America was NOT founded as a christian nation

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The founders signed a treaty affirming that the US was NOT founded as a christian nation

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[dchill]

1. IKR?

[Irish_Dem]

2. The GOP just makes up crap as they go.

Any lie possible to further their takeover of the country.

[MadameButterfly]

12. I wonder how hard it would be to find some things they've said that were true

They must say some true things sometimes, some times when the truth actually serves them, or maybe by mistake. I just haven't noticed lately and must try harder.

[Irish_Dem]

13. I am going to look for the GOP actually telling the truth.

Yes it seems like from time to time they would tell the truth.
When it serves them to do so.

[Cosmocat]

14. True story

nm

[keithbvadu2]

3. that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist= ;

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. "Who does not see," he wrote, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.

[slightlv]

6. Oh, yes...

may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects

And this is exactly what they intend on doing. The NAR (aka Dominionists) intend for everyone to follow their version of Christianity, and it ain't pretty. Look them up and see just how many decades they've been working to make this country into a theocracy!
And yet, just last night, I read one of their "Apostles" deny they want a theocracy. Don't believe them. They can lie, cheat, even murder... and as long as they do it in the name of God, they believe all is forgiven for them. The NAR is simply the Dominionists, and most Evangelical and Charismatic churches flying the Dominionist banner... this will probably also include the Southern Baptist Organization (as well as many of the churches). They intend to have ONLY "good" Christians in places of power throughout the country... government, education, entertainment, etc. There are 7 "Mountains" they intend to rule. When they do, they will rule every aspect of our life. A theocracy by any other name is still theocracy!

[sanatanadharma]

4. One can not get more 'origionalist' than this

[twodogsbarking]

5. Why don't school children recite this every day.

Happy Day Mothers.

[Model35mech]

7. I suspect thinking that depends on how one invisions 'the founding"

Was it "pilgrims" establishing the Mayflower Compact
Or was it the act of putting in place the Constitution?

In many of these 'ur' debates over America's founding, the words that are used mean different things to different people.

[wnylib]

16. We were not a nation until the Declaration of Independence.

The Mayflower pilgrims were colonial subjects of Britain. So, no, the Pilgrims were not the founders of the nation. The Mayflower Compact was their government. The US constitution is our government.

[Model35mech]

18. Well, sort of, but IMO, "America" didn't really emerge on one day with the stroke of a pen

Yes, of course, there is an undeniable date when those pen strokes took place. And, if a person leans into that it can seem like a nice clean demarcation of the "Founding" in time. People like nice clean answers with some evidence to which they can point at...

But, seriously that date wouldn't have happened without a series of steps that formed an economy, and an independence favoring gestalt that had to be grown. The arguments, and sentiments of the time either produced fruitful expectations or 'weeds, and those were the basis of years more of discussion/debates about what the country should look like (think about how those discussions played out inThe Federalist Papers, and other newspaper editorials). All that sort of thing produced earlier failed attempts at governing documents, and ultimately produced what some people think of as granite (aka written in stone) standards for government, and other people think of as enabling an on-going series of experiments that allow governance to adapt and change to meet (or not) the political tides of American sentiments about their governance and prevailing power centers in our society.

Despite the nice clean dates, that make history tests and museum documents able to reference facts and evidence, I am of the opinion that the "Founding" was a long series of developments. And it's rather muddled and crooked path. People on the Left and the Right and Middle under the influence of their interests and personal proclivities choose to see some of these things as critical seminal events along the path of the emerging "Founding". Others don't see those same things with the same gravity. This is human nature.

We have human propensities to see and talk supportively about things that agree with the view(s) we accept, and that support our arguments and rationalizations. The others we try to figure out how to diminish. Recently, the 1619 Project emerged and attempted to reveal African slavery the core agenda item of "The Founding". I think that event is a useful example of the point I'm making.

We choose and construct the histories we live with, and those histories compete with each other for influence in our current lives and futures, important historical documents notwithstanding.

[wnylib]

19. I have some familiarity with the various events and cultural changes that took place

between the Pilgrims of 1620 and and the DOI of 1776. On one side of one grandparent's family, my ancestry goes back to 1636 in Winthrop's Massachusetts Bay Colony. Not quite Plymouth, but not far behind.

Nothing quite like following the events in each generation to get a good view of history and the developments that transformed people over a century and a half to the point of Independence. Of course that involved other parts of the colonies besides New England, but the point is that it took those decades of events and cultural, economic, and political transformation and evolution to produce a new, independent nation with a separate identity in people's minds from the mother country.

