Need help: Debating a FReeper who says this country was founded on God

[JohnnyCougar]

I know there is tons of material about the founding fathers warning us about the influence of God in politics. I have seen it before, but I haven't bookmarked anything. Anyone have some links?

[Barrett808]

1. Maybe Deism.com?

http://www.deism.com/

[deadmessengers]

2. Google for "Treaty of Tripoli" n/t

[Nickster]

Self Delete

[Nickster]

3. There ya go. Exactly it.

[Nickster]

5. Self Delete

[rucky]

8. great minds think alike

:)

[converted_democrat]

13. Very good advice.n/t

[rucky]

4. google: Treaty of Tripoli

it's all you need.

[rpgamerd00d]

6. Try this.

You could not be MORE wrong about this country being founded on judeo-christian ideals.

Thomas Jefferson: "Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law."
George Washington: "The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."
James Madison: "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
John Adams: "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

To all of those who believe that our founding fathers founded this country on religion, most notably Christianity... please re-think your position. These are the same founding fathers who are viewed as great men, who are quoted unequivocally and whose ideas and laws are considered the best-laid of any in history.

It is ridiculous when things such as the following are accepted:
- In 1854, the House Judiciary Committee said: "in this age, there is no substitute for Christianity...That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants."

This is absolutely not the case.

Thomas Jefferson said each of the following:

- "The Christian god can be easily pictured as virtually the same 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 the people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."

- "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man"

- "The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible"

Lastly, Article 11 of The Treaty of Tripoli, ratified and unanimously approved by the Senate in 1797, and signed by John Adams:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion..."

These men founded our country and these are their opinions... stop throwing that "America was founded on Christian beliefs" crap at us... it's just NOT TRUE.

[rucky]

Wow. You're quick.

Welcome to DU

[rpgamerd00d]

12. Not quick, just have that saved as a txt file :)

Thanks :)

[JohnnyCougar]

14. Are there links to those quotes on a site that would be deemed credible?

By a Freeper?

[Ready4Change]

34. There will be one problem.

The only sites a true freeper will deem credible will be ones that support their views. Anything else will be dismissed as wacky liberalism.

Good luck.

[SteppingRazor]

7. Here ya go:

The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion


http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

[jackster]

9. 3 excellent places to start.... just by googling.....

http://www.postfun.com/pfp/worbois.html
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/dispatch/fathers_quote2.htm
http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm

[jackster]

21. add this one!

http://www.deism.org/frames.htm

[myrna minx]

10. The treaty of Tripoli...link

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1796t.htm

ARTICLE 11.
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.
on edit-The Barbary Treaties :
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796

[rateyes]

41. Which treaty was unanimously ratified by the Senate...

and signed by John Adams...with the idea of the first amendment's guarantee of separation of church and state being affirmed time and again by the Supreme Court...

that means that ALL THREE BRANCHES OF OUR GOVERNMENT during the days when the founders were still members of those branches AGREED that this country was not founded upon Christianity or any other religion.

[Loonman]

11. The 'Christian Nation' myth

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html

[seabeyond]

15. give him this. quotes from founding father and more

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

The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

- Thomas Jefferson

The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

- John Adams

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the 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

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

-Thomas Paine

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it (the Apocalypse), and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825

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, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814



The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter... But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789

They believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.

-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

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 to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
Patrick Henry has been quoted as saying that, but as to the context, and the source I am not sure.
Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. A Deist according to Webster's is (1) The belief in the existence of a God on purely rational grounds without reliance on revelation or authority; especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. (2) The doctrine that God created the world and its natural laws, but takes no further part in its functioning. Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the Bible (The Jefferson Bible), of which I own a copy. It TOTALLY removes all accounts of the divinity of Christ and all of the miracles - including the virgin birth. Benjamin Franklin was raised Episcopalian, but was also a Deist. John Adams was raised a Congregationalist, but later became a Unitarian. Here are what some of the other founders had to say about it.

John Adams:

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

John Adams again:

"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

Still more John Adams:

“...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.”


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."

Jefferson again:

"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."

From Jefferson’s biography:
“...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.’”

