The misconceptions, half-truths and lies of secularists continue to spread. I was recently alerted to this article by Bill Press, a columnist for Tribune Media Services. The article promotes secularism at the cost of truth. Let's break it down bit by bit, lie by lie:
For many religious conservatives,
Who are these "many?" Who knows? Mr. Press (that seems like a pen name - Press... newspaper...) cites just one example below.
re-electing President Bush wasn't enough.
And to many people, had Kerry been elected, that wouldn't have been enough, either.
They have a much bigger goal in mind. They won't be happy until they tear down the wall of separation between church and state, get rid of any nonbelievers, make Christianity the official state religion
I have it on good authority that Billy-boy is related to Chicken Little. The sky wasn't falling and none of that clap-trap - which has been repeated ad nauseum by secularists since Reagan first took office 24 years ago - will ever come true, either.
and declare the United States a Christian nation.
The U.S. already is a Christian nation. No declaration needed.
And they've already started. ''We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation,'' the Rev. Jerry Falwell recently boomed from the pulpit. ''We must take back what is rightfully ours.''
This is Bill's single example of "many people." Oh, and "recently?" That statement was made in 1993 - at least 11 years ago. That's "recently?"
That sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson groaning from the grave.
Yes, he does that everytime some hyper-separationist misuses the "separation of church and state" line from his Danbury Baptists letter.
The United States is a great country - best, in my opinion, on the face of the Earth - but we are not a Christian nation. Never have been, and never will be.
I really don't know if this comment is made from ignorance or stupidity. In either case, it's just dead wrong. We've always been a Christian nation, no matter how hard the secularists deny or try to change that. We're a Christian nation, but our government - which is rightfully secular - affords freedom of religion for everyone, and that's a good thing.
Those who make such a claim should begin by learning their American history.
People who make the claims that this clown is making wouldn't know American history if it came up, bit them on the butt, and said, "Hey, I'm American history. Learn about me."
There is zero evidence that the founding fathers intended to create a Christian nation - and tons of evidence that they very carefully went out of their way not to.
I think what this guy is trying to say is that the Founding Fathers didn't want a Christian government or an official national government like the Church of England.
For starters, the founding fathers were not Christians. Most were Deists,
A complete and utter lie that I completely destroyed when a secularist with the handle "Atheist Archon" tried to make the same argument on the TheologyWeb forums via a weblink to his woefully biased and half-witted website. See the three links at the bottom of this post for the truth.
who believed in a remote Providence, or ''Watchmaker God,'' who created us, wound us up and left us on our own. From their writings, we know that few of them believed in Christ's divinity and none of them accepted Jesus as their personal savior.
This sounds like a line regurgitated from Internet Infidels or some other anti-Christian website instead of something learned from actual research.
That hands-off approach to God is reflected in the Constitution, which was ratified in 1789.
Rightfully so. The Constitution created the government, not the nation.
The words God, Providence, Jesus or Christianity are found nowhere in the document
Neither do the words "separation of church and state," hypocrite. I guess that settles the issue of whether the Founding Fathers wanted separation of church and state or not, because if it's not in the Constitution, they didn't want it, right?. (Of course, the words "in the year of our Lord" - which directly refer to Jesus - actually are found in the document.)
It establishes no national religion.
Again, rightfully so. But no national religion does not mean that this isn't a Christian nation.
It sets no religious test for holding public office. The presidential oath - the only one spelled out in the Constitution - does not end with the traditional ''so help me God.'' And there is no requirement that it be taken with one hand on the Bible.
Yeah, so where do you suppose those things came from? Obviously it came from this being a Christian nation.
Nor did members of the Constitutional Convention, unlike today's Congress, start each session with a prayer. One month into their meeting, Benjamin Franklin made such a proposal, but only three or four delegates thought it was a good idea. The rest thought invoking God's help would make them look "desperate."
