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Do you think this country was founded upon Christianity?

Do you think the U.S. was intended to be a Christian Nation?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 19.4%
  • No

    Votes: 99 68.8%
  • other

    Votes: 17 11.8%

  • Total voters
    144
pb, I found an article that she wrote about it instead of watching the video. She claims that the Congress never authorized The Bible and never said it should be used in schools, yes?
How come there is no link to the article she wrote? :(
The point of the video was the revisionist David Barton and Glenn Beck that the Bible was printed by Congress is pure BS. Their point being that the founding fathers meant for the teaching of the Bible in schools and of course the Bible was subsequently taken out of the schools.

Chris Rodda points out the reason Congress authorized the Bible was because it was an accurate reproduction and nothing else. You should really watch the video as she destroys revisionist David Barton.

No, Mr. Beck, Congress Did Not Print a Bible for the Use of Schools on Vimeo
 
Does any aspect of our government come from Christianity itself as opposed to the beliefs and traditions of people who happen to be Christian?
 
Does any aspect of our government come from Christianity itself as opposed to the beliefs and traditions of people who happen to be Christian?

The rights we have are there because the founders believed that the Christian God has given them to us.
 
pb, I read her article....I'm sure you can find it on her site....she doesn't "destroy" David Barton at all. She agrees that Congress approved the production of the Bible. Congress also knew it was being printed in order to use in schools.

I assume you're talking about when Glenn and David showed the Bible and said, "Congress printed this Bible". Well, of course government didn't print the Bible. They misspoke there. They meant Congress APPROVED the printing. Glenn read it right off the page in the Bible. He shouldn't have said "Congress printed this Bible."

I think she's grasping at straws in order to find just SOMETHING to complain about. And if you call that "destroying" David Barton....that's just ridiculous.
 
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The rights we have are there because the founders believed that the Christian God has given them to us.

Uh No. The rights we have are there because we have a government to enforce them.

Read more Heinlein, especially the part in the novel "Starship Troopers" about the inherent nature of rights.

"Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'?

As to liberty, the heroes who signed that great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is always unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it is always vanquished. Of all the so-called 'natural human rights' that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost."
 
WOW white people with European heritages coming from state controlled religions who would have thunk that might have had an influence on them.

In the end we are a secular nation.

No we are not. We are a nation predominantly of Christians with a secular government.
 
Religions raise and contribute billions of dollars to the problems of poverty and illness on this planet. They educate children. They practically single handedly take care of AIDS patients in most cities, providing medicine and shelter for them. They throw great parties like Mardi Gras and Christmas.

Why would anybody hate religion?
 
The Founders were almost to a man devoutly religious and held the belief that our rights come from God and no government authority. Even the very few who were agnostic or Atheist appreciated and embraced the principle that rights emanate from no human authority and not one quibbled with that being described as God-given. Almost all of the Founders were also Christian and thus their concept of right and wrong, justice and injustice, as well as their definition of unalienable rights were based on Christian concepts. Most believed that if their Christian God did not bless this nation, it would not prevail. And all believed that the Constitution would work only for people of moral virtue and most believe that virtue would be Christian virtue.

Evenso, they were to a man keenly aware of the danger of the government favoring any religious belief over any other. They agreed to a man that government should have no authority over a person's religious faith nor would any religious authority have power over the government. The government could grant no favor or impose any consequence on any person for what he did or did not believe.

But with those safeguards in place, both government and all the people were totally free to be as religious or non religious as they chose in any manner that they chose. Elected representatives frequently expressed their religious faith even on the floor of Congress and they held religious services in the congressional chambers. And despite evident religious conviction included in much of what they did, no federal theocracy developed. And the theocracies that existed within some of the states eventually dissolved never to reform. The system worked beautifully by forbidding any religious mandate while passionately protecting religion.

So was the country founded as a Christian nation? No way.
Did the Founders expect that it would be mostly a Christian nation and therefore much stronger because it was? Yes they did.
 
I hear all the time that "this is a Christian Nation". Do you think this is so.

I am going to go ahead and say anyone who truly thinks this country was meant to be a Christian nation is a complete moron. The founding fathers were secularist, there is some evidence indicating Thomas Jefferson was at least agnostic.

