America: Not A Christian Nation

I feel like I've done this before...

Almost all of the presidents can be characterized as Christian, at least by formal membership. Some were Unitarian or unaffiliated with a specific religious body. Some are thought to have been deists, or irreligious. No president thus far has been a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh or an adherent of any other specifically non-Christian religion.

Religious Affiliations of Presidents of the United States
en.wikipedia.org...

Looks like around 80-90% of the former Presidents of the U.S. worshipped some form of Christianity. The other 10% would probably be considered Atheists.

Also see: The Religious Affiliations of Current United States Senators
en.wikipedia.org...

How can we not be considered a Christian nation when nearly every single one of our past and present elected leaders are Christian?

Originally posted by tooo many pills
I feel like I've done this before...


How can we not be considered a Christian nation when nearly every single one of our past and present elected leaders are Christian?

edit on 31-1-2011 by tooo many pills because: (no reason given)

And i feel like I've done this before...

Dude did you literally not read the thread? This point had been literally hammered home.

Majority does not define the whole, no matter how you look at it. Trying to place a label that doesn't apply to everyone, ON EVERYONE (of a given category) only does yourself a disservice. If you've looked at our past presidents they have all been white up to Obama, guess that means we are a white country right? No, of course not, it's ludicrous to even think so. Same goes for America being a Christian Nation.

It was founded on human morals, not the bible, as repeatedly stated by the more prominent founding fathers. The backup position of majority defining the whole is fundamentally wrong and whenever i hear anyone say that from now on I think it will be pretty safe to just disregard everything they have to say.

I said it before and I'll say it again, take 5 red M&Ms and 2 blue M&Ms and put them in your hand, how in the world do you think you have a pile of red M&M's!

reply to post by Stuffed


Is Saudi Arabia not a Muslim nation? All of their leaders are Muslim.
Is Israel a not Jewish nation? All of their leaders are Jewish.

This has nothing to do with the majority defining the whole, everything to do with what religion our elected leaders are. America is a melting pot of every type of person in the world we aren’t one particular religion or race, however, all of our elected leaders who make our decisions are Christian! If all of our leaders are virtually one religion you can bet that our policies cater to that religion.

Does that mean we are all stereotyped as Christian because of their policies? No, but in the eyes of the world our leaders are Christian thus our nation caters to Christian ideals, which makes the U.S. a Christian nation.

M&Ms... ShhM&Ms.
Texas is considered a Republican state (red), we always elect Republican leaders (red).

Did all 100% of us vote Republican (red)? No, some voted Democrat and Independent (blue and white).

Does that make us all Republicans (red) because they won? No, some of us are still (blue and white), but our leaders are Republicans (red) and always side with other Republicans (reds) when voting and drafting our state's laws, thus making Texas a Republican (red) state regardless of what the (blue and whites) say because they don't hold any power.

The people that hold power in the U.S. government are Christian. So, what is our country...?

a little more "fact and truth" (American History 101)

Religion played a major role in the American Revolution by offering a moral sanction for opposition to the British--an assurance to the average American that revolution was justified in the sight of God. As a recent scholar has observed, "by turning colonial resistance into a righteous cause, and by crying the message to all ranks in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better." Ministers served the American cause in many capacities during the Revolution: as military chaplains, as penmen for committees of correspondence, and as members of state legislatures, constitutional conventions and the national Congress. Some even took up arms, leading Continental troops in battle. The Revolution split some denominations, notably the Church of England, whose ministers were bound by oath to support the King, and the Quakers, who were traditionally pacifists. Religious practice suffered in certain places because of the absence of ministers and the destruction of churches, but in other areas, religion flourished. The Revolution strengthened millennialist strains in American theology. At the beginning of the war some ministers were persuaded that, with God's help, America might become "the principal Seat of the glorious Kingdom which Christ shall erect upon Earth in the latter Days." Victory over the British was taken as a sign of God's partiality for America and stimulated an outpouring of millennialist expectations--the conviction that Christ would rule on earth for 1,000 years. This attitude combined with a groundswell of secular optimism about the future of America to create the buoyant mood of the new nation that became so evident after Jefferson assumed the presidency in 1801.

www.loc.gov...

7 additional sections @ Library of Congress

If America IS a Christian Nation, then Christianity is a dead religion.

