How to counter the "Our country was founded on Christianity" distortions...

[CoffeeCat]

I am currently researching this, and I am interested in any helpful resources that
counter this ever-growing misnomer about America being founded as "a Christian nation".

I'm hearing this argument crop up repeatedly! Radical Christians are suggesting that
our Founding Fathers were Christians and that we were originally founded as a Christian
nation.

I admit...I am not a skilled student of history. However, it is my understanding that the
Founding Fathers came here because they were running from a tyrannical theocracy that
had grown corrupt and oppressive. The Founding Fathers, I assumed, purposely didn't
set up a theocracy, or a Christian nation--because they understood the pitfalls and the
potential for abuse of power.

Didn't the Founding Fathers author the "separation of Church and state"?

I'm questioning everything that has been basic history, in my mind!

Does anyone have good resources or arguments to counter this nonsense?

I am researching too and I will post links as I find them.

P.S---I am not anti-Christian! However, it's come to the point that if you offer basic
historical fact--and don't agree that we are a "Christian Nation" founded on Christianity
by Christians---you are positioned as a horrible person.

[Caliman73]

1. There is an article on Salon.com that I posted yesterday

That gives some good insight as to why America cannot be called a Christian nation.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. The first thing to do is --

define "founders" -- are we talking about the European settlers that first came to these shores in ships like the Mayflower? Are we talking about the men who called for independence from England and created a sovereign nation from a group of colonies?

Let's start there --

[Caliman73]

12. It would obviously have to be the men who sought to create an independent nation

The people who came over from England had received charter from the British Crown to set up semi-autonomous colonies still loyal to the Crown, still subject to the laws of England, and agreeing to support the empire through tribute. The Founders of the United States are those people who a generation or two later, wanted to go a different way than monarchy and theocracy.

[Obamanaut]

3. Perhaps this can help a little.

This gives a breakdown of 204 signers of Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution. Perhaps it can help, but I don’t think so. I’ve had similar discussions with fundie relatives, and it usually goes nowhere. Most of those signees were of one of the christian denominations, but I don't think their plan was to make a christian nation.

http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

Regarding you P.S. - My fundie relatives do consider me a horrible person

[stopbush]

4. If you really want to build a cogent response, rather than spouting sound bites

and bromides that never seem to have a follow-up to them, you need to read a few books.

Start with Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby. After that, IIRC Hitchen's "God is not great" covers some of that territory as well.

[safeinOhio]

5. Here is a great resource

The Separation of Church and State, edited by Forrest Church. Some of the signers were Christian, some, not so much. The point is that the Founding Fathers, Christian or not, wanted the church and state separated. In this book you'll find writings by leading Baptist of the time argue for this separation. Great part about the Treaty of Tripoli. President John Adams approved and the full Senate ratified. "As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christioan Religion...." The latest counter to this treaty by the Fundies is that it is taken out of context. Just provide the complete Article ll of the treaty and ask how it is taken out of context.
The author, Forrest Church the senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City. You have to love the UU Church.

[chaplainM]

6. +1

That quote from the treaty of Tripoli should give any thinking person pause.

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

7. It's also about defining "Christian"

The orthodox folks assume that only their own "take" on Christianity is valid. They insist on being the "gatekeepers" of who is and is not allowed to be Christians. However, the Founders were mostly rationalists, critical questioners. One of the descriptions I've followed for some time calls them (by far the majority of them) as "theistic rationalists." Their version of Christianity was far more "unorthodox" than those who today want to claim them would ever be comfortable with.

I recommend the following blog which is devoted primarily to the issue of the Founding and getting to the actual facts about the religious principles that went into it. Jon is an attorney and college professor;

http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/

Again, the "Christian Nation" people want you to believe that the nation was founded on orthodoxy but nothing could be further from the truth. The founders were (by a wide majority) a conflomeration of deists, unitarians (small u before they organized) and universalists (also small u). Church affiliations aside (because they were less religiously motivated than just plain socially expedient) Washington, Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, the Adamses, Madison, Monroe, even Lincoln were all unorthodox in their religious views. The Christian Right refuses to admit this, of course, but that's too bad.

[Political Tiger]

8. Founding Fathers on religion:

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." -Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797), signed by John Adams

"Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." -John Adams (letter to Charles Cushing, October 19, 1756)

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" -John Adams (letter to Thomas Jefferson)

"Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind." -John Adams

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and State." -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Danbury Baprists, Jan/1/1802

"...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion, which was rejected By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination." -Thomas Jefferson

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry" -Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law" -Thomas Jefferson

"In every country and in 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." -Thomas Jefferson

"The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind ... to filch wealth and power to themselves. , in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ." -Thomas Jefferson

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God." -Thomas Jefferson

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." -Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus." -Thomas Jefferson

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short

"(E)very one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U.S. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808

"I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. We ought with one heart and one hand to hew down the daring and dangerous efforts of those who would seduce the public opinion to substitute itself into that tyranny over religious faith which the laws have so justly abdicated."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." -George Washington (letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792)

"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause." -George Washington (letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792)

"...the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction." -George Washington, (1789, responding to clergy complaints that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ)

"...I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution." -George Washington (to United Baptists Churches of Virginia, May, 1789)

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries" -James Madison

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." -James Madison

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." -James Madison

"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy." -James Madison

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.'' - James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789)

"(T)he number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State."
-James Madison, Letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819

"The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity."
-James Madison, Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec. 3, 1821

"We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt."
-James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." -Thomas Paine

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of....Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and of my own part, I disbelieve them all." -Thomas Paine

"All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." -Thomas Paine

"Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy can forgive sins ... and you will have sins in abundance. I would not dare to dishonor my Creator's name by it to this filthy book ." -Thomas Paine

"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion." -Thomas Paine

"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 (from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780)

"That religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience." - Patrick Henry (Virginia Bill of Rights, June 12, 1776.)