" The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes; fools and hypocrites. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." -Thomas Jefferson

I think it's a Christian default to feel that any reference to "God" or "a higher power" is automatically pointing to "The Chrstian God" - barring all others immediately from thought.

I think the belief that we're founded on Christian Principles is more telling of what Christians think of their religion in regards to our country rather than what our Country thinks of religion.
 
I think our country was founded by Christians, but is not based ON Christian beliefs. These things aren't one and the same. That's where a lot of Christians get hung up. Were a lot of our founding fathers religious? Sure they were. No one seriously disputes that, though there were a few deists and atheists amongst them. However, none of our founding documents were based upon Christian tenets. The constitution has zero connection to Mosaic, Abrahamic, or even Judaic law, or the teachings of Christ. The constitution and declaration of independence were based upon Enlightenment ideals and a variety of ancient systems of government: Roman, Greek, and Germanic.

The "Enlightenment" was not a single movement or school of thought, for these philosophies were often mutually contradictory or divergent. The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it was a set of values. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science. Thus, there was still a considerable degree of similarity between competing philosophies.[2] Some historians also include the late seventeenth century, which is typically known as the Age of Reason or Age of Rationalism, as part of the Enlightenment; however, most historians consider the Age of Reason to be a prelude to the ideas of the Enlightenment.[3]
Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Enlightenment Era, while not explicitly anti-religion, followed the Age of Reason during which a lot of accepted truths, about government, the right of kings, and the right of the church to control the lives and thoughts of mankind, were critically examined and rejected.
 
pb, I read her article....I'm sure you can find it on her site....she doesn't "destroy" David Barton at all. She agrees that Congress approved the production of the Bible. Congress also knew it was being printed in order to use in schools.

I assume you're talking about when Glenn and David showed the Bible and said, "Congress printed this Bible". Well, of course government didn't print the Bible. They misspoke there. They meant Congress APPROVED the printing. Glenn read it right off the page in the Bible. He shouldn't have said "Congress printed this Bible."

I think she's grasping at straws in order to find just SOMETHING to complain about. And if you call that "destroying" David Barton....that's just ridiculous.
That is completely ridiculous!

I assume you're talking about when Glenn and David showed the Bible and said, "Congress printed this Bible". Well, of course government didn't print the Bible. They misspoke there. They meant Congress APPROVED the printing. Glenn read it right off the page in the Bible. He shouldn't have said "Congress printed this Bible."
They didn't misspeak, the point that the Bible was printed by Congress was made more than once. In the video Glenn Beck says emphatically that the Bible was "PRINTED BY CONGRESS, BY CONGRESS!!!"

Congress also knew it was being printed in order to use in schools.

Excerpt from Chris Rodda's article on Huffpo:
There are many versions of this story floating around, all worded to mislead that Congress either requested the printing of the Bibles, granted Aitken permission to print them, contracted him to print them, paid for the printing, or had Bibles printed for the use of schools. Congress did none of these things. All they did was grant one of several requests made by Aitken by having their chaplains examine his work, and allowing him to publish their resolution stating that, based on the chaplains' report, they were satisfied that his edition was accurate. The words "a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools" are taken from a letter written by Aitken,(8) not the resolution of Congress.

The actual resolution is edited in various ways. The purpose of this editing is to omit that Congress also had a secular reason for recommending Aitken's Bible, and, in most cases, to turn the resolution into a recommendation of the Bible itself, rather than a recommendation of the accuracy of Aitken's work.

The following is the entire resolution:

Whereupon, Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled, highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report, of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorise him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper.(9)

You can read the entire article at the Huffington Post:

Chris Rodda: No, Mr. Beck, Congress Did Not Print a Bible for the Use of Schools
 
I hear all the time that "this is a Christian Nation". Do you think this is so.

I am going to go ahead and say anyone who truly thinks this country was meant to be a Christian nation is a complete moron. The founding fathers were secularist, there is some evidence indicating Thomas Jefferson was at least agnostic.