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 again:

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

Thomas Paine:

"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible)."

Finally, a word from Abraham Lincoln:


The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
-- Abraham Lincoln

[JohnnyCougar]

17. Is there a link to a site where I can reference these quotes?

One that would legitimize them in the FReeper mind?

[seabeyond]

33. i have put these different names in google and it has validated them

i dont know how better you can get the legitmacy for these quotes than that. but i did make sure at least some of these were said before putting it out. i have researched all of them. and the person i got this from is scholarly and doesnt put out lie. best i can do you

put in jefferson quotes and see if you can get backing.

[rpgamerd00d]

27. Woot! Stolen and added to my file :)

Thanks!

[seabeyond]

35. lol lol easy as pie when the need is there. copy and paste.

i hear you

[MN ChimpH8R]

36. That is one killer set of quotes

Unfortunately, Fweeper Fundies will refuse to believe them anyway. Though there's nothing like a dose of Jefferson and Adams to get the blood up. Truly, giants walked the earth in those days.

[ktlyon]

16. How about the fact that no religion is declared in the constitution?

Ask them which christian religion they want all of us to follow or would they like to have freedom to choose.

[LostinVA]

18. Tell him to read Catherine Crier's "In Contempt"

That's the theme of the whole book, with one whole chapter specifically about the Founding Fathers, etc.

[Stephanie]

19. Freepers always confuse the Founding Fathers with the Pilgrims

They are so clueless, why bother?

[myrna minx]

22. They should heed Mark Twain...

"The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug."

:rofl:

[0rganism]

20. Ask him how he liked the Puritans' "War on Christmas"

Five shillings fine for celebrating Christmas in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, until 1681.

[sui generis]

23. very simply put, Jefferson viewed Jesus not as a deity

but as a great moral philosopher. Jefferson was very concerned with secular morality - morality independent of the rote belief systems of religion.

He also understood that history's lessons of religious persecution, the growth of the holy roman empire with power that prevents real democracy and the example of hundreds of years of protestant wars and the combination of the Anglican church with the English government were not good governance, and often anything BUT moral.

Whatever Jefferson himself did or did not believe about the existence of a god who was interested in our petty little lives is irrelevant to the arguments that history itself has made in favor of keeping religion separate from government. All the founding fathers did was point out what should be obvious to anyone who passed grade school social studies.

[FreedomAngel82]

24. Point out that God is not mentioned period in the Constiution

[louis-t]

38. Believe it or not, I have read comments by people who think

because the Constitution says "in the year of our Lord" that justifies their claim. It is merely how the date was spoken in those times.

[MrMonk]

51. Well, is not "in the year of our Lord" at the bottom of the Constitution?

And where is a foundation located, but at the bottom?

So, the Constitution is founded on our Lord.

QED

[Bernardo de La Paz]

25. "IF" it was founded on god, it was founded to have real religious freedom.

[blindpig]

26. It's true.

We all live on the back of Turtle Mother.:D

[whalerider55]

28. maybe the freeper...

meant founded BY G-d?

afterall, his chosen one has continued to fight the holy war begun in the crusades.

whalerider

[melody]

29. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson quotes alone will shut him down

My site has links to a bunch -

http://johnadamsweb.com

[Raydawg1234]

30. Then maybe we should enact a law against not coveting our neighbors good's

or their wives for that matter!

You see! Christianity is anti-capitialist, our system is based on coveting our neighbor's goods.

[MN ChimpH8R]

31. Tell him to have someone read him the

collected works of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison. I think those fellows knew the foundation upon which they were establishing their new country.

[Ready4Change]

32. Here's some:

http://www.postfun.com/pfp/worbois.html
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/dispatch/fathers_quote2.htm
http://www.deism.org/foundingfathers.htm
http://borndigital.com/founders.htm
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050221&s=allen

Here's on interesting one. Claims founding fathers were GOOD ENOUGH Christians:
http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm

Another in a similar vein:
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/mashist.htm

[rateyes]

37. Hand him a copy of the ONLY founding document...

of our country, the Constitution, and ask him to show you where God is mentioned. The truth is that at the Constitutional Convention it was debated, and those who wanted to mention "God" lost. This country was intentionally set up as a "secular," not a "religious" state. Thus the insertion of the establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment guaranteeing, as Jefferson, the author put it, "a wall separating church and state."

