Vomit Comet Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 I'm the kind of easygoing agnostic that certain hardcore New Atheists disdain. But one thing that does drive me up the wall is the endless claptrap about how these United States were founded to be a Christian nation by the ultra-pious Founding Fathers. Then you'll see forwarded e-mails circulating around with cherrypicked quotes. How about something to counter that? Does a nice bullet pointed list exist out there somewhere? I know Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and several others had a dim view of Christianity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 http://earlyamericanhistory.net/founding_fathers.htm May help Sorry posted wrong link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japedo Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 I'm the kind of easygoing agnostic that certain hardcore New Atheists disdain. But one thing that does drive me up the wall is the endless claptrap about how these United States were founded to be a Christian nation by the ultra-pious Founding Fathers. Then you'll see forwarded e-mails circulating around with cherrypicked quotes. How about something to counter that? Does a nice bullet pointed list exist out there somewhere? I know Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and several others had a dim view of Christianity. The treaty of Tripoli for starters. Written under Washington and signed under Adams and passed unanimously by the congress. "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 tranquillity, 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." Some good quotes here from the founding fathers as well. http://treatyoftripoli.com/ Also you might want to try this website, it's full of knowledge, US History, founding of this country and so forth. No Beliefs.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathGeek Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 God is mentioned in the Constitution... http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Article7 Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japedo Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 God is mentioned in the Constitution... http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Article7 Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names. Despite the secular nature of our national government, there is one unambiguous reference to Christ in the Constitution. Article VII dates the Constitution in "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." But what does this mean for the principle of religious liberty? The answer is: nothing. Our dating system is an historical artifact of Western culture, and has no legal significance or implications for the meaning of the Constitution or the First Amendment. The American Colonies were established by Europeans; we naturally inherited the European practice of dating years from the birth of Christ. Nothing follows from this except the trivial observation that, in establishing our independence, we decided not to completely overthrow our cultural heritage. In fact, the European dating system is infused with pagan holdovers that, if taken seriously, lead to exactly the opposite conclusions reached by accommodationists. We have a seven day week, after the model of ancient Israel, but we inherited Pagan names for these days; does the Constitution then establish Sun worship when it excepts Sunday from the ten days Presidents have to veto a bill before it becomes law? Does it establish worship of the Moon when it says that Congress will begin it's sessions on the first Monday of December? Does the use of European names for months mean that the Constitution establishes worship of Julius Caesar (July) or Augustus Caesar (August)? The issue was a serious one for some Christians; Quakers, for example, adopted numerical references for days and months precisely to avoid objectionable Pagan names. The rejection of the Quaker system suggests that the founders read very little into their dating practices. To base an argument on those practices is to stand on extraordinarily shaky ground. To be sure, the Constitution could have avoided the words "Year of our Lord" in the date (as it does elsewhere when it refers to specific years), but it's hard to imagine why. "The Year of our Lord" was the standard way of dating important documents in the 1700s; its use was ritualistic, not religious. It is doubtful that anyone, Christian, deist, or otherwise, would have given the words a second thought, or ascribed to them any legal significance. And if the intent of the Constitution was to signal a favored status for Christianity, it could have done so in a thousand less ambiguous ways than including the words "in the Year of our Lord." That some accommodationists appeal to these words is silent testimony to how little evidence there is for the idea that the Constitution embodies Christian morality or thought Source Here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathGeek Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Japedo, you are the only one to challenge me on that. Most other atheists don't address this out loud, at least from what I've seen and heard. If they could explain this away, maybe then the apologists wouldn't have their footing anymore. http://74.255.56.30/blog/?p=31#more-31 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japedo Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Japedo, you are the only one to challenge me on that. Ahh well glad I could help.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Japedo, you are the only one to challenge me on that. I thought you were being funny... I laughed aloud... I genuinely didn't think that someone COULD seriously be that dumb as to use it as a reason and still be allowed sharps, which is what you're now saying... Have you chaps not considered a cull over there? Seems to me you need to weed out the weak and sick in your own damn species Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piprus Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 In perspective, I think what we have to realize is that the framers of the Consitution and the American Republic were for the most part, peripheral as Christians. Many had deeply imbedded Deist or Quaker perspectives. Above all was that these men realized the necessity of putting religion in its place. Whatever Christian beliefs one held were personal, to be exercised within his own family or church community. As regards the nature of government, it had no place. The framers knew very well the horrors and corruptions that had been wrought by institutionalized religious dogmas on the government of the European countries we had as our origins, and they had no desire to replicate them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Yet, in a country where there is a 'state' religion, we can elect atheists and politicos who profess too much of a religious conviction are regarded as nutters... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piprus Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Yet, in a country where there is a 'state' religion, we can elect atheists and politicos who profess too much of a religious conviction are regarded as nutters... That's food for thought...the question, could a consummate Deist like Hamilton be elected to public office in the USA of today? Or an agnostic like Abraham Lincoln? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 I would like to point out that the Founding Fathers committed a grave sin. They were sworn to God, King and Country, King and Country being England. By rebelling against their King and Country, that was considered a high crime of treason. Christians never take that into consideration. Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathGeek Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 I would like to point out that the Founding Fathers committed a grave sin. They were sworn to God, King and Country, King and Country being England. By rebelling against their King and Country, that was considered a high crime of treason. Christians never take that into consideration. Taph He has approved our undertakings, Annuit Coeptis. God never abandoned either side then, I guess. Grandpa, I remember reading that passage sometime ago and I suffered from selective memory then. I have put that challenge out there to other freethinkers and nobody ably refuted it. It just goes to show that this political debate of America as a "Christian nation" and what the Founding Fathers believed is not a clear-cut issue and never will be a clear-cut issue. This is why I don't like quote mining. If you want to thoroughly debunk a set of points, a tacit knowledge of something is not enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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