it a few years later. Something obviously changed in the conception of government between 1777 and 1789. What was it?

See more arguments at: Answering a "Christian Nation" E-mail

[RobertSeattle]

1. The Nazi's thought Germany was a Christian Nation too

(Sorry to Godwin's Law this in one the of the first posts!)

"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press – in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past years." –Adolph Hitler

(From his first radio address after coming to power, 22 July 1933; The Speeches of Adolph Hitler 1922-1939 Vol. 1; Oxford University Press, 1942; p.871-872.)

[whistle]

2. This is white supremacy propaganda trash....

[NAO]

3. Document Signed by Pres. Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular

Document Signed by President Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular

Treaty of Tripoli


Unlike governments of the past, the American Fathers set up a government divorced from religion. The establishment of a secular government did not require a reflection to themselves about its origin; they knew this as an unspoken given. However, as the U.S. delved into international affairs, few foreign nations knew about the intentions of America. For this reason, an insight from at a little known but legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the United States to a foreign nation. Officially called the "Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary," most refer to it as simply the Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

found at this website:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html

[NAO]

4. Founding Father Tom Paine, the Freethought Movement, more

I think what we need is a Freethought movement similar to what the US had around the turn of the 20th century. Robert Ingersoll was touring the country, lecturing on secularism and exposing the claims of revealed religion to be false.

Unless something breaks the stranglehold of religious fundamentalism in the US - and in the world - I think we are going to continue the slide into Theocracy and destruction.

Would TV stations even dare run ads that exposed the claims of Christianity to be falsehoods? Could Freethinkers form an 'anti-Gideons' and leave copies of Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" and Robert Ingersoll's "Why I am Agnostic" in hotel rooms? Could Freethinkers produce tracts and pamphlets showing the contradictions in the Bible and exposing the rip-off of dozens of pagan beliefs and their incorporation into Christianity?

Could we have a Second Enlightenment, a Second Age of Reason? Could we re-secularize a world gone mad with religious superstition?

Robert Ingersoll's "Why I Am Agnostic"
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.html

Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason"
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/index.shtml

*****

From "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine (1795)

EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it. When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence.

It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.

It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand. The statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus. The deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints. The Mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything. The church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

[NAO]

5. Links, Resources for Secular America - Let's have a PAC and run TV ads!

I thin what we need to counter this type of crap is a Freethought PAC - One that would run aggressive attack ads on TV. "Freethinkers for Truth", or something along those lines, to debunk religious superstition using 30 second TV attack ads. They could feature "Great Moments in American Secularism and Freethought" with "Great American Freethinkers" like Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll.

If TV stations would not run the ads, we could pull the same, "help, help, I'm being repressed!" crap that the fundies are always whining about. And of course the refusal to run the ads would draw attention to the works of Paine and Ingersoll, which are in themselves a very effective antidote to religious superstition.

The Freethought Zone
Science and Reason Over Religion and Superstition
http://freethought.freeservers.com /

Freedom from Religion Foundation
http://www.ffrf.org /

Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org /

Secular Web
http://www.infidels.org/index.shtml

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason - Online
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/index.shtml

Complete Works of Robert Ingersoll - Online
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/index.shtml

[Cell Whitman]

6. The Declaration of Independence as proof is BS

Frederick Clarkson's blog is a must read for this stuff....

http://www.frederickclarkson.com/

___

http://www.frederickclarkson.com/2005/05/weakest-link.html

This idea is tremendously powerful. It asserts that "the Christians," (however one may define Christians), are the intended rulers of the nation, because that's what The Founding Fathers, and by extension, by implication, the Constitution sought to accomplish. In some versions, God intended that America be a Christian nation. Its a powerful piece of political and religious mythology that feeds into another powerful myth -- that Christians are persecuted in the U.S. The effect is to make people feel that something has been unustly, unrighteously taken from them and that that something must be "restored" or "reclaimed." Its a powerful narrative and it flows quite naturally from the mouths of D. James Kennedy, David Barton, Roy Moore, Pat Robertson, and many more. There is a large industry of text books, seminars, speech and power point presenters that inform and popularize the movement. Christian nationalism is integral to the political events sponsored by the Christian Coalition and it is a recurrent theme on Christian television and radio.

