Christian Nation?

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

we weren't founded as a christian nation.

No, we were founded by a friggin pirate who thought there was a profit in America. (Christopher Columbus btw)

Actually we were. "One nation under god...."

Aardvark wrote:Actually we were. "One nation under god...."

God =/= Christianity.

In the sense of the time it was referring to the Christian God as most of the founding fathers were Christian.

Aardvark wrote:In the sense of the time it was referring to the Christian God as most of the founding fathers were Christian.

How do you know? You smarter then the founders of the biggest nation in the world?

I read my history.....

under god was added in 1954

Official versions (changes in bold italics)
1892
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1892 to 1923
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1923 to 1924
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1924 to 1954
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1954 to Present
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.


suck it

Huh... didn't know that. Well then they were wise enough at the time to leave religion out of it, something I wish they'd continue now.

Dray The Fingerless wrote:

Aardvark wrote:In the sense of the time it was referring to the Christian God as most of the founding fathers were Christian.

How do you know? You smarter then the founders of the biggest nation in the world?

Aardvark wrote:I read my history.....

Nihil wrote:under god was added in 1954

Official versions (changes in bold italics)
1892
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1892 to 1923
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1923 to 1924
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1924 to 1954
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
1954 to Present
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.


suck it

Apparently, you dont Aard. Busteeeeed!

What happened in 54 anyway?

Actually, this nation was founded on Christian principles. While the "One nation under God" didn't come in till later, it was still founded on Christian values. I read my history too and there is more evidence BEFORE the pledge of allegiance was changed, to say so.

It's true we're not a "Christian" nation because not all of the founding fathers were Christians, but Free Masons, but they still knew the bible and they still instilled some of the moral beliefs and values of it. So are we a Christian nation? No. Were we formed on some Christian values? Yes.

Christian values? And what are these values? Or are you just labelling decent social morals and values as christian values?

Dray we're talking about WHEN this country was established now it's just LETS HAVE A MASSIVE ORGY PARTY country also the pledge was orginally intended for Children but the guy who made it was even a minister. The addition of ''under God'' comes from a version that Lincoln used in his Gettysburg speech

The ROOTS of this country are steeped in the belief in God and the freedom to worship that God as you choose. Consider the following. I know all of you will not read it.

The True Story of Thanksgiving -- The story of the Pilgrims begins in the early part of the seventeenth century . The Church of England under King James I was persecuting anyone and everyone who did not recognize its absolute civil and spiritual authority. Those who challenged ecclesiastical authority and those who believed strongly in freedom of worship were hunted down, imprisoned, and sometimes executed for their beliefs. A group of separatists first fled to Holland and established a community.

"After eleven years, about forty of them agreed to make a perilous journey to the New World, where they would certainly face hardships, but could live and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example.

"And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work. But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was long and arduous. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford's own wife – died of either starvation, sickness or exposure. When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats.

"Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well.

"Nobody owned anything. They just had a share in it, by the way. Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism and it didn't work!"

What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future. 'The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,' Bradford wrote.

"'For this community was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense ... that was thought injustice.' Why should you work for other people when you can't work for yourself? What's the point? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property.

"Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, 'for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’ In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves.

"Now, this is where it gets really good, if you're laboring under the misconception that I was, as I was taught in school. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the 'Great Puritan Migration.'" But this story stops when the Indians taught the newly arrived suffering in socialism Pilgrims how to plant corn and fish for cod. That's where the story stops, and the story basically doesn't even begin there. The real story of Thanksgiving is William Bradford giving thanks to God for the guidance and the inspiration to set up a thriving colony. The bounty was shared with the Indians. They did sit down and they had dinner, and I think they had a turkey, but it was not the Indians who saved the day. It was capitalism and Scripture which saved the day.

tl;dr

Oh yes, the Puritans, lemme explain something to you Ptolemy, they didn't found the nation. They were a freaking denomination, the separating congregation fo the church of england.

Obviously this person hasn't read any history texts because every history text we have read has explicitly stated that the pilgrims did not prosper afterwards.

Believe it or not, the Puritans actually did use many moderate socialist items, they did not allow massive land gains and distributed land fairly and evenly. In other words, one puritan couldn't buy out all the rest.

Also, making the bizarre claim that the bible saved the day doesn't change the facts, that we were not founded as a christian nation.

I don't understand what constitutes a founding nation as "christian"

basically, if a nation is founded with a biblical doctrine like those small communities centered around the people who decided scriptural interpretation in the massachussets bay colonies, then it IS christian.

If it is founded on ideals FATHERED BY THE SECULARIST ENLIGHTENMENT ERA THEN IT IS NOT CHRISTIAN.

My God READ A HISTORY BOOK

I'm sure God knows the history of everything.

You went from Jefferson to pilgrims....big time and culture gap there.

^Even better point

also, the ENLIGHTENMENT hadn't started then, so they didn't have the concept of separation of church and state

Dray The Fingerless wrote:You went from Jefferson to pilgrims....big time and culture gap there.

Actually if you go back another 2 centuries, the same time span, Christianity is raping Europe.

The puritans were the first Europeans on this continent, if you do not count the Scandinavians, I am pointing to roots.. Cause if you loose sight of the past then you loose the future.

The reason that people came to this country in the first place has a HUGE bearing on the direction this nation took in it's later years. they came here for religious freedom.

I could go into a longer dissertation about the founding fathers and how many of them were deist as opposed to those that were christian and how the laws of about nation generally follow the way that MANY religions say we should treat each other. We could go through the federalist papers and explore those if you want. The federalist papers and Franklin's Dogood letters shed even more light on the founding of this great experiment. I expect that most of my views you will disagree with just because you like to argue or because you genuinely think i am an idiot.

how the Constitution allowed for the freedom of many things such as speech, religion, the right to bear arms ect but then i am sure there would be an argument there as well.

This country may not have been founded expressly as a Christian or theocratic country how ever, there were religious values that went in to the formation of our constitution and our laws. I will also point out that while there are many flavors, Christianity was the dominate 'religion' in the area and the era.

Do you know what basic Cristian values are Nihil? Answer me that. Do you even know? Will you admit if you do?

Imo this country was used. Not Founded. Used for gold, oil, and coal. As well as other resources. It was founded under god because immigrants who got tired of their kings or queens of state. And moved for a new life. Their is a combination of reasons why it was founded. A new life. whether it was god, money, power or freedom. But i'll say it wasn't founded under one principle.

Ptolemy wrote:
Do you know what basic Cristian values are Nihil? Answer me that. Do you even know? Will you admit if you do?

Are those the values christians have now or back then? Because they change, Crusade and Dark Ages are proof of that. I asked ara what these values are, and i also asked if he was simply calling values such as Dont kill other people, christian values. Because they are not. The bible has it, sure, but that does not mean, IN ANYWAY, Christianity or any religion, created such values. Those are values INHERINT of a social species.