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Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
You can interpret history any way you want, but you cannot recraft it to be the way you wished it to be. The US is not a theocracy if that was what you were trying to "prove." However, it is well documented that the founding fathers used a Judeo/Christian ethos as a primary guiding hand in creating the nation. In fact, they believed that it was necessary to have this foundation to interpret and understand the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Those are indisputable historical fact. You cannot rewrite history, unless you are seeking to be a dictator, in which case you can do whatever you want.
Thomas Paine: Let us learn from the errors of other nations, and lay hold of the present opportunity to begin government at the right end" Common Sense
Jefferson: " the first was a government of kings, the second of priest-craft, and the third of Reason."
Colonel Ethan Allen (revolutionary hero, Battle of Fort Ticonderoga) titled his book on religion, "Reason Is The Only Oracle Of Man."
John Adams:"The United States Is Not A Christian Nation any more than it is a Jewish or Mohammedan nation." Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried UNANIMOUSLY by the Senate and passed into Law by Jon Adams.
Protestant minister, Dr. Byrd Wilson, 1831: "The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson] not a one professed a belief in Christianity."
John Adams to Jefferson in a letter: "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!"
Jefferson: "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." 1781-82 Notes on the State of Virginia.
Jefferson: "Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law." in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814
Jefferson: "The priests of the different religious sects...dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live." letter to Correa de Serra, 1820.
Finally, let us not forget, many of the colonies had laws against blasphemy. The passage of the Constitution made such illegal.
Reference and compilation of these quotes: Thomas Malone's, "A Defense of American Ideals," ch.8, which has been reviewed on this site.
Please note that:
•The article as it stands merely says that the government of America is not founded on the Christian religion. This does not mean that the American social/political network was not founded with Christian principles of mind, or that the peoples of America were not Christian to some degree; it merely addresses the government of America. Why?
•It may occur to critics that the phrase "founded on the Christian religion" would have a certain meaning to those whose state were "founded on" the Islamic religion -- a "Mehomitan nation". The essential message would be that America was not a Christian theocracy, or a state where the church had political power, as the religious authorities in Muslim nations had power -- which is something no one argues for America.
Our conclusion: Article 11 is a skeptical dud that proves nothing about the founding principles of this nation and says nothing about to what extent Christian influence has shaped us or our government.
If you truly want to understand the overall context, you can read more about it here - http://tektonics.org/qt/tripoli.php
John Adams didn't write the treaty, he was president when it was ratified. The original text of the treaty was written in Arabic and translated to English by John Barlow.
The Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic . . . . Most extraordinary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article 11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase, 'the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,' does not exist at all [in the Arabic]. There is no Article 11 [in the Arabic].
I really tire of having to do history research for you and Dale. This information is readily available should you just do a web search.
The cost of dealing with reality would be too great for them. To lose the belief that a life of selflessness (altruism) would guarantee their immortality and to admit it's evilness-or to take responsibility for their own morality, even if it means relying on magic-or to admit that other's beliefs are just as valid reached through reason individually rather than 'as told by God'-or that pure evil is done in the name of their religion--it's just toooo hard.
Muslims and Jews have their own countries, the Enlightenment stopped Christian countries--they want one back
Who knows, who cares? Probably thought that he could write it better.
I prove you wrong and you just want to deflect the issue.
The first item is merely a fundamental tenet of Judeo/Christianity that all are equal.
The second is pandering to Muslims.
The third is actually a call that gov't should not interfere in religion, not the other way around.
From Wikipedia, so take with a grain of salt (but accurate on this point):
Jefferson and the Bill of Rights
Main articles: Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause
Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, whose letter to the Danbury Baptists Association is often quoted in debates regarding the separation of church and state.
In English, the exact term is an offshoot of the phrase, "wall of separation between church and state", as written in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & 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.[15]
Jefferson was describing to the Baptists that the United States Bill of Rights prevents the establishment of a national church, and in so doing they did not have to fear government interference in their manner of worship. The Bill of Rights was one of the earliest examples in the world of complete religious freedom (adopted in 1791, only preceded by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789).
And you say I need to read history?
is NOT IN ANY SENSE FOUNDED ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
why do we have to keep arguing this?!
As stated in the piece:
"-- In 1790, President George Washington wrote to America's first synagogue, in Rhode Island, that "all possess alike liberty of conscience" and that "toleration" was an "inherent national gift," not the government's to dole out or take away
-- In 1797, with President John Adams in office, the Senate unanimously approved one of America's earliest foreign treaties, which emphatically stated (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 (Muslims) ..."
-- In 1802, Jefferson added his famous "wall of separation," implicit in the Constitution until he so described it (and cited in several Supreme Court decisions since).
These are, to borrow an admittedly loaded phrase, "inconvenient truths" to those who proclaim that America is a "Christian Nation."
THAT is what history tells us, as well.
Rent a clue... what was the percentage of non-Christians in the colonies at the time of the founding? What was the religious background of those who came to the New World to form the original colonies... often to practice their religions without government interference?
To pretend that the nation was founded in a theological vacuum, that the CHRISTIAN CULTURE had no influence whatsoever on the nature of the nation is irrational... willful blindness.
Christianity is intimately intertwined with the culture of the founding of the nation. Even self-proclaimed "deists" were CULTURALLY influenced by Christianity; in that they thought in a framework of Christian values, values ground into them in childhood.
THIS is the problem of Obama; he is NOT culturally American and therefore NOT culturally Christian. And look what kind of job he's done in the White House.
Congratulations... you found something in common with Obama.