James Madison, who is often cited as a hero of the fundies, because of the fact he was a Christian and not a "deist" as most of the founders were, himself said: "Who does not see 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?"

He, too, was for the separation of church and state because of the intolerance of theocracies.

Remind him that the Declaration of Independence, which mentions the "Creator" is NOT a founding document of this country. And, for those who argue that the 10 commandments is the basis of our law, ask them how many of those 10 have ever been enacted as part of our law. The answer is 2 of the 10--Do not murder, and do not steal. You can add a third: Do not lie...but, that's only illegal if the lie constitutes legal perjury or obstruction, a law Repigs don't seem to mind breaking these days.

Anyone who argues that the founders did not want to keep church and state separate simply do not know their history.

[GumboYaYa]

39. Ask him if God wrote the part in the Constitution where slaves get treated

as three-fifths of a human. Any country built on the backs of slave labor is not a Christian nation.

[JohnnyCougar]

40. ****His Reply****

Me: Furthermore, I challenge you to find reference to God in the constitution.


Him: The reference to God is just next to the reference to the right of privacy. In fact, they are in adjoining penumbras and share an emanation.

What the hell is he talking about? I would ask him to prove it, but I wanna see what the Constitution says itself.

[PunkPop]

42. I've got his emanation right here.

What a doofus.

ON EDIT: I have no idea what he's talking about but I believe he's trying to be cute. Freeps love to scream about no right to privacy in the Constitution when issues like abortion come up. Basically, he can't respond to your FACTS so he's trying to divert the argument.

[underpants]

46. Nope the Ninth Amendment doesn't say anything about God

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.


http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment09/

Thus, while privacy is nowhere mentioned, it is one of the values served and protected by the First Amendment, through its protection of associational rights, and by the Third, the Fourth, and the Fifth Amendments as well. The Justice recurred to the text of the Ninth Amendment, apparently to support the thought that these penumbral rights are protected by one Amendment or a complex of Amendments despite the absence of a specific reference. Justice Goldberg, concurring, devoted several pages to the Amendment.

[MrMonk]

50. He's being a smart-ass

His remark mocks the reasoning that Justice William Douglas used to deny a state government's claimed right to outlaw the sale of contraceptives: “specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” A better way of putting it might have been to say that the individual has a privacy right which, although not enumerated, underlies the guarantees made in the Bill of Rights (less art, more substance). Your correspondent is mocking you by turning back Douglas' words. Consider the ways in which a general privacy right gives meaning to the Bill of Rights, then ask him why a deference to God is needed to make these Rights meaningful.

Also, consider one of the RW's main arguments against an underlying right to privacy: that such a right would necessarily result in concealing crimes, etc. Well, what the hell does he think the 4th through 6th amendments are about?

[JohnnyCougar]

54. Yeah, he was joking.

It went totally over my head.

I just told him that since he made a joke about it, I guess it means he is conceeding that part of the argument to me.

[Nothing Without Hope]

43. I like this cartoon with the George Washington quote:

[rpgamerd00d]

45. rotflmao!

Priceless !

[Nothing Without Hope]

49. That photo of Falwell is great, really captures the slimy toad - or rather

it shows him as resembling a puffed-up bulemic turkey preparing to spew. Fitting.

[freestyle]

44. This country was founded on theft and murder. Yeah. I said it.

One group of my ancestors came here and stole the country from and eliminated most of another group of my ancestors and then stole the lives and labor of another group of my ancestors. Ain't that America. Our ideals are beautiful, but much of our history is ugly. We are still struggling to get it right, but that can't happen without acknowledging the truth.

I get so pissed when I hear the bullshit about this having ever been a Christian nation I could spit nails. Jesus taught against all that we have done.