[Duer 157099]

9. In your PS: why do you equate being anti-christian = horrible person?

I personally think that pro-christians are horrible people

[Political Tiger]

10. Christian Nation Challenge!

The challenge is simple, really; provide the Biblical passages from which the following essential aspects of the American legal/governmental system have been derived:

- Government by officials elected by the governed (republican democracy)
- Separation of powers (executive, legislative, judicial)
- Trial by a jury of one's peers
- Presumption of innocence
- Freedom from cruel or unusual punishment
- Freedom from involuntary self-incrimination
- Freedom of speech and assembly
- Prohibition of the establishment of religion
- Right to keep and bear arms
- The concept (embodied in both the DOI and Constitution) that the power to govern resides with the governed and is granted by them to elected officials

Secular and historical models and sources for all of these are available, some of them pre-dating Christianity. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to come up with Biblical ones that are at least as clear. Without them, claims that the American system of government is based on the Bible are unsupported, no matter how many quotes you post demonstrating this or that founder's belief in a God of some sort and no matter how much idolatry you insist on practicing on public land.

[conscious evolution]

21. Most excellant reply

I will be using it,if you don't mind.

[Coffee and Cake]

11. The fact that we have the BoR rather than the 10 commandments speaks volumes

As does the fact that many of our Founding Fathers were deist and critics of Christianity. God is not found in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. Jefferson speaks of God in the DoI, but that is a nature's god (i.e. Deist God). Jefferson denied Jesus's divinity, which no practicing Christian does without the threat of eternal damnation. Thomas Paine's Age of Reason drew Christians into a fervor.

We also have the establishment clause, which is a prohibitory rule stating that the government cannot endorse or favor any religion--thus creating a secular government.

Article 11 in the Treaty of Tripoli also emphasizes that we are not a Christian Nation: "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 tranquility 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."

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796t.asp

If we are a Christian Nation, then why is our foreign policy so anti-Christian? Jesus taught to "turn the other cheek" and "love thy enemy", not to declare a pre-emptive war against a nation that never attacked us.

[CoffeeCat]

13. Thank you for the wise responses...

These responses are most helpful, and I'm sure others reading these responses have appreciated
the information.

This is a good thread, because people took the time to post very wise and informative links and thoughts.

Thank you, DU!

[Mariana]

14. The Constitution directly violates some of the Ten Commandments.

If the Founders had been forming a Christian nation they would never have done that.

For example, just off the top of my head:

Freedom of Religion vs. You will have no other gods besides me.

Freedom of Speech vs. You will not take the name of the Lord in vain.

Freedom of Religion vs. You will not worship idols.

Freedom of Religion vs. You will observe the sabbath.

Two of the Commandments are thought crimes: You will honor your mother and father and You will not covet thy neighbor's goods. Punishing people for their thoughts is definitely an Un-American concept.

[Obamanaut]

18. I think we may have strayed into the thought crime area with the

enactment of enhanced penalties for what are considered hate crimes. Since we don't really know what is in a person's mind when a particular crime is committed, we assume for some of them that the offender was thinking hateful thoughts when he/she bludgeoned someone or dragged them behind a pickup truck.

[Mariana]

22. Yes, that's true

but you still have to commit a REAL crime to be eligible for prosecution for a so-called hate crime. At any rate, the Founders didn't write hate crime laws into the Constition. Just because it's done now doesn't make it one bit less Un-American.

[Obamanaut]

23. I think it's more 1984ish. If a person is bludgeoned with a baseball

bat, the bludgeoner may be charged with what he may have been thinking at the time of the bludgeoning. There can be no proof of the thought processes, but the police/prosecutors make a judgement based in large part on the bludgeonee vs bludgeoner - race, sexual orientation, etc.

If the victim dies, he is just as dead whether or not any actual "hatred" existed, but the doer is eligible for enhanced penalties based on what "they" decided the doer was thinking. Thus, a thought crime.

[malaise]

15. I thought it was founded on the blood of the indigenous people

and slavery.

gr

[Toucano]

16. Thomas Jefferson's letters make his opinion clear.

I hope this helps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_religion

I know it's wikipedia, but you can use to to find more legitimate sources.

[Orsino]

17. Well, for Christians, the Founders sure managed to avoid mentioning Christ...

...in the relevant documents.

[ikri]

19. It's worth remembering

The USA came into existence when the states broke away from British control.

Britain was (and still is) a country where the head of state (the king) was also the head of the Church of England. Wars, such as the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, had been fought not too many years prior to the American revolution (within living memory) by the British Crown to prevent Catholics from retaking the throne.

The founding fathers had a genuine experience of a state where government and church were one and the same and would have doubtless wanted to avoid creating a new state in the fashion of the same state(s) that their families had, in some cases, come to America to avoid.

[LostInAnomie]

20. The first thing is to get them to clearly define "founders".

In most cases, they either have no clue, or the include anyone back to the Pilgrims. If they go all the way back to the Pilgrims simply say that the Pilgrims had nothing to do with founding the governmental structure of the US. If they say the signers of the Declaration of Independence or those that took park in the writing of the Constitution, insist that actually find you one example in those founding documents that mentions Christianity. If they try to say "creator" in the DoI means the Christian God throw the Treaty of Tripoli in their face that says point blank that the US was not founded as a Christian nation.

[dkofos]

24. Your'e wasting your time. Even when confronted with FACTS they refuse

to believe that the founding fathers intention was
to create a secular nation.