What Do You Think?

[shiewhero]

I keep hearing that the US was founded on Christianity and it is meant to be a Christian nation and the separation of church and state is a myth. I also hear the flip side that the founding fathers were all deists and freethinkers, and America was founded on the freedom of religion, and not just one.

Do you have any facts to support either side? What exactly are the facts-- if the US was founded on Christianity, why is it not a theocracy?

[troach]

The founding fathers of the United States were not all Christian. However most, not all but most, did believe in God or some higher power as well as the concepts of The Holy Bible.

But by no means did they all follow the practices of Organized Christian Churches. While many of the founding fathers believed in Jesus, they disagreed with many of the Organized Religious teachings. They firmly believed that one should be able worship, or not worship, any way one chooses. The freedom of religion was put in place not to hinder religion as it is so often used to do today, but rather insure that no one is forced to follow any particular faith or required to practice it in any particular way (it is also there to insure that no one prevents or hinders anyone from practicing the faith they choose to follow). Basically the "rules" were put into place to try to insure that we never reach a point as it was in England at the time where the King dictated what faith and how people were to worship ... or not worship.

However, today so many take the rules to extremes making them into something perverted and used in ways the laws were never intended.

When we only look at the letter of the law and stop using our … dare I say … God Given Common Sense … when we stop using our common sense when applying the laws of our land, every law we have becomes meaningless and harmful to the people as well as our nation.

But back to what faith the founding fathers followed.

Here is a page that lists what we know (in a few cases suspect) were the religious affiliations of the founding fathers:

http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

It includes the 204 "Founding Fathers." the people who did one or more of the following:

- signed the Declaration of Independence
- signed the Articles of Confederation
- attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787
- signed the Constitution of the United States of America
- served as Senators in the First Federal Congress (1789-1791)
- served as U.S. Representatives in the First Federal Congress

a quick summary of the founding fathers religious affiliations is:

Religious Affiliation___# ofFoundingFathers___% ofFoundingFathers
Episcopalian/Anglican________88_________________54.7%
Presbyterian_______________30_________________18.6%
Congregationalist___________27_________________16.8%
Quaker____________________7__________________4.3%
Dutch Reformed/
German Reformed___________6__________________3.7%
Lutheran___________________5__________________3.1%
Catholic____________________3__________________1.9%
Huguenot___________________3__________________1.9%
Unitarian___________________3__________________1.9%
Methodist___________________2__________________1.2%
Calvinist____________________1__________________0.6%
TOTAL____________________204

As you can see there was a broad spectrum of theological ideas represented by the founding fathers. I do not think that they ever intended for the state and the church to be totally separated. But at the same time they did not want the state or the church to dictate how, or interfere with how, the other performs its duties to preserve the well being of our nation and the people (body, mind and soul).