There is no separate nation without the concept of one. And it does not occur until the concept is acted on, successfully.

So I don't view the Pilgrims or 1619 as the founding or start of the nation. The beginning of nationhood, of a unified identity as one independent body, was not inevitable, even with all those years of events and changes. So the people of the late 18th century were the crafters and founders of the nation. The one they produced was quite different from the Plymouth Colony because of all the influences that developed later, not because of a single charter in a single location in North America.

[Model35mech]

21. I am sure you do have familiarity, btw my 11th GGF help found Southampton Long Island

He and his family didn't like their treatment in Lynn/ aka Saugus, Mass where they arrived sometime after its founding in 1629. Family lore says he was apparently much displeased at being given an allotment of too swampy land to his liking when he fulfilled his obligations to the colony. Along with six other men, they bought a boat and sailed their families to Long Island. My family did not ride on the Mayflower either, there is some difficulty with figuring exactly when they did arrive, there were apparently at least 2 ships going by the name Lyon that trafficked with the MB Colony. That the family isn't named on any ships manifest has been interpreted as having been given passage by his brother who, again according to lore rather than record, was his brother.

But to my point.

Dates of signing of the founding documents are rather more about memorializing the completion of the political projects than anything else. Historians now believe that the Declaration of Independence wasn't signed on July 4th but rather in August. Which does nothing to diminish its significance.

That document does do a good job of listing the history of precursor colonial grievances that rationalize, and imo and that of the Continental Congress do legitimize there move to become independent.

You, and others, may not see the precursor events as significant to the founding, but others do. I have no grievance with the choices of people around that issue, be they concerned with specific dates or the development of the independence movement.

It happened. We are here.

[wnylib]

22. I'm not particularly hung up on specific dates for the founding.

Any time from the 1770s through the 1780s works for me. There were occasional temporary alliances of some colonies prior to then, but they were mostly for shared negotiations with various tribes or for joint financial exercises without plans for a unified government separate from Britain. There was Franklin's Albany Plan which never got off the ground. And there was the influence of the Iroquois Confederacy suggesting that the colonies unite because the Iroquois were exasperated with dealing with the colonies separately in negotiations. Franklin printed the minutes of the meeting when that suggestion was made and liked the idea.

The quartering of British troops in people's homes, which showed up in colonial complaints in the DOI, did not begin until after the French and Indian raid on Deerfield, MA in 1704. Colonists welcomed their help at first and requested it, but when the numbers of British regulars increased significantly during the 1760s French and Indian wars, colonists resented it.

In fact, it was the Brits who, ironically, initiated a sort of freedom of religion in the colonies (except Rl where it already existed). The Puritan Congregationalists did not permit other religions in their colonies until they were ordered to allow C of E churches for the British soldiers.

So it took many decades for a distinctly American self identity and set of political and social values to evolve. Out of the experiences that created a distinct identity, plus some well educated leaders (founders) during the Enlightenment period, the possibility of creating a nation developed.

I'm lucky, for my own personal interest and for insights on colonial and early US history, that my ancestors left a traceable trail beyond just names, dates, and locations. They became minor legends in their communities so that local records mention them, or participated in larger events so that some of them appear in books about the period. I learned about them from records, not family stories. The only thing I knew before tracing them is that they were colonists in MA and CT.

So, through the lives of those people I got a glimpse of how life and society changed over the decades.

[Uncle Joe]

8. That conflict contributed to the Marines Corp's Hymm

"From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli"

Thanks for the thread LetMyPeopleVote

[calimary]

9. 1797. That's the date of these documents.

[surfered]

10. The founding fathers were much closer in time to..

…the time of religious strife between Catholics and Protestants...the persecution, burnings at the stake, and the wars. That’s why they wanted a separation of church and state.

[Wonder Why]

11. In fact, the Southerners made sure that unChristian portions on race, voting and gender were in the Constitution.

[NanaCat]

15. Atheists have pointed out this fact for all of my life

And yet it doesn't sink in. Worse, when was the last time any of us saw this mentioned whenever church-state issues come up in media articles or shows?

Never, that's when it happened. Our traitor media makes sure of it.

[BoRaGard]

17. Facts are always spoiling Republican's 'Christian' lies

Naughty facts, so incovenient.

Hey, I thought Christ was against lies?

Someone should tell the GOP they are all going to Hell.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. Christian nationalists spread blatant falsehoods about the Founding Era and the Founding Fathers,

The concept that the US is a christian nation is based on lies

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