" The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes; fools and hypocrites. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." -Thomas Jefferson

I am going to go ahead and say that anybody who makes such a broad and ignorant statement about others being morons should think long and hard before making such irrational statements.

America is absolutely a Christian Nation and there is no rational argument to the contrary...
All this talk about the Founding Fathers is irrelevant and completely off point...
The Founding Fathers only created the government, the government is not the "Nation"...

nation[ney-shuhn] Show   IPA
–noun
1. a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own: The president spoke to the nation about the new tax.
2. the territory or country itself: the nations of Central America.
3. a member tribe of an American Indian confederation.
4. an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages.


Nation | Define Nation at Dictionary.com

The problem is that there is no state, other than Israel, that is a Religious State. So when we use a term like "A Chistian Nation" it is a set-up at best. It is a term used to describe the people within it, when it is not relevant to the nation as an entity. It describes the people within, and it is accurate.

Several of the original Thirteen Colonies were established by English settlers who wished to practice their own religion without discrimination: Pennsylvania was established by Quakers, Maryland by Roman Catholics and the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Puritans. Nine of the thirteen colonies had official public religions. ... Many U.S. adult citizens identify themselves as Christians (76%)... non-Christian religions (including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and others) collectively make up about 4% ... Only 59% of Americans living in Western states report a belief in God, yet in the South (the "Bible Belt") the figure is as high as 86% ...

Religion in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Christian: (78.4%)
Protestant (51.3%)
Roman Catholic (23.9%)
LDS (1.7%)

Jehovah's Witness (0.7%)
Orthodox (0.6%)
other Christian (0.3%)
no religion (16.1%)
Jewish (1.7%)
Buddhist (0.7%)
Muslim (0.6%)
Hindu (0.4%)
other (1.2%)

Religion in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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Religions raise and contribute billions of dollars to the problems of poverty and illness on this planet. They educate children. They practically single handedly take care of AIDS patients in most cities, providing medicine and shelter for them. They throw great parties like Mardi Gras and Christmas.

Why would anybody hate religion?

No doubt. Religions, with all of their wars and such, do MUCH more good than harm. Especially Christians here in America. It is just like the America-bashers out there that totally discount that the USA gives more aid to the world than all the other nations of the Earth combined.
 
I think you would be surpised at just how many of them thought that religion was a bad thing.

You are confusing the founding father's desire to protect the US from religious domination as a hatred of religion. All the founding fathers are on record establishing their faiths in God, they just had the plain good sense of protecting government from any one religion. If they had "despised" religion as you have stated, they simply could have made the public and/or private worship of ANY religion illegal as has been done in many countries.
 
No doubt. Religions, with all of their wars and such, do MUCH more good than harm. Especially Christians here in America. It is just like the America-bashers out there that totally discount that the USA gives more aid to the world than all the other nations of the Earth combined.

There have been far more wars fought for other than religious reasons than there have been for religious reasons.
 
There have been far more wars fought for other than religious reasons than there have been for religious reasons.

I disagree. Almost every war, genocid etc has religious implications from the Inquisition to the conquering of the New World. Bosnia. Israel/Arabs. The Crusades. Rwanda. First Peloponnesian War. Protostant/Catholic wars, Muslim/Christian wars... etc. The basis is that one group is attacking another based off of a difference in religion. Even the War on Terror is a religious one. The US Civil War was not, many are not... but most are. Sure, money, land and other factors can and generally are a major reason, but they are only reasons used as excuses to attack those people with differering religious views.

This is a tangent argument though...
 
I disagree. Almost every war, genocid etc has religious implications from the Inquisition to the conquering of the New World. Bosnia. Israel/Arabs. The Crusades. Rwanda. First Peloponnesian War. Protostant/Catholic wars, Muslim/Christian wars... etc. The basis is that one group is attacking another based off of a difference in religion. Even the War on Terror is a religious one. The US Civil War was not, many are not... but most are. Sure, money, land and other factors can and generally are a major reason, but they are only reasons used as excuses to attack those people with differering religious views.

This is a tangent argument though...

Wars fought between people who are predominately of different religions doesn't make the basis of the war religious. There are some of course, like the crusades, based almost entirely on religion. To be honest, even that was more a religion of control using religion to recruit rather than a religious war.
 
