Our Nation's Founders Were Not Christian
The founders were not Christian. So right wingnuts, quit saying they were.
For the past few years a friend of mine in the Midwest has been engaged in a war of words in the columns of a local newspaper. Every so often someone writes a letter to the editor claiming that the United States is a Christian nation and that, as the formula goes, "freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion." In response, my friend writes a letter pointing out that the Founding Fathers tended to be deists, not Christians. They saw God as, essentially, a watchmaker. He created the universe, wound it up and then stood back to let it run. If Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Paine had a religion, it was a faith in reason, not in the Bible.
Read the rest here. In fact buy the book.
Comments
My favourite little fact in reference to this the 1797 American treaty with (Muslim) Tripoli, declaring that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
The treaty was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams. The phrase occasioned no comment at the time.