@ Little Stevie: Traditions that are changed at a whim cease to be traditions.
If the founders and their political contemporaries saw themselves as a “Christian nation” in a legal-institutional sense, it is politically and religiously incomprehensible that the Senate would have endorsed such a statement.
That they did endorse this “separationist” statement evidences that they did not consider themselves to be a Christian “nation” in the legal-institutional sense.
Originally Posted by Little Stevie
What the Founding Fathers established was a nation without a state sanctioned religion; not a nation without Christianity. What people today forget, or don’t know, is the intolerance Catholics had towards Protestants (14th thru 19th centuries), and vice versa. Likewise, the Anglicans despised the Methodists, and vice versa. This back-and-forth persecution was what the Founding Fathers sought to avoid. But even without a state sanctioned religion, the U.S. had an undeniable religious tradition, and that religious tradition is founded in Christianity. Even as you bring up Sharia Law, you are admitting you know that U.S. laws are based on a Christian heritage that is different from non-Christian nations. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a point worth mentioning.
The United States declared itself a free and independent nation on 4 July 1776 with this statement:
“WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's
God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Here it’s very clear that the Founding Fathers, in this nation’s foundation document, are citing God as justification and cause for the founding of a new nation.” (Like NBC has problems with the Pledge, Obama has a problem citing the full text of this paragraph as written here. So who is attacking whom?)
Intellectually-lazy, atheistic activists commonly cite Article XI of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, quoted above, and they do so without providing historical context. They trust they can beguile the ignorant who know no better.
The true purpose for Article XI was to establish that the mutual differences between the two countries, the U.S. and Tripoli,—which did result in war—were not based on religion. This article made it clear to all parties that a “natural state of war” need not exist between the U.S. a Tripoli because of differences in religion. The norm until that time was quite the reverse. Furthermore, Article XI would help insure that U.S. captives were not horribly tortured and/or mutilated, since that was the common fare for prisoners of religious wars at that point in time in history.
Article XI was written as part of the Treaty of Tripoli to re-establish peace between two warring states. The document’s title more than suggests as much. Article XI was not written to prove that the U.S. had no Christian heritage at its founding, or surely it would have been so entitled.
The very man atheists try to employ in this charade was very much a dutiful Christian. John Adams biographer, David McCullough, writes: “On Sunday’s, the one day of respite from Congress, he [John Adams] was at church most of the day, attending service twice, even three times. With numerous denominations to choose from (everything except Congregational), he tried nearly all, the Anglican Christ Church, the meetinghouses of the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, the German Moravians – and passed judgment on them all, both their music and the comparative quality of their preaching.” Once he even attended mass at a Roman Catholic Church where he was awe struck by the majesty of the service and was left wondering how the Reformation ever succeeded (pp 83-84,
John Adams, by David McCullough).
Now, if you are honestly looking for a document written by John Adams attesting to his feelings about Christianity and the founding of the United States, please read the following:
“Without wishing to damp the Ardor of curiosity, or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction, that after the most industrious and impartial Researches,
the longest liver of you all, will find no Principles, Institutions, or Systems of Education, more fit, IN GENERAL to be transmitted to your Posterity, than those you have received from you[r] Ancestors.
"Who composed that Army of fine young Fellows that was then before my Eyes?
There were among them, Roman Catholicks, English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anababtists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists; and "Protestans qui ne croyent rien ["Protestants who believe nothing"]." Very few however of several of these Species.
Nevertheless all Educated in the general Principles of Christianity: and the general Principles of English and American Liberty.
"Could my Answer be understood, by any candid Reader or Hearer, to recommend, to all the others, the general Principles, Institutions or Systems of Education of the Roman Catholicks? Or those of the Quakers? Or those of the Presbyterians? Or those of the Menonists? Or those of the Methodists? or those of the Moravians? Or those of the Universalists? or those of the Philosophers? No.
"The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were united: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.
"Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System. I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present Information, that I believed they would never make Discoveries in contradiction to these general Principles. In favour of these general Principles in Phylosophy, Religion and Government, I could fill Sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Reausseau and Voltaire, as well as Neuton and Locke: not to mention thousands of Divines and Philosophers of inferiour Fame.”
Source: John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 28th, 1813, from Quincy.
The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, edited by Lester J. Cappon, 1988, the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, pp. 338-340.
The First Amendment does prohibit the Federal government from establishing a religion and requiring that all citizens subscribe to that same religion. The Founding Fathers rightly sought to prohibit; thus, avoid excesses similar to those wrought by Henry VIII, Bloody Mary and Cromwell in the name of a “state” religion. However, the First Amendment in no manner prohibits an individual’s right to worship, but instead guarantees that individual the right to express his religion through speech and the right to assemble with others to worship. This is a formal recognition by the state that religion has an important place in the society of its citizens. and that that right shall not be abridged by the state. If you doubt me, please read the First Amendment.
*The italicized and bold emphasis were my own except where grammatically required.