I'm sorry you think quotes from our Founders are "crap". Maybe you should read them sometime instead of just basing your opinions on your own feelings.

Oh trust me I know all about our founding Fathers and have sense enough to know that some were Agnostic and some were Deists.

Also all one must do is read the Federalist Papers to see the answer to this question is no.
 
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Religions raise and contribute billions of dollars to the problems of poverty and illness on this planet. They educate children. They practically single handedly take care of AIDS patients in most cities, providing medicine and shelter for them. They throw great parties like Mardi Gras and Christmas.

Why would anybody hate religion?

And on the other hand people die in the name of religion daily. Guess it all evens out, huh?
 
That is completely ridiculous!


They didn't misspeak, the point that the Bible was printed by Congress was made more than once. In the video Glenn Beck says emphatically that the Bible was "PRINTED BY CONGRESS, BY CONGRESS!!!"



Excerpt from Chris Rodda's article on Huffpo:


The following is the entire resolution:



You can read the entire article at the Huffington Post:

Chris Rodda: No, Mr. Beck, Congress Did Not Print a Bible for the Use of Schools

LOL! I don't read HuffPo articles. I agree that Congress didn't themselves PRINT the Bible. They APPROVED the Bible for the use in schools. Yes, for the use in schools. That's what Aitken was asking for in his petition (did you read the actual documents or just leftie opinions on the topic?). He specifically said he wanted to publish the Bible for SCHOOLS to use. Congress approved of it and recommended it.

For Barton to be "destroyed" she would've had to have proved that Congress had nothing to do with this Bible. She didn't and she can't.
 
Oh trust me I know all about our founding Fathers and have sense enough to know that some were Agnostic and some were Deists.

Also all one must do is read the Federalist Papers to see the answer to this question is no.

Fabulous! I'll await your dissertation on exactly who was agnostic and who was a Deist since you "know all about our founding Fathers".

And I take it you think none were Christians?
 
Anyone who voted yes is without a doubt a moron.

Now to actually contribute to the thread:

Let's go through the headlining founding fathers one by one, listing their religious affiliation.

Ben Franklin - Deist
http://www.adherents.com/people/pf/Benjamin_Franklin.html

George Washington - Contested, possibly Christian, possibly Deist. Not a strong advocate of either belief
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/religion/religiongw.html

John Adams - Devout non-trinitarian Christian
http://www.adherents.com/people/pa/John_Adams.html

Thomas Jefferson - Anti-religious to a degree, Deist
I don't think I need to dig up a link for this, but if you would like one I would be happy to oblige

James Madison - Didn't search hard enough to find his belief system, but he was firmly in favor of the separation of church and state
http://member.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qmadison.htm

Alexander Hamilton - Devout Christian, in opposition of the separation of church and state
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/cdf/onug/hamilton.html


So let's see. That tallies up to two devout Christians, one who I find to be opposed to separating church and state vs. four who were in favor of the separation of church and state.
 
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I just don't understand where the morons who want prayer in public school and their ten commandments on federal property get this Idea that it is what America was built for. I mean a quick glance at some quotes from the founding fathers and they will see they very much despised the bible and the church.

Good point, that explains why three days before enacting the Bill of Rights, Congress passed a law allocating funds for a chaplain to open each of its sessions with prayer: They just wanted him there so they could tell them how much they despised the bible and church.
 
Fabulous! I'll await your dissertation on exactly who was agnostic and who was a Deist since you "know all about our founding Fathers".

And I take it you think none were Christians?

Even if half of the founding fathers were devout Christians, that would not be enough for America to have been firmly established as a Christian nation. Every founding father would have been required to be Christian if the U.S. was intended to be a Christian nation.
 
Even if half of the founding fathers were devout Christians, that would not be enough for America to have been firmly established as a Christian nation. Every founding father would have been required to be Christian if the U.S. was intended to be a Christian nation.

You're arguing against a position that absolutely no one has claimed. Saying that many of the founders were Christians or that most of the founders were influenced by Christianity is not the same as saying that every single founding father was a devout christian seeking to create a theocracy.
 
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