Franklin's proposed measure was rejected only because it was so late into the convention, which had already had its share of problems. Had the issue been brought up at the beginning, it very likely would have been approved. Furthermore, a sermon was presented at the convention just six days later and prayers were then read every morning after that.
Nothing like getting only half the story, eh? Typical for religion-hating secularists.
Of course, Franklin is one of the men who secularists claim was a stalwart Deist "who believed in a remote Providence, or 'Watchmaker God,' who created us, wound us up and left us on our own." Why would someone who supposedly believed that promote the offering of prayers to God for his intervention?
Under George Washington, the new nation soon got the first chance to prove its religious neutrality. In peace negotiations with the Muslim region of North Africa, which had been attacking American vessels, the question was asked: ''Is the United States a Christian nation?'' The response, contained in Article 11 of the ensuing Treaty of Tripoli, endorsed by President John Adams and unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate, begins: ''As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...''
How much clearer could it be?
Clearer? There is nothing clear about Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli. First of all, the article is refering to the
government, not the nation to which the government belongs. Second, the article did not appear anywhere in the Muslim version of the treaty and most scholars agree that the article simply did not belong in the American version. Finally, when the treaty was renegotiated just a few years later, the article was completely dropped. To be quite frank, the "argument from Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli" is an ignorant and lame defense of the secularist position.
Why did the founding fathers strive so hard to keep government from meddling with religion and, just as important, keep religion from meddling with politics? Because they knew their history. They saw what happened in Europe, where princes became little more than pawns of the pope; and, sometimes, popes but puppets of the prince.
Hey, Bill gets something right. But again, this has no bearing on the issue of if this is a Christian nation or not.
They saw similar abuses among the first settlers, who came to the New World seeking religious tolerance - but only, in practice, for themselves.
Yeah, I'd like to see that assertion backed up with evidence - both of abuses by the settlers and the Founding Fathers using these supposed abuses to shape their work.
Madison, Jefferson and others realized that a wall separating church and state was necessary for both institutions to survive. And history has proven them correct a hundred times over. We are at once a secular nation and a religious people.
No, we are a religious (primarily Christian) people/nation with a secular government. The nation can exist without the government, but the government cannot exist without the nation.
Our great republic has survived over 215 years.
How old is this article? By my count, that figure is about 13 years off.
And religious faith flourishes in America like almost nowhere else.
True enough.
According the Pew Research Center, 81 percent of Americans say that prayer is an important part of their daily life; and 87 percent say they never doubt the existence of God. Among Western nations, only the Vatican could beat those numbers.
And since most of those people are Christians, I guess that means we are a Christian nation.
So, Falwell and company are not only wrong on their facts, they're wrong on what's best for religion.
Mr. Press is wrong on facts and he's obviously no one to judge who is or is not capable of knowing what's best for religion. I would take Jerry Falwell "and company" any day over this putz.
The fact that we are at once the strongest and the most religious nation on Earth didn't just happen by accident. Nor is it because we are God's Chosen People, because He loves us more than any other people on Earth. It happened only because our founding fathers had the wisdom, the vision and the courage to make American different. We became the first county where priests did not have to answer to politicians; nor politicians, to priests.
Indeed. And again, that has no bearing on whether this is a Christian nation or not.
God bless America. The wall of separation between church and state is what makes this country great.
In part, yes, but then that phrase doesn't appear anywhere in the Constitution, does it?
Only a fool would try to tear it down.
Correction: only a fool would try to portray religious conservatives as wanting to tear it down.
For anyone interested in more information on the faiths of America's Founding Fathers, I direct you to the following well-researched webpages:
Were the Founding Fathers "Deists," "Freethinkers," and "Infidels?"
Evidences of Faith in the Buildings, Memorials, and Forefathers of the United States (scroll down about halfway)
The Faith of Our Fathers
Oh, and please make sure you let Mr. Press know how you feel about his attempt to revise history. His email address can be found at the bottom of his article or go to his website.
