Founded on Christian Principles

How abrahamic religions suffer political contradiction—

If the USA was founded on Christian principles, why did they form a republic and not a monarchy?

Of our Founding Fathers who were deists; John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine. Paine, perhaps, was the most radical of all: “Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself than this thing called Christianity—Thomas Paine “The Age of Reason.”

Furthermore, Jefferson in his autobiography explained why an amendment to the preamble of the Constitution that would have included “Jesus Christ” – so that the preamble would have read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion” – was rejected. Jefferson said, “they (the creators of the Constitution) meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindu and Infidel of every denomination.”

Thomas Jefferson, politician and deist, is quoted in a letter to John Adams, dated April 11, 1823: “One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mythical 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.”

Author: jimoeba

Alternatives to big box religions and dogmas

27 thoughts on “Founded on Christian Principles”

      1. Worshipped in the sense they believed in a greater power, a creator at the very least, a controller at the worst. Maybe they didn’t pay it any heed, I don’t care, but saying it was okay to be an infidel is just so wrong on so many levels. Infidels were outcasts, less than human, lower than god-fearing slaves even. Infidels did not believe in the correct gods. How dare them!

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    2. I’m no expert on deism, but it’s more of a conscious creator or creation. A bit of panpsychism or some unknown source energy/god, for lack of a better term.

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      1. A deist is someone who believes a god created the world, then left it to sink or swim on its own, at least last time I checked. Maybe the definition has been refined, I have no desire to know. But I wasn’t complaining about the founding fathers being deists, I was calling them to account for allowing people to be infidels, the scum of the earth according to correct-god believers.

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    1. There is no independent thought. All thought and writing is a product of its time. That is how the philologist knows when and where you were from. Its happening at the moment, as well

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  3. If the writings of that era are any indication, the confederation of states has always been a fragile compromise between competing interests and factions — many of which had little to no desire to create a super state — so the the notion of some enduring nationalistic unity is ill-founded. As is any attempt at claiming the founders as one’s own (religious, non-religious, deists, Christians, etc.) because they all subscribed to different beliefs. A comparison between the the federal constitution and the various state constitutions reveals they shied away from enshrining sectarian religious beliefs into the mix — but there’s little certainty they were averse to allowing any forms of religious expression within government because Congress approved Washington’s request for military chaplains.

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    1. Maybe Washington understood the people’s need to be pacified by something outside themselves? They weren’t ready to choose either pill

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      1. Well, according to third parties, Washington was supposedly religious, spent time in morning devotions and attended church regularly when the weather permitted. And the writings of John Adams indicate that he also attended church and expressed religious leanings. But I wasn’t there, so I can’t verify the sincerity of their beliefs.

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        1. If you weren’t there and can’t verify the sincerity of their beliefs … how in the heck do Christians get away with “verifying the sincerity” of the bible writers?

          (Trick question.)

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          1. My Christian acquaintances assure me their best friend forever (Jesus) testifies to the authenticity of the unknown first and second century authors.

            And given their proclivity to believe anonymous ancient authors, perhaps it would be easier to win our flat earth apologists over to modern science if some archeologist found a “lost” chapter of Job in which God boldly proclaims: “Who keeps the Earth rotating upon its axis and revolving around the sun?” 🙂

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        2. George Washington also uses a lot of deistic language, like natures god and so forth.
          As far as all men being created equal, that is certainly more deistic than Christian. But they still hung on the fact we’re created, which is a very hebrew thing.

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          1. IIRC, the DOI was drafted by Thomas Jefferson (primarily), John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston.

            Here’s what John Adams wrote his wife on July 3, 1776, upon completion of the final draft:

            But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with4 Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

            https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0016

            However, it should be noted that his religious leanings were definitely Unitarian and Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli unequivocally spells out that the U.S. is not a Christian nation:

            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 tranquility 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.

            http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=002/llsp002.db&recNum=23 (#122, pp. 18-19)

            That said, I disagree with those who argue the founders subscribed to a strict separation of church and state at a ceremonial level (i.e. opening prayers, religious displays, etc.).

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            1. Is it taught in the Bible, or the Talmud? More esoteric themes like oneness, or unity, which is the real underlying theme of Jesus’ teaching, (Buddhic) that we may be one with the father? But I don’t believe it teaches equality.

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  4. I like that quote from Jefferson. I don’t remember who said it but I also like the quote (which I probably won’t get exactly right), “The difference between a cult and a religion is time.” Just give it time….
    Frank Zappa said, “The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own!”
    Frank Zappa for President (I’ll say it ’til the day I die!)!

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  6. I’ve not been too deep into the book yet, but “The Founding Myth: why Christian Nationalism is Un-American” is about exactly this. However, all those religions of love and tolerance do not reflect what I have seen from their practitioners in the 21st (or probably any) Century.

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    1. The pulpits. God inspired worldly men to do his work—even you, against your Will are doing the work of the father. Then they say you have freewill.

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  8. The US is clearly not founded on Christian principles. We are openly a nation founded on capitalism to the point of war for sellable resources. Politicians only believe in God when they write speeches, not when children are in cages, people need shots or lines are increasing for food.

    They do however believe in money and that my friend is clearly what this country is founded on.

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  10. the Full Quote from Jefferson
    “The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And 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, but we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this, the most venerated reformer of human errors.

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    1. It’s seems that every mass movement has the best intentions. If Jesus is the “most venerated reformer of human errors” he lacked understanding of what he was attempting to do. By offering belief as a virtue is quite possibly one of the greatest stumbling blocks ever placed in front of mankind. Belief made the colonizers quite brutal in their virtue, as well as any other belief based dogma.
      The natural man is actually the believer. It’s a neat trick giving virtue points for doing what man can’t help but do. Can’t see how that could possibly go wrong…

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