Christian Nation?

[Tonus]

Should premarital sex be illegal? Prohibition?

As F&F said, it depends. Although there is probably a general set of ideals that Christians would agree upon (such as honesty, integrity, hard work, high moral standards, etc) the details would differ, sometimes substantially.

[DramaQueen]

What kind are duck dynasty? Cause I'm speechless

[Chas]

Correct, but before that it was originally founded as a British state and hence a Christian state.

So what?

---

If that's the criteria you're going by, then America is also a Male Nation, a White Nation, a Dead Person Nation, and a Pants Wearing Nation, among many other things. I doubt you'd ever agree out loud to the first two, and the last two should demonstrate how devoid of meaning your definition of a "Christian Nation" actually is.

But then, what you mean isn't what the people arguing for a christian nation generally mean when they do so in a political context, is it? You're either trying to win cheap rhetorical points by contracting the definition into something manageable so you can get one over on the atheists and accuse them of hating god (yawn ) or you're equivocating.

Which is it?

again it/my response is answering the op's claim that the forefathers of this nation were atheist. Therefore this country was not founded as a Christian Nation. My response is to support the truth that the forefathers were indeed Christian by proclaimation, and by work and deed.

Some were deists, some were atheists. Not all were Christian.

[Drich]

Correct, but before that it was originally founded as a British state and hence a Christian state.

So what?

---

again it/my response is answering the op's claim that the forefathers of this nation were atheist. Therefore this country was not founded as a Christian Nation. My response is to support the truth that the forefathers were indeed Christian by proclaimation, and by work and deed.

Some were deists, some were atheists. Not all were Christian.

Again I was speaking to the op and the short list provided. Everyone on that supposed list and most of the one who were were devout in their belief of God. Before durning and after their service to this nation.

[Esquilax]

again it/my response is answering the op's claim that the forefathers of this nation were atheist. Therefore this country was not founded as a Christian Nation. My response is to support the truth that the forefathers were indeed Christian by proclaimation, and by work and deed.

So you win your point by missing the OP's and altering the definition of the phrase actively in discussion out of recognition. Good job, I guess? You've succeeded in "winning" by making your end of the conversation about nothing relevant.

As for the founding fathers, I have a sneaking suspicion that at least a few of them, had they been born in a different time, would have been atheists, and that yet more of them were deists and christians in name only, but that's neither here nor there. Again, a christian nation by your reckoning also makes America a Corpse nation, and a Hat Wearing nation, so...

[Alex K]

Correct, but before that it was originally founded as a British state and hence a Christian state.

I thought the whole point about this USA thing was that you kind of got over that though.

[Drich]

So you win your point

WUUUUT?

Oh wait there is more:

by missing the OP's and altering the definition of the phrase actively in discussion out of recognition. Good job, I guess? You've succeeded in "winning" by making your end of the conversation about nothing relevant.

I just knew you guys could not come out ans say that the atheist position was just out right wrong about the founding Father's religious beliefs.

As for the founding fathers, I have a sneaking suspicion that at least a few of them, had they been born in a different time, would have been atheists, and that yet more of them were deists and christians in name only, but that's neither here nor there.

In name only? They were also decons, elders and pulpit ministers.. That's a pretty active 'in name only' list of things to do in the church.

Again, a christian nation by your reckoning also makes America a Corpse nation, and a Hat Wearing nation, so...

What makes america a Christian nation is that 75% of us identify as christian in one form or another.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/159548/identi...stian.aspx

What makes us founded as a Christian nation is that our forefathers incorerated their beliefs and Christian values into the establishment of this nation where ever they could.

[Crossless2.0]

What makes us founded as a Christian nation is that our forefathers incorerated their beliefs and Christian values into the establishment of this nation where ever they could.

Drich, I'd like to introduce you to my good friend, Bill O'Rights.

[radical97]

Drich, Evidently you did not read the part where I said that George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln did not believe in Christianity. Read this, please:

The Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and Bill of Rights despised Christianity. That includes George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. Let us include Abraham Lincoln as well. He may at one time considered himself to be a Christian but that was before he understood the bible completely.

They were very learned men who read the Bible. That is true with most atheists. Most people become atheists after reading the Bible. That is not to say that all the Founding Fathers did not believe in God. A few did. It was just not the Christian God. Very seldom do they refer to a god and never do they mention Jesus Christ.

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 [George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson] _not a one had professed a belief in Christianity_" (Remsberg, p. 120, emphasis added).

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
John Adams -letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

"God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world."
John Adams

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all
of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects." - James Madison,
Letter to Bradford, January 1774

"I do not believe that any degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation further than as may be hoped from his constant attendance upon Christian worship, in connection with the general reserve of his character."
-- The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a letter to the Rev B C C Parker, dated December 31, 1832, from Wilson, Memoir of Bishop White, pp. 189-191, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 28

"The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense." - Thomas
Paine

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." - Benjamin Franklin:
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." - Benjamin Franklin

"He [the Rev. Mr. Whitefield] used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my
conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers
were heard." - from Franklin's Autobiography

"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." - Thomas Jefferson,
Jefferson's Works, Vol. IV, p. 365, Randolph's ed.

"In no instance have ... the churches been guardians of the liberties of
people." - James Madison

"A just government, instituted to perpetuate liberty, does not need the
clergy." - James Madison

...Dr. Abercrombie said more than I have repeated. At the close of our conversation on the subject his emphatic expression was -- for I well remember the very words "Sir, Washington was a Deist."'"
-- Mr. Robert Dale Owen, newspaper reporter, afterwards a member of Congress and later Minister to Naples, after interviewing Dr. Wilson, giving the substance of the interview in a letter written on November 13, 1831, which was published in New York two weeks later, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 26-27

"Democracy does not need the church, or the clergy." - James Madison

"That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some,
and to their eternal infamy the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for
such a business." - James Madison, Letter to Bradford, January 1774

"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

“Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence. But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear anywhere in his many letters to friends and associates throughout his life."
-- Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963) pp. 74-75, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church." Had Washington been a pious Christian, he would have at least mentioned the name of Christ!

"All national institutions of churches appear to me no other than human
inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and
profit." - Thomas Paine

"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation
and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger
with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change
them." - Abraham Lincoln, to Judge JS. Wakefield, after Willie Lincoln's
death

"Mr. Lincoln was not a Christian." - Mary Todd Lincoln

"Dr. Rush told me (he had it from Asa Green) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice."
-- Thomas Jefferson, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572. (Asa Green "was probably the Reverend Ashbel Green, who was chaplain to congress during Washington's administration." -- Farrell Till in "The Christian Nation Myth.")

"I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never
disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism
makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether
I am one or not." - preface, Reason the Only Oracle of Man by Ethan Allen

"I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and
distorted by religion." - James Buchanan: from Rufus K. Noyes, Views of
Religion, also James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

"No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith." -
Thomas Paine

"The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense." - Thomas
Paine

Flexner: Terminology of Enlightenment-Era Deism
"That he was not just striking a popular attitude as a politician is revealed by the absence of of the usual Christian terms: he did not mention Christ or even use the word 'God.' Following the phraseology of the philosophical Deism he professed, he referred to 'the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men,' to 'the benign parent of the human race.'"
-- James Thomas Flexner, describing Washington's first Inaugural Address, in George Washington and the New Nation (1783-1793) (1970) p. 184, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

[Simon Moon]

What makes america a Christian nation is that 75% of us identify as christian in one form or another.

That does not make the US a Christina nation. It makes it a nation with a majority population that is Christian.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights make it a secular nation.