The U.S. treaty with Tripoli 1796

[LiberalHearted]

I am reading Richard Dawkin's book "The God Delusion" and learned about article 11 of the Treaty with Tripoli that was signed in 1796. I suppose this may be old news for most people but it's new to me. I'd like to ask, what are your thoughts on this? Specifically I have questions below, but if you have any other input I'd be glad to hear it. First let me post the link: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html go to article 11 when you get there.

1) Why isn't this well known?
2)I assume if Richard Dawkins uses it then it must be legitimate. Why don't atheists use it to help refute the fundamentalist argument that the U.S. is a Christian country? I
3) If I were to use it to help me shut up my fundy friends on Facebook who constantly spam my page about how the U.S. is a Christian country and we all must return to god or god will punish us (blah, blah, blah) is there any hidden thing I need to know about it?

Finally what do you think about paragraph 5 of this: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/buck...ipoli.html

I do love Richard Dawkins and thank him and you for posting the US Treaty with Tripoli.

The Marines song also came from this, but yes I've known it and have on many occasions on other forums used the document as well as quotes from (our forefathers) that this is not a christian nation, and has not been set up to be so.

Maybe this site will give a better explanation: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/revision.htm

Of course the rush of the "fundies" xtians
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/feature...ldman.html

An odd quote from the above:

Just as the Founding Fathers disagreed, so too did people of faith. Congregationalists and Episcopalians were the chief defenders of state-supported religion and more aligned with the views of Adams and Henry. It was the evangelicals who backed the more radical views of Jefferson and Madison. Leland, for instance, agreed with Jefferson's opposition to congressional chaplains. "If legislatures choose to have a chaplain, for Heaven's sake, let them pay him by contributions, and not out of the public chest," he once wrote. Indeed, as Rabbi James Rudin notes in his new book The Baptizing of America, "Leland was even against the Sunday closings of U.S. post offices, feeling this represented government favoritism by officially recognizing the Christian Sabbath."

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