Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine were Deists, as well as Abraham Lincoln. John Adams was a Unitarian and flatly denied the doctrine of eternal damnation-obviously not a Christian. John Quincy Adams was likewise a Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson was an out and out freethinker, and even urged his nephew to "Question with boldness even the existence of a God." James Madison early on studied to become a minister, but inexplicably did not. Madison went on to become a fierce advocate of church/state separation, and as an adult he simply refused to discuss religion at all.
There is no mention of Jesus, Christ or Christianity in our founding documents. If our Founding Fathers had intended to make this a Christian nation, they could not have hidden that intention more completely, or done a worse job of it. The Declaration of Independence refers only to "Nature's God," "divine Providence" and a "Creator." "Nature's God" is in fact a precise definition of the God of Deism. (Deism is the belief that an unknowable God created everything, and then just walked away from it all, leaving all things to work out their own destinies, from atoms to apples.)
No deity at all is mentioned, let alone a Christian one, in The U.S. Constitution with it's Bill of Rights. Its only mention of religion at all is where it forbids Congress from making any laws establishing or prohibiting it, and where it forbids religious tests for holding public office. So the Constitution's two brief mentions of religion strictly emphasize the need to keep it out of government.
Perhaps you and the other wrong wingers here need to bone up on the true history of the founding of our nation, and quit repeating the bullshit that our founders created a Christian country. Repeating misinformation over and over doesn't make it so.
Del |
