America is a Christian Nation

Ah, but remember, in our country, the government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." The ideals of the country ARE ideals of our government, represented especially by Constitution and our Founding Documents(I'll get back to these in a minute). In a Republic, you must not so easily claim the government and the nation as separate entities. To do so is to deny the very principles of a republic in the first place! If the nation is founded upon Christianity, then so is the government. In any event, the claim of a Christian Nation is always brought up in the context of government-- "the government should do X because [my version of]Christianity says X." For example "Schools should make children pray, even if they don't want to, because this is a Christian Nation." Living in the South, I can't tell you how often I've heard almost exactly those words! As to the Founding Documents, I will first refer to the Declaration of Independence, written by the *deist*--not the Christian, the deist-- Thomas Jefferson. I would say that it was a fairly instrumental document in our nation's founding, would you not? Though it references an almighty Creator, this is not the God of the Bible, but the DEIST clockmaker God of the Enlightenment. In the Declaration can be seen echoes of Enlightenment philosophers, such as Paine and Locke. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is lifted almost entirely from Common Sense, where it was "Life, Liberty, and Property," with "the pursuit of happiness" being a phrase elsewhere found in the pamphlet. It being established that the Declaration was based on Enlightenment values, we must consider: what WAS the Enlightenment, and what were its values? As its name suggests, the Enlightenment placed, above all, a high value on reason. According to the philosophy derived at the time, you should "Question with boldness [everything], even the existence of a god." [1] Accepting any belief on faith alone was viewed as a negative. As such, the unofficial religion of the philosophy was Deism. I really wish I could do a very good in-depth evaluation of the Enlightenment, but whole books have been written on the subject, so I hope my explanation is good enough. Therefore, if the Declaration was based on the Enlightenment, it could be said to be indirectly based on whatever the Enlightenment is based on-- and that is most certainly *not* Christianity. Indeed, many Enlightenment philosophers got into a lot of trouble for their anti-Christian writings-- see Spinoza. Now, what was our Constitution, then, based on? Well, I will certainly say that it was not Christian principles. Nowhere does it mention God, except to explicitly forbid religious tests of office, and to deny any establishment of a national church. Its elaboration of rights and responsibilities is based on humanity, and not God. Now, *some* of them did believe that God granted those rights, but that's just like how some people believe that God guides evolution. You can believe it, but it's not an inherent part of it. The Constitution is the same way. It's based on man's rights, not on God, and certainly not the Christian God. Some of the founders believed that those rights came from God, but it wasn't inherent to the idea of the rights! It is true that certain factions of Christianity(very radical factions of that religion for the time!) shared some of the values with the nation's founding, they were not the source. I mean, our country's founding shares many values with Buddhism and Hinduism, too. Does that mean that we were founded upon Buddhist principles, and that our nation is one under the Dalai Lama? The source was the Enlightenment, which was a movement that happened in spite of, and not because of, Christianity. There's a *reason* that Enlightenment Philosophers were rarely Christian. Now, as to the religion of the founding fathers, which you are backing off on-- I think it's of vital importance for your claim, and here's why. Would a bunch of non-Christians agree to create a country founded upon it? No! And when we look at several of the influential leaders, we see Deists. Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, Madison. The list goes on. These were people who greatly shaped the course of the country's founding, and they were not Christians-- at least, not in the sense that we're discussing: the Christian religion, probably including beliefs in its miracles and certainly in the God of the Bible. But even the Christians among them felt that their religion was their OWN BUSINESS and nobody else's. My own claim does not rely on the individual religious convictions of the founding fathers (because my claim is that the country wasn't founded upon their religious convictions), but your claim does-- it relies on the fact they were not only Christians, but they founded the country on that religion's principles. If you cannot prove those two things, then you have accomplished nothing. And certainly, people can disagree with their governments. Many Americans currently do. But I don't think (m)any of us disagree with the founding principles enumerated in the Constitution and in the Declaration of Independence. And remember, this is about the founding principles, not the current administration. I repeat what I said previously: the fact that the largest religious group in this country is that of Christianity makes this a Christian nation only as far as the fact that white Americans are the largest racial group makes this a White Nation, or the fact that the majority of Americans are right-handed makes this a right-handed nation. (And by that I mean "not at all," if you don't get it. ;)) Furthermore, if you want to claim it's founded upon Christian Principles, then which sect's principles? Not all forms of Christianity have the same principles, and many(I'd say most, but I'm not as sure about that) of them in the 1700's had principles directly antithetical to those that this country was founded upon. Essentially, you must look at the historical context. What was this nation founded upon? Was it founded upon Christian Principles, or the Principles of the Enlightenment?[2] Seeing as the Enlightenment was, at this time in history, mostly in competition with Christianity, it cannot be both, even if there is some overlap. We must look at which source the founding fathers drew their values from; which ones inspired them to believe as they believed-- even if similar beliefs could, in theory, be derived from another source. Seeing that you have failed to demonstrate that the religious beliefs of the founding fathers was Christianity and that the country was founded with those principles (and proof of both is necessary for your side); Noting that the founding fathers often corresponded with Enlightenment Philosophers such has Hume, read works of others such as Voltaire, or were prominent philosophers themselves, as is the case with Paine; Asserting that their own words and deeds indicate that they were disciples of the Enlightenment, I submit that it can only be concluded that the values that this country was founded upon were those of the Enlightenment-- and therefore, if they were drawn from ANY religion at all, it was Deism-- the religion nearly always associated with that movement. Thank you. 1: Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Peter Carr 2: (Or some other set of principles not brought up, I suppose. Don't want to create a false Dichotomy.)