But for all of the work that has gone into crafting this narrative, and as popular a notion as it is, there is a problem: the facts of history do not support the myth of Christian nationalism. This is one of many aspects of the Christian Right that has been largely ignored and has gone largely unanswered by the rest of society during its march to power. ....

To some, the question of whether America was founded as a Christian nation, may seem academic, and perhaps even unimportant in the face of the urgent affairs of state in Washington, DC and elsewhere.

But I think that it is very important and deserves our urgent attention. The reason is that Christian nationalism is a powerful ingredient of the political and religious identity of the theocratic Christian Right. It is a powerful, quasi-religious myth that helps to animate their politics. It helps to prop up their attack on the separation of church and state and the idea that Christians, (only of the correct sort of course), should be our elected and appointed government officials -- among other things. What if many members of the voters who support the Christian Right realize that they have been had? That history does not support Christian nationalism? What if the rest of us, who support religious equality and separation of church and state are able to gain the upper hand in the telling of our story as a nation? It is a story that can be told by all of us, in our lives, in our writings, in our communities, in our medida.

There are many flaws in the argument for Christian nationalism, mostly because of lack of evidence. Advocates for Christian nationalism resort to two main tactics. One is to cherry pick quotes from various of the founding fathers (often out of context, sometimes fabricated), that tend to support their view. The other is to cite the Declaration of Independence, which invokes the "Creator." Much is made of the Declaration for this reason. Given the importance of the Declaration in our history, and the way we revere the document, it is a shrewd choice. But the Declaration does not prove what D. James Kennedy sought to use it to prove -- that America was founded as a Christian nation.

The Declaration, written in 1776 was a revolutionary manifesto, a political document used to rally people to rise up in revolt against the king of England. But the Constitution makes no mention of God or of Christianity. In fact, the only mention of religion in the Constitution is to state in article 6 that there will be no religious tests for public office. What this meant was that one's religious orientation would not be a factor in determining criteria for public officials. By logical extension, it also meant that religion would be irrelevant to one's status as a citizen. It meant that for the first time in the history of the world, we would have a nation based on religious equality.

The Constitution was written and signed by many of the same men who wrote and signed the Declaration. If they had wanted to include God and Christianity in the nation's charter, they certainly could have done so. But they didn't, and for very good reasons. And this is the problem faced by the Christian nationalists. The Constitution and everything about its history and development belies the assertions of the Christian nationalists. They did not invoke God or declare a Christian nation, it starts out simply, "We the People of the United States" -- no deities, no higher law. There would only be what "we the people" decided would be our laws and our governing principles, and how they would evolve over time. And thats why the Christian Right invokes the Declaration to anchor their argument. They have nio choice -- the Constitution does not suppor thier argument. Their argument is that weak, and they are that desperate. So far, they have pretty much gotten away with it.

The Christian Right of the 18th century opposed ratification of the Constitution when it was sent to the legislature for ratification. Part of the opposition centered on the lack of acknowledgement of God and Christianity in the Constitution. The Christian Right of the 18th century didn't like the Constitution when it was written -- and they don't like it now. So they pretend.

______________




John 5:43

[Maat]

7. I want to thank all of the posters here.

I took down the cites and the information.

I get so tired of responding to this type of crud (the "Christian Nation" proponents' crud); this helps.

I'm a person of faith (just happend to be non-Christian, although I fully support my progressive Christian friends, as I do my atheist-friends, and anyone else in between). I guess it is because I have friends from diverse backgrounds and cultures, and diverse belief systems, that I am the biggest proponent ever of the separation of church and state, and a proud member of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State ( www.au.org ).

Take care!

Peace!