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Old 12-19-2009, 11:35 AM   #1 (permalink)
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A Christian nation?

What does it mean to call the USA a "Christian nation"? Does having the 10 Commandments on the courthouse door or having "In God We Trust" on our coins make this a Christian nation?

There is no doubt that the USA has been dominated by Christians; but if that means (as a recent letter writer put it) "If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home-------", then what happens to liberty and justice for all?

Such a position reminds me of the country which wanted to claim it was an Aryan nation and proceeded to eliminate the Jews and others who did not fit the mold. Is this what Christians want? If not, then why don't they speak out in opposition to the above mentioned letter writer and those who think like he does.
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Old 12-19-2009, 11:39 AM   #2 (permalink)
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A recent letter writer to what? Your local paper? People write all kinds of letters. It doesn't mean anything like we're becoming 1939 Germany.
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Old 12-19-2009, 12:35 PM   #3 (permalink)
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I thought references to this were in relation to the building of America. Even in Canada, it's evident that our society was built upon Judeo-Christian values.

Today, things have changed. We have essentially secularized our governments and commerce. Much of society has too, but you still have strong currents of the "Christian nation" sentiment, especially in the states.
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Old 12-19-2009, 12:58 PM   #4 (permalink)
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The USA is NOT a Christian nation, so in my opinion, the discussion ends there. People who claim that it is a Christian nation are either terribly ignorant OR willfully opposing the intentions of both the forefathers and the constitution. By extension, this means that if the USA ever does become a Christian nation, it will happen by a popular coup, which is essentially treason.
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Old 12-19-2009, 01:16 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Poppinjay View Post
A recent letter writer to what? Your local paper? People write all kinds of letters. It doesn't mean anything like we're becoming 1939 Germany.
It was in our local paper, but surely you have heard comments like this in many other places. And how many short steps is it from telling people to go live elsewhere to rounding them up and placing them in concentration camps?

---------- Post added at 04:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:12 PM ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Halx View Post
The USA is NOT a Christian nation, so in my opinion, the discussion ends there. People who claim that it is a Christian nation are either terribly ignorant OR willfully opposing the intentions of both the forefathers and the constitution. By extension, this means that if the USA ever does become a Christian nation, it will happen by a popular coup, which is essentially treason.
And which is precisely what I am afraid of and why I speak out. If enough people had spoken out in Germany in the 1930s, maybe Hitler could have been ousted.
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Old 12-19-2009, 01:25 PM   #6 (permalink)
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Plenty of people spoke out in Germany. Unfortunately, they spoke out for Hitler.

That will not happen here. It's a different system and a different way of life. I've lived in the buckle of the bible belt and have seen plenty of rabble voice far right positions, but they're just rabble.
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Old 12-19-2009, 01:40 PM   #7 (permalink)
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In my experience it usually means either "You'll do what I tell you because (I think) it says so in the Bible." or "You aren't welcome here because you have different religious beliefs than I do.". Happily, neither of these concepts appear in our Constitution. For evidence, people either tend to point to the fact that "the founding fathers" where Christian, and/or the references to God in the various documents produced around the founding of our country.

As to the founding fathers being Christian - some of them were, more or less. Many of them were enlightenment-era deists. Either way, based on the founding fathers, it makes just as much sense to call America a Rich, White, Male nation as a Christian one.

There are several references to God and the Bible in the documents produced by the founders, but none (except for "year of our Lord" to express the date) in the Constitution. It is pretty explicitly *not* founding our country or laws on any particular set of religious beliefs.

That said, I believe that some (the ACLU in particular) go a bit too far in trying to keep religion out of the public sphere. Religious displays and that sort of thing. I guess the pithy phrase to describe this is 'freedom of religion, not freedom from religion'. Even in cases where they may technically be in the right, I think it's the wrong focus.
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Old 12-19-2009, 02:23 PM   #8 (permalink)
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So this is more or less their way of saying that Christian values, whether they are inherently religious or not, are the mode of American life. I can see that.

Since America is a "Christian nation," homosexuality and abortions should be illegal, other religions such as Islam and Judaism need to act as visitors, and our foreign policy should be in line with the Christian aim of doing God's will unto others....

