Jamie_L

I've read a number of articles rebutting the claim that the US was founded as a Christian nation. Nearly all these articles focus on historical events and legal doctrine to show that the country was intended to be secular.

Does anyone know of a good source on the web, or even a book, that approaches this idea from the other direction - to show that the Christian Bible runs counter to the ideals and mode of operation of the US government?

It seems to me that the Bible really is not at all about freedom, self-governance, or individual rights, but I'm not a biblical scholar nor do I have much time these days to become one. I would love to find a source with biblical quotes that really smash this whole idea of America being founded on "Christian principles".

Any help is appreciated.

Jamie

dogwood

Here's a few good links:

<a href="http://www.aclu.org/issues/religion/hmrf.html" target="_blank">ACLU's religious liberty page.</a>

<a href="http://www.au.org/" target="_blank">Americans United for Separation of Church and State</a>

<a href="http://www.ffrf.org/" target="_blank">Freedom from Religion Foundation</a>

Also the Internet Infidels Library has many good articles on the subject <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/church-state/index.shtml" target="_blank">here.</a>

dogwood

oops, sorry. Didn't read your post thoroughly. Nope, I don't know of any sites like that. try a google search.

Jamie_L

The Google search was a good call. I'm starting to answer my own question. I found this short article:

<a href="http://www.unl.edu/caa/essays/ep_country.html" target="_blank">http://www.unl.edu/caa/essays/ep_country.html</a>

Jamie

PopeInTheWoods

Well for starters, can anyone explain to me how the First Amendment can be in anything other than direct conflict with the First Commandment?

Andy

fromtheright

Jamie L,
For me as a conservative Christian I don't believe the Founders based any of the principles of government (separation of powers, checks and balances, etc.) on the Bible. In that view I differ with David Barton and Peter Marshall who allege that the Founders or their sources (Locke, Montesquieu, etc.) discovered those principles in the Bible. In fact, this church/state issue has partially fueled my own interest in reading the Founders; in that search, I believe that Barton and Marshall are wrong. Adams and Madison borrowed largely, if not exclusively on examples from contemporary, classical, and ancient history, not the Bible. I haven't read Locke's First Treatise, where I understand some of the Biblical references are found but I don't recall any in the Second Treatise, at least anything that heavily influenced the Founders such as his principles of legitimate government and revolution.
However, I do believe the Founders believed strongly that a system is freedom is meant for a virtuous people and that they found such teaching of virtue primarily in the Bible. No, I don't believe that some of the more influential Founders were orthodox Christians, but neither do I believe that most of the Founders were agnostics, Deists, or atheists as many in this forum have at least suggested.

Pope,
If this were a theocracy you would obviously be correct. However, as I recall, the First Commandment was not incorporated into either the First Amendment, the Constitution, or the 14th Amendment. I think the "free exercise" clause takes care of that.

Buckster

I think I pretty much agreed with what you said in the post the above quote was from, until we get to the part I've brought down for this post (above) and modified (slightly) below. Your parts are in bold:

I get the distinct feeling when I read through that era of history that the Founders believed strongly that a system of freedom is meant for ALL THE people and that they found such teaching of virtue primarily in the examples throughout the history of governments that preceded them that had corrupted those vitues using a Bible as a tool of government.

Certainly not all at the time believed this, as you correctly inferred. But apparently they were enough to carry the day and establish the laws we refer to as the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

As an example of those that did not necessarily agree at the time, there were state constitutions with established religions (all Xian, incidentally) based on the bible that had laws requiring that blasphemy be rewarded with a red hot poker through the tongue, and so forth.

I don't personally see these examples of states' legislation as "virtuous" to the defense of the bible as an instrument or basis of a governmental system that will maintain ANY true "freedom" for ANY (save the ministers that wave it in the air above their heads, screaming about witches and blasphemy), let alone ALL THE PEOPLE, nor to the "freedoms" the framers were out to ensure for the new nation, including themselves, their families and their descendants.

I very much believe that's exactly why the Constitution and Bill of Rights were intelligently designed in a way that effectivly did away with those "Faith Based" State Constitutions and their bible-based laws that would have ensured only the religiously prohibitive NON-FREEDOM of ALL the people under them that had been seen thus far in every government that ever employed them. This was already evident at the time, as those states used those red hot pokers through tongues and other tortures at the time; just as they had shown themselves to be in the governments that employed them over the centuries and were still doing so in Europe at that time.

The rack, the poker and other torturous devices employed in the zealous enforcement of governmental laws stemming specifically from religion and the bible were well known to the people and the framers during that era, as they were very real every day events, especially in Europe, a governmental system they were very activly working very hard NOT to copy or sustain here in America.

And "Deists" did seem to be abundant at that time in history, according to the writings available to us from that period. Some at the time went so far as to speculate that there would be almost nothing BUT deists within a hundred years or so. They were regarded by Xians at the time as little more than atheists, and I noticed that you seem to have lumped them in among us as well. But they did believe there was a "God of nature", a "Creator" of some sort. This can hardly then fall into the description of a-theist (without god). They only seem to fall into the Xian description of atheist: "Without OUR God!"

Apart from those few that were ministers themselves, most of the framers (the ones whose names most Americans are familiar with) had some pretty unsavory things to say about Xianity in particular to each other in their private correspondence. Jefferson was known to have a bible in which he'd edited out every instance of miraculous events, as he did not believe they had merit. He, Madison and even Adams and Franklin, who publicly said many things that sound like they go along with Xian tenets and the bible, privately bashed it pretty badly as a despicable device to enslave the weak-minded. Even as pious as Washington is portrayed, he is described by the ministers at the time of his death and after as a "Deist", though in all honesty and fairness, I don't recall any particular writings from him actually denouncing any particular religion.

We are now finding that many of the "pious" statements attributed to the framers are simply fabrications originating in religious tracts over time that seem to gather unfounded steam as they chug along through history, passed from one believer to the next. The original writings of the framers however, in their own hand, which endure today in museums, cannot be taken so lightly, nor the words and thoughts within them so easily ignored or twisted.

charmandar670

<a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=157" target="_blank">The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness</a>, very informative book I got off Amazon.

displace cosmosnaut

{edited by Toto to link to the SecWeb Bookstore for further info on the Godless Constitution}

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

PopeInTheWoods

That's my point, FTR. Since the "law of the land" of the USA is incompatible with the "First Law of Xianity", the USA was simply NOT FOUNDED as a xian nation.

Andy