[eppur_se_muova]

47. Lots of quotes available. But the MORE IMPORTANT POINT is...

that the founding fathers were motivated largely by a desire to KEEP POLITICS OUT OF RELIGION, and that can be done only be keeping religion out of politics. They were well aware that many colonists belonged to splinter Protestant groups who had no desire to be "brought back into the fold" of the Anglican Church, which many had left Britain to escape. If any ONE religion/creed/sect is recognized by gov't, that religion can then impose its views on others, or at least restrict their expression of their own views.

See Susan Jacoby's "Freethinkers" for more discussion of this. Jacoby is one the few who emphasizes this point enough. Too many who argue against Christianization of government take the tack that "we aren't Christians, therefore the gov't shouldn't be Christian". This argument cuts no mustard with the fundies; to them it just goes to show what's wrong with the country. The more subtle point -- admittedly a little harder to get across in a shouting match -- is that if you open a door in the wall, it swings both ways. Let *any* religious agendas into gov't and the result will be a thoroughly <irony> Darwinian </irony> struggle for supremacy. My money would be on the best organized, most ideologically coherent, and most experienced faction to win out -- and that would mean the Roman Catholich Church. Funny that Protestant extremists never seem to consider that angle. I doubt very much that they would be happy with an American gov't that follows the Pope.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805077766/qid=1134420269/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-0561300-5410344?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

48. Which one? There are so many to choose from.

"Man is the only animal to have found the one true God. Several of them." - Mark Twain

[CornField]

52. Posted it before... but... it's worth another

So, you think the US is a christian nation?

• The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not bible-believing christians; they were deists.
  
  
• Thomas Jefferson was suspicious of the traditional belief that the bible is "the inspired word of god." He rewrote the story of Jesus as told in the New Testament and compiled his own gospel version known as The Jefferson Bible, which eliminated all miracles attributed to Jesus and ended with his burial.
  
  
• Jefferson said, "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" (April 11, 1823).
  
  
• In Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson said of this religion, "There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites" (quoted by newspaper columnist William Edelen, "Politics and Religious Illiteracy," Truth Seeker, Vol. 121, No. 3, p. 33).
  
  
• In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill "establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," James Madison wrote his famous "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" in which he presented fifteen reasons why government should not be come involved in the support of any religion.
  
  
• The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, preached a sermon in October 1831 in which he stated that "among all our presidents from George Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism" (Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, pp. 14-15). He went on to describe Washington as a "great and good man" but "not a professor of religion." Wilson said that he was "really a typical eighteenth century Deist, not a Christian, in his religious outlook" (Ibid).
  
  
• The Reverend Bird Wilson, who was just a few years removed from being a contemporary of the so-called founding fathers, said further in the above-mentioned sermon that "the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected _not a one had professed a belief in Christianity_" (Remsberg, p. 120, emphasis added).
  
  
• The last and least skeptical of these rationalists loaded his First Inaugural Address with appeals to the "Great Author," "Almighty Being," "invisible hand," and "benign parent of the human race," but apparently could not bring himself to speak the word "God" ("The United States in 1787," 1787 The Grand Convention, New York W, W, Norton & Co., 1987, p. 36).
  
  
• Whatever else it might turn out to be, the Convention would not be a `Barebone's Parliament.' Although it had its share of strenuous Christians like Strong and Bassett, ex-preachers like Baldwin and Williamson, and theologians like Johnson and Ellsworth, the gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men in whom the old fires were under control or had even flickered out. Most were nominally members of one of the traditional churches in their part of the country--the New Englanders Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, the Southerners Episcopalians, and the men of the Middle States everything from backsliding Quakers to stubborn Catholics--and most were men who could take their religion or leave it along. Although no one in this sober gathering would have dreamed of invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone have dared to proclaim that his opinions had the support of the God of Abraham and Paul. The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even secular in spirit" ("The Men of Philadelphia," 1787 The Grand Convention, New York W. W. Norton & Company, 1987, pp. 147-148, emphasis added).
  
  
• At the constitutional convention, Luther Martin a Maryland representative urged the inclusion of some kind of recognition of Christianity in the constitution on the grounds that "it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism." How ever, the delegates to the convention rejected this proposal and, as the Reverend Bird Wilson stated in his sermon quoted above, drafted the constitution as a secular document. God was nowhere mentioned in it.
  