Okay, in that sense, America isn't a Christian nation, no. However, to suggest there is nothing Christian about America would be wrong. Those who created the country were devout Christians, and although much as been secularized, it's difficult to deny your roots and foundations.
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Old 12-19-2009, 02:28 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Those who created the country were devout Christians
So... very... wrong.
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Old 12-19-2009, 04:55 PM   #10 (permalink)
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America is not a Christian nation, nor has it ever been. That is the purpose of freedom of religion, and it is the point of Jefferson's "wall of separation" between religion and state.

Anyone who calls the US a Christian nation is, for certain, 1) A fundamentalist nutbag, and 2) a Christian. Because I assure you, we non-Christians don't consider it a Christian nation, and it pisses us off pretty good when people call it that.

BTW, as for the ACLU et al., I agree that sometimes they can be a little heavy-handed in trying to keep religion out of the public sphere. But IMO, better they do so, and sometimes do so clumsily, than allow the proliferation of religious displays in public which can rapidly downspiral into grey areas between acceptable and offensive. For example, the city having displays for Xmas, Chanukah, and Solstice (along with any other religion's holidays that might fall around now)? I have no problem. The city's Xmas display being a Nativity scene with a banner that reads "Born Is The King of Israel"? Kind of offensive. Better to draw the line widely than to draw it so narrowly that later one has to figure out just where it falls. As long as we're all free to do our religious things to the Nth degree of loud, unsubtle, and proud, on private property, in our own homes and places of worship, I'm good.
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Old 12-19-2009, 05:45 PM   #11 (permalink)
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America a Christian nation? When the hell did this happen?
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Old 12-19-2009, 05:50 PM   #12 (permalink)
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Those who created the country were devout Christians
Not really. Maybe Adams. I guess it depends on what your definition of created is. The Pilgrims were kind of crazy religious folks, but the folks who drew up our founding documents were considered heretics by many. Jefferson disposed of much of the bible and created his own. Franklin was into mysticism. Washington attended episcopal services in Alexandria mostly as a social thing. There was an overwhelming sense of providence that many of them felt, and that's about as far as their religiosity went.
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Old 12-19-2009, 06:34 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Halx View Post
So... very... wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Poppinjay
Not really. Maybe Adams. I guess it depends on what your definition of created is. The Pilgrims were kind of crazy religious folks, but the folks who drew up our founding documents were considered heretics by many. Jefferson disposed of much of the bible and created his own. Franklin was into mysticism. Washington attended episcopal services in Alexandria mostly as a social thing. There was an overwhelming sense of providence that many of them felt, and that's about as far as their religiosity went.
Sorry, I made an assumption. I don't have a particular interest in American history. I didn't know they had broken away from the faith.

But they did believe in God and knew most of "the People" were Christian, right?

And it's not like their belief system was coming out of left field.

Also, by "created the country," I didn't mean the Founding Fathers exclusively. I meant "the People" in general as well. Unless, of course, the Founding Fathers were tyrants.
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Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 12-19-2009 at 06:38 PM..
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Old 12-19-2009, 06:42 PM   #14 (permalink)
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Most of the people were protestant. Adams was very devout, but he was kind of the buzz killer.

The whole "Christian nation" thing is really a modern thing. It really kicked into high gear in the 80's with the mainstreaming of evangelism.
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Old 12-20-2009, 08:14 AM   #15 (permalink)
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The point is that totalitarian governments usually begin with a notion that the current problems are the fault of some evil perpetrators who are attempting to destroy the things we believe in. In Germany the evil perpetrators who were the cause of their economic crises (runaway inflation, high unemployment) were supposed to be the Jews. The ire of the German people was roused by appeal to the idea of the purity of the Aryan race and promoted the idea that Germany should be an Aryan nation.

The idea worked and played right into the hands of Adolph Hitler who took advantage
of the opportunity to seize power. Once he had the power, he ordered the elimination of Jews and the holocaust followed.

