The United States is a Christian nation.

Pro is right when he says that all he needs to do is show that the United States' ideology is in some way founded on the Christian faith. Unfortunately, he has fallen immensely short of doing this. Rebuttals: Pro starts by trying to show that many of our founding documents are either based on Christian teaching or advocate Christian doctrines. He begins by citing the Declaration of Independence, quoting the line "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. " Here, I must pose a question to both pro and the readers: what part of this sentence indicates that it has any tie to Christianity? Pro creates a complete non sequitur by suggesting that a reference to a 'creator' must necessarily refer to the Christian God. There is no proof of this, nor does it even imply a Christian God. This excerpt from the Declaration only helps to prove my point. The sentence says "Creator" (instead of 'God,' 'Yahweh,' or anything more specific) because most of the founders were deists [1]. (Pro was right when he said I did not source this in my initial argument. I do apologize for that, but I have now sourced it, so there shouldn't be a problem. ) Pro then goes on to say, "The trust in God that is part of the Second Commandment which states "You shall have no other gods before me," is evidenced in the American practice of having the phrase "In God we Trust" printed on all of our money. " What pro fails to realize (or intentionally left out) is that the phrase "In God We Trust" was not printed on paper money until 1957, nor on coins until the Civil War [2]. Nor, may I add, was it adopted as the national motto until 1956 [3]; further, the phrase "One nation under god" was not added to the pledge until 1954 [4]. These things were all done in response to the so-called 'red scare. ' From all this, we can conclude that it was not our founders' intentions to create a nation founded on the Christian religion. "Other important commandments ban stealing, murder, and perjury. These are all actions that are recognized as illegal in the United States. " Commandments that forbid stealing, murder, and perjury all long pre-date the Ten Commandments or the Christian religion. Specific examples here are endless, but I'll use the Code of Hammurabi as an obvious one [5]. Furthermore, I think pro is really stretching his case thin if he is trying to prove that because our laws might have some overlap with Christian doctrine we are therefore 'founded' on Christian faith. But I digress. Pro continues, "Another Christian value is caring for those in need," then proceeds to cite several Bible verses. This is complete illogic. He is suggesting here that Christianity has a monopoly over the idea of helping the poor and charity. Once again, these values long pre-date Christianity. Works of charity go as far back as the ancient Greeks, and are shared by a multitude of cultures [6]. To say that our welfare programs are reflective of the Christian faith is complete distortion and a fabrication, as well as an insult to non-Christian philanthropists the world over. In his argument, pro failed to draw any sort of logical or conclusive connection between the founding of our nation and the Christian faith. In his rebuttal to my initial argument, pro claims I created a false analogy. This is not the case, nor does he offer any evidence to support his assertion. He attempts to make a case by arguing that "This is a false analogy because a great many people"s personal beliefs impact the decisions they make politically. " Besides being another obvious non sequitur, this point is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter if faith influences people when they vote; that has nothing to do with the analogy I made. My point was simply that saying 'since most Americans are X, our country must be founded on X. ' You can use any number of analogies to show that this is true, the white analogy being only one. Before I conclude, I'd like to elaborate on one of my arguments a bit; that is, that most of our founders were deists and secularists. To avoid redundancy, I'll keep this brief: "The 1796 Treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. " This was not an idle statement meant to satisfy Muslims-- they believed it and meant it. This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams" [1]. "That Jesus did not mean to impose Himself on mankind as the Son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in the lore. " -- Thomas Jefferson's letter to William Short, August 4, 1820 [1]. (Denying the divinity of Jesus is directly antithetical to Christian teaching. ) ""I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. " - Thomas Jefferson [1]. "Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. " - Benjamin Franklin, admitting he was a deist [1]. "In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it. " - Benjamin Franklin [1]. "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries. " -James Madison, 1803 letter objecting use of gov. land for churches [1]. ""The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. " - John Adams [1]. "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession. " - Abraham Lincoln George Washington did not take communion and was a self-proclaimed deist [7]. More examples of this can be found in my first source, but these will do for now. Once again, our founding fathers were almost all deists and securest. We are governed by our Constitution, a secular document that omits all mention of God and whose only references to religion are exclusionary. The separation of church and state was established so that this country could never be founded on the ideals of one religion, but rather on secularism and skepticism. I have shown this in great detail using reliable sources; pro's tenuous case fell completely short of proving that this nation is, in any sense, Christian. 1 - . http://freethought.mbdojo.com... 2 - . http://www.treasury.gov... 3 - . http://en.wikipedia.org... 4 - . http://www.ushistory.org... 5 - . http://en.wikipedia.org... 6 - . http://learningtogive.org... 7 - . http://www.infidels.org...