This is a far cry from that religion which now calls itself Christianity. If Christianity means to follow after Christ, will someone explain to me how the Popes and their Crusader armies were "turning the other cheek" when they swept through eastern Europe, murdering, raping, and plundering on their way to rescue the "Holy Land" from the infidels? And how much more wretched a life could the "infidels" have lived than did those "soldiers of the cross"? Remember, it was the Pope's guarantee of a direct trip to heaven with no purgatory for those who were killed along the way which spurred these fools into ever greater boldness in their murderous venture.

Link

The religion the forefathers was promoting was no different than Rome establishing temples throughout the realm. It is good to keep the populace compliant, complacent, and dependant. Christ taught a different message, one of having love for God, love for all, and love for the future not the world of the present.

American Presidents may claim to be Christian, but they are no followers of Christ.

With Love.

Your Brother

reply to post by tooo many pills


I'm all for the separation of church and state. Not a Christian nation now? PHFFF! that's obvious. Never was ?
Highly debatable. This country was so much better off back when Christianity was dominant though. When there was prayer in the class room.The Ten Commanments were posted in front of court buildings.

Originally posted by tooo many pills
reply to post by Stuffed

 

M&Ms... ShhM&Ms.
Texas is considered a Republican state (red), we always elect Republican leaders (red).

edit on 31-1-2011 by tooo many pills because: (no reason given)

Well the term Republican state is a bit of a misnomer, granted it works but let me explain why. They mean to say Republican majority, in which because the majority voted republican, the state as an entity votes republican. That's simply a matter of how the electoral college works, not a model for how to label under the opinion of the majority.

Edit: Oh and to address the part of your post about Saudi Arabia, having the leader a muslim does not make the country muslim. I'd say the fact it's monarch must abide by Sharia (ISLAMIC LAW) sends the message quite fine that it is a muslim nation, along with it being officially declared.

The day America passes something that says we're a Christian Nation is the day that America will become a Christian Nation (not in the sense of the majority), which will coincidentally be the day i leave America.

reply to post by Stuffed

Well the term Republican state is a bit of a misnomer, granted it works but let me explain why. They mean to say Republican majority, in which because the majority voted republican, the state as an entity votes republican. That's simply a matter of how the electoral college works, not a model for how to label under the opinion of the majority.

But what about my overall point? Or, are we just focused on the analogy aspect?

Originally posted by IAMIAM

The religion the forefathers was promoting was no different than Rome establishing temples throughout the realm. It is good to keep the populace compliant, complacent, and dependant. Christ taught a different message, one of having love for God, love for all, and love for the future not the world of the present.

American Presidents may claim to be Christian, but they are no followers of Christ.

With Love.

Your Brother

you really do not understand politics in the information age, would we be any different than the leaders in the muslim world if our president was up on that podium constantly speaking the word G-d and justifying our actions with that word ?

America was born of Christianity, 90% of it presidents were Christians, the remaining were not atheists only, they quite possibly were agnostics or wiccans who knows... one thing we do know is that we don't know, they just kept their mouth shut about it.

I commend your search for the perfect human though, may I ask which faith you follow my friend ?

Originally posted by tooo many pills
How can we not be considered a Christian nation when nearly every single one of our past and present elected leaders are Christian?

Nearly all of them have been white, though we're not a "white nation".

The fact is that there remains no christianity anywhere in our founding documents.

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
America was born of Christianity

Funny, it's conspicuously absent in all of our documentation. When religion is mentioned it's only in the context of government restriction.

Originally posted by IAMIAM
If America IS a Christian Nation, then Christianity is a dead religion.

33% of the global theistic population adheres to Christianity, that's roughly 2.1 billion people, there are approximately 312 million people living in the United States.

2.1 billion

Christianity: David B. Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia (1994 update) gives an oft-cited figure of 1.9 billion Christians (or about 33% of the world population), and projected that by the year 2000 there will be 2.1 billion Christians in the world. The 2001 edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia stated there were 2.1 billion Christians in the world, or 33% of the total population. Regardless of the degree of accuracy of this figure, Christianity, if taken as a whole, is unarguably the largest world religion - the largest religion in the world.

1 billion to 1.8 billion, give or take 800 million (there is approx 312 million population in the United States by comparison)

Islam: Contemporary figures for Islam are usually between 1 billion and 1.8 billion, with 1 billion being a figure frequently given in many comparative religion texts, probably because it's such a nice, round number. That figure appears to be dated, however. Relatively high birth rates in Muslim countries continue to make Islam a fast-growing religion. The largest and best known branches of Islam are Sunni and Shi'ite.