The thing to keep in mind is that such biggotism starts with the expresssion of sentiments like "this is an Aryan (or Christian) nation, and those who think otherwise should go elsewhere". Then, when this idea spreads, the next thing we know, we will have legislators who propose outlawing anti-Christian expression and maybe even putting those who speak out in prison. From there much atrocity is possible.

Just saying that the idea that this is a Christian nation is wrong does not end the discussion. We freedom lovers must speak out in opposition to such biggotism, else it will grow.
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Old 12-20-2009, 08:54 AM   #16 (permalink)
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Fortunately, we haven't as a nation succumbed to the type of religious fervor that would enable a second holocaust. I don't religion is the only basis either. I think any type of label that can stand in as a substitute for the ability to see another person as a 3D human, ie terms like liberal, conservative, immigrant, packer fan, has the potential to serve as component of the rationalization required for human on human brutality.
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Old 12-20-2009, 01:00 PM   #17 (permalink)
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Plenty of people spoke out in Germany. Unfortunately, they spoke out for Hitler.

That will not happen here. It's a different system and a different way of life. I've lived in the buckle of the bible belt and have seen plenty of rabble voice far right positions, but they're just rabble.
Wait until your nation faces the loss of a generation and complete bankruptcy in quick succession and see if everything stays peaceful.

Not saying it WILL happen, just that the US has never faced a situation quite as extreme as has happened in other nations.
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Old 12-20-2009, 01:19 PM   #18 (permalink)
 
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well first off this "christian nation" business is a big part of neo-fascist or "extreme right" politics across the board. you can see it alot in western european far-right political organizations. you see how this nonsense can acquire some traction in the recent swiss vote concerning minaret construction. so the only difference really between neo-fascist politics in western europe and this stuff in the united states is (1) its closer to mainstream conservatism because (2) there's been no particular effort to name this sort of politics for what it is. so in a way what happened in switzerland has been happening for quite a while in the states. go america.

it's obviously an identity politics which does what that sort of politics always does, which is to redefine the distinction inside/outside.

it's not surprising in a way either because lots of folk are feeling social and economic pressure and recourse to some notion of identity that seems stable by being rooted in something that's outside history (god, you know)----& reacting to that pressure by trying to assert a sense of nation-ness that transfers the outcomes of economic reorganization (for example) that's been happening right in front of people with near-universal assent from the dominant opinion co-ordination systems onto some community of essence or belief is not a new move.

it is potentially dangerous.
but there are many possibilities in real-time...history doesn't repeat exactly. the united states has just passed through 7 years in the course of which national-level political discourse was dominated by versions of this nonsense--what do you imagine the discourse of the "terrorist" does? and you had idiocy like the huntington thesis--the whole "clash of civilizations" thing--that seemed for a while almost respectable and which were basically restatements of this same dynamic with footnotes.

the underlying problem is the idea of nation, which i regard as a kind of collective mental disorder. but that's another matter.
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Old 12-24-2009, 05:41 PM   #19 (permalink)
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"If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home-------"

All this discussion goes on, yet I see no indication of "America is a Christian nation" here. It merely says that intolerance is unacceptable.
But the issue with labelling America on aggregate is that there are totally different populations. Small towns might be exactly the definition of this. Society certainly has Christian values. Surely, any nation must have at least one Christian? In such a large population, I think it is difficult to have one religion describe the whole population. There are only degrees of truth.
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Old 12-24-2009, 11:33 PM   #20 (permalink)
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Church attendance and every other measure of religious fervor are currently at their all time high. People are significantly more religious in the US right now than they were in the past, making the whole myth of "Christianity under attack" just that, a myth.
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Old 12-25-2009, 11:47 AM   #21 (permalink)
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Church attendance and every other measure of religious fervor are currently at their all time high. People are significantly more religious in the US right now than they were in the past, making the whole myth of "Christianity under attack" just that, a myth.
Well, that's not necessarily true. Still, well over 80% of American are Christian and of that well over half regularly attend church. A recent Gallop poll had the number of atheists still in the single digits, with Jews and Muslims trailing us. On top of that, a majority of human beings on the planet self-describe as Christian.