  
• As a matter of fact, the document that was finally approved at the constitutional convention mentioned religion only once, and that was in Article VI, Section 3, which stated that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
  
  
• Lynn R. Buzzard, executive director of the Christian Legal Society (a national organization of Christian lawyers) has admitted that there is little proof to support the claim that the colonial population was overwhelmingly Christian. "Not only were a good many of the revolutionary leaders more deist than Christian," Buzzard wrote, "but the actual number of church members was rather small. Perhaps as few as five percent of the populace were church members in 1776" (Schools They Haven't Got a Prayer, Elgin, Illinois David C. Cook Publishing, 1982, p. 81).
  
  
• Historian Richard Hofstadter says that "perhaps as many as ninety percent of the Americans were unchurched in 1790" (Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 82) and goes on to say that "mid-eighteenth century America had a smaller proportion of church members than any other nation in Christendom," noting that "in 1800 about one of every fifteen Americans was a church member" (p. 89).
  

[NorthELiberal]

53. Freepers may have something to learn about the seperation

of Church and State......... but evidence that the founding fathers beleived in a Creator is found right in the beginning of the Declaration Of Independece........ It may be a little hard for the Atheists among you to swallow, but it's there:

"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"

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

55. The Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence, is the

foundational document of the United States. And there is no reference to God anywhere in the Constitution.

[AZBlue]

56. He's right. And he's not.

As usual it just depends upon what part of history you wish to point out.

This country was founded by religious zealots who were run out of England. They came here to set up a colony that was based upon this religion that was so unpopular in their homeland.

However, the "Founding Fathers," those who wrote the Declaration and Constitution and created the U.S. as a country wanted to ensure that anyone of any faith was allowed to practice as they wanted. (ok, that's not entirely true - I mean, the Africans weren't exactly welcome to practice their own religion - but put it into historical context and you get the idea).

[JohnnyCougar]

57. I beg to differ

The religious settlers that came over here in the 1600s and 1700s were hardly zealots. And it's not that their religions were not popular back in their homeland, either. They came over because their governments did not tolerate religious freedom, and they wanted somewhere to practice.

[mondo joe]

58. Incorrect. The Puritans left because they wanted a way to impose their

religious beliefs -- which they did.

But more importantly, the Puritand did not found the United States. And they would have been mortified by the US Constitution.

[JohnnyCougar]

59. The puritans weren't the only religious settlers n/t

[AZBlue]

62. Not by a long shot. But with 20,000+ they were the largest group

And the most successful in terms of surviving in the new land.

[JohnnyCougar]

68. There were also groups that did not believe in evangelizing

like my ancestors that came over here in the early 1700s. They were simply tired of having a price put on their heads by the Reichstag. They meant to have nothing to do with government or politics, and they still do to this day.

[AZBlue]

61. That's what I said.

And, they founded the colony. The U.S. wasn't founded for about another 150 years after the Puritans really settled down here. Again, what I said.

[mondo joe]

65. Didn't intend my post as a contradiction to yours.

Just to the one in between ours. :-)

[AZBlue]

67. Oooohhh....so sorry! I misunderstood!!

Thanks!

[AZBlue]

60. They were zealots.

First of all, I didn't mean they thought they'd get more recruits and converts if they moved to America and would be more popular. I just didn't go into all the details of why they left England and summarized in that way.

And they were zealots - the definition of zealot is "a fanatically committed person."

Puritans believed that the Bible was God's true law and they wanted to purify the church and themselves. People who didn't believe the way they did were made to convert or leave the community and live by themselves. They interpreted the scriptures harshly and strictly. "Words of hell fire and brimstone flowed from the mouths of eloquent ministers as they warned of the persuasiveness of the devil's power." They even burned many people as witches! They sound fanatical to me.

[immoderate]

63. Here's a page of Jefferson quotes:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

--IMM

[proud patriot]

64. The Constitution doesn't mention it once

:shrug:

[kevinbgoode]

66. Well, while you are at it,...ask him if this country is founded

on GoD...then why are we celebrating Christmas? Wasn't it banned by some of the Founders?