1.1 billion

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: This is a highly disparate group and not a single religion. Although atheists are a small subset of this grouping, this category is not synonymous with atheism. People who specify atheism as their religious preference actually make up less than one-half of one percent of the population in many countries where much large numbers claim no religious preference, such as the United States (13.2% nonreligious according to ARIS study of 2001) and Australia (15% nonreligious).

www.adherents.com...

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by tooo many pills
How can we not be considered a Christian nation when nearly every single one of our past and present elected leaders are Christian?

Nearly all of them have been white, though we're not a "white nation".

oh don't be all racist now... I have accused atheistic evolutionist of being just that so don't support the theory.

The fact is that there remains no christianity anywhere in our founding documents.

now lets check our history once again with the links I have posted, let us take a journey into the mindset of our founding fathers and the father of the Constitution... Have you read any of the off-site text I have quoted ? I have never claimed mention of Christianity in our founding documents have I ? but it is quite obvious there is mention of God the Creator. If you would like though you can view my states constitution (VA) quoted in my signature for reference of Christianity and Christian heritage.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
America was born of Christianity

Funny, it's conspicuously absent in all of our documentation. When religion is mentioned it's only in the context of government restriction.

what's really funny is that you are a natural troll and you don't even know it... Mention of Christianity is absent in the federal Constitution for a good reason, one of them being we do not live in a perfect world where everybody thinks the same and loves one another. If American Government followed the strict teaching of Christ you and I would not be here... I appreciate my government defending my right to try to practice whatever I believe (and I gravitate towards Christianity) since it is that in which I was born.

your topic title is a play on words and your statement of Obama's speech is falsified... you topic is a mass troll attempt and the funny thing is you might not even realize it ? I believe you have been infected unknowingly with the communist virus and are being consumed by it from within, everything you know has been a lie... I feel for you dude.

let's see if we can find a cure...

Well, it appears someone gets a bit emotional when faced with the ugly fact of not being able to support his claims along with well, not looking up quotes to verify they're genuine. I'm not interested in a game of emotional ad hominem and distraction. Support your claims.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
Well, it appears someone gets a bit emotional when faced with the ugly fact of not being able to support his claims along with well, not looking up quotes to verify they're genuine. I'm not interested in a game of emotional ad hominem and distraction. Support your claims.

I am supporting my claims thank you... "American is no longer "just" a Christian nation" but who's to say that is not where we once were ? (write a letter to the president and get him to explain his exact words)

and what is this comment about emotion ? are you saying I am emo

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
I commend your search for the perfect human though, may I ask which faith you follow my friend ?

I do not follow any faith my friend. I have faith in God the giver of life, and I love all mankind as my Brothers and Sisters.

Here is my faith

I suppose it is all just a matter of opinion. I have voiced my disagreement enough already. Any more and I will only appear a zealot.

With Love,

Your Brother

Originally posted by IAMIAM

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
I commend your search for the perfect human though, may I ask which faith you follow my friend ?

I do not follow any faith my friend. I have faith in God the giver of life, and I love all mankind as my Brothers and Sisters.

Here is my faith

I suppose it is all just a matter of opinion. I have voiced my disagreement enough already. Any more and I will only appear a zealot.

With Love,

Your Brother

well that is cool by me... I have no problem with any belief you follow or what one likes to call it, I am glad you believe in a higher power and you express it with the english language word "God"

peace out \m/

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact

I am supporting my claims thank you... "American is no longer "just" a Christian nation" but who's to say that is not where we once were ? (write a letter to the president and get him to explain his exact words)

You mean when we were a nation of British colonies? No question we were just as christian as England was at that time. Though it's impossible to find any christianity within America's founding documents in and beyond the DOI.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
America was born of Christianity

Funny, it's conspicuously absent in all of our documentation. When religion is mentioned it's only in the context of government restriction.

yes that means from the government being taken over by it or run by specific religious doctrines... you do see this alot in other countries.

the Constitution was drafted to protect "we the people" albeit states do have their own constitutions too, but it is the states and the people of these states which grant our governing body their powers.

I have no doubt these men of old knew exactly what they were doing when the Constitution was drafted, people were much more in-tune back then.