As for the idea that the United States is a Christian nation, whatever. As long as people don't act stupid (like teaching mythology in public science classrooms or try to enact religious laws), I don't care at all. Believe in whatever you want.
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Old 12-25-2009, 12:12 PM   #22 (permalink)
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Well, that's not necessarily true. Still, well over 80% of American are Christian and of that well over half regularly attend church. A recent Gallop poll had the number of atheists still in the single digits, with Jews and Muslims trailing us. On top of that, a majority of human beings on the planet self-describe as Christian.

As for the idea that the United States is a Christian nation, whatever. As long as people don't act stupid (like teaching mythology in public science classrooms or try to enact religious laws), I don't care at all. Believe in whatever you want.
Im not sure what the data source in that link is, but they seem to point to short term fluctuations. I was referring to long term trends:

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Old 12-25-2009, 02:14 PM   #23 (permalink)
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The US is not a Chrisitian nation and yet Christmas is a federal holiday. Are there any other organized religions that fall into that category?
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Old 01-16-2010, 03:49 PM   #24 (permalink)
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I once made the mistake of telling my mom & her sister that I thought if people were better Xians, communism could work. They acted like I'd said something bizarre. ...America is not a Xian nation, nor do most Americans want it to be, as far as I can tell. ...God bless America!
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Old 02-14-2010, 04:21 AM   #25 (permalink)
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I once made the mistake of telling my mom & her sister that I thought if people were better Xians, communism could work. !
If Christians followed the teachings of Christ, then any Christian community would exhibit communism.
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Old 02-14-2010, 09:49 AM   #26 (permalink)
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The part of the world that would become the US was settled by devout Christians, and Christianity has played an important part in the formation of America. You would have to be blind to not see the social influence that Christianity has had upon this country since the first settlers arrived. The last time I looked at any statistics, something like 80% of US citizens identified themselves as being Christians of some variety. So whether or not the US is legally a Christian nation is pretty irrelevant.

I'm not a Christian, but I personally don't see anything offensive about having the Ten Commandments or whatever on public buildings - I see it as just an indicator of the enormous impact Christianity has had on the United States and the Western world. Sure,
Christmas is a federal holiday, and I agree that it should be. It is the most important holiday to a practicing Christian, and if the statistic I quoted before is still accurate, then I don't have any problem accommodating the religion of 80% of Americans for one day. If a person is of any other religion and wants to take a day off for observance, the law protects their right to do so.

And I see it coming, please don't make any snide knowitall comments about how Christmas wasn't originally a Christian holiday. I know it, you know it, everyone on the ****ing planet knows it. Its a Christian holiday before anything else in the modern world, and that's all that matters (on a religious basis, anyway).
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Old 02-14-2010, 10:06 AM   #27 (permalink)
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I won't bother to try and copy/paste/hide the whole 10 pages of this article, but I do suggest that you read it:
How Christian Were the Founders? - NYTimes.com

As a tease, the first page:

Quote:
LAST MONTH, A WEEK before the Senate seat of the liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy fell into Republican hands, his legacy suffered another blow that was perhaps just as damaging, if less noticed. It happened during what has become an annual spectacle in the culture wars.

Over two days, more than a hundred people — Christians, Jews, housewives, naval officers, professors; people outfitted in everything from business suits to military fatigues to turbans to baseball caps — streamed through the halls of the William B. Travis Building in Austin, Tex., waiting for a chance to stand before the semicircle of 15 high-backed chairs whose occupants made up the Texas State Board of Education. Each petitioner had three minutes to say his or her piece.

“Please keep César Chávez” was the message of an elderly Hispanic man with a floppy gray mustache.

“Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world and should be included in the curriculum,” a woman declared.

Following the appeals from the public, the members of what is the most influential state board of education in the country, and one of the most politically conservative, submitted their own proposed changes to the new social-studies curriculum guidelines, whose adoption was the subject of all the attention — guidelines that will affect students around the country, from kindergarten to 12th grade, for the next 10 years. Gail Lowe — who publishes a twice-a-week newspaper when she is not grappling with divisive education issues — is the official chairwoman, but the meeting was dominated by another member. Don McLeroy, a small, vigorous man with a shiny pate and bristling mustache, proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming.   click to show 
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