Why did we all learn in public school that this country was founded by christians?

Question

I only found out it wasn't true fairly recently. Public school led us to believe that. Were they trying to rewrite history?

OK, maybe that was just the impression I was given, but I grew up in Utah.

The freedom of religion idea was supposedly because of strife with the official British church, and they wanted to be free to practice their own version of christianity here.

OK, there we go.

Kat, did you grow up in Utah too?

Answer 1

Because you have people like Bush in charge who are trying to turn the country into a theocracy, which is what the founding fathers came here to escape from. Christians have to be in charge and many throughout the years have been known to rewrite history to suit their purposes. Not all are like that though but many are.

Answer 2

"The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century" by Gerald A. Danzer, J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Larry S. Krieger, Louis E. Wilson, and Nancy Woloch; Published by McDougal Littell, A Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.

This is the US History book I am currently studying out of. It says that Puritans, Pilgrams, Catholics, and Quakers were the "colonists" who arrived at America and established several of the permanent settlements in the early 1600s.


Well, why are we taught this, when it is believed that Muslims knew of North America's existence even before Columbus did? Muslims knew the earth was round before Galileo ever proposed it was.

Well, public school HAS and HAD led us to believe that this country was founded by Christians. Their wording has become more subtle and vauge through words such as "colonists" and "immigrants" but the history they choose to write may very well be true. Yeah, maybe it WAS the Christians who founded America. But in their minds, their twisted minds, they are thinking--Well, how do you define the word "founded"? Does it mean conquer? Does it mean own? And then there is the issue of telling the truth but then lying at the same time through omission of facts. If the Christians WERE the first peoples who founded this America, the books failed to mention the peoples who first DISCOVERED it, as in, truly discovered it (keep in mind their play of words and their definitions), the books failed to mention the history through the Natives' point of view. Through the blacks' point of view. So, you see, the people who write about history favor their own kind. If you read American history through textbooks of the foreign world--Japan, Saudi Arabia, India, Cuba, Canada, Italy, Russia, France, Germany, and Spain--well, my friend, there may be a very different history although some European countries may fall in favor of the American view of US history.



*Breathe*

BRAINWASHERS!!

Answer 3

I never learned that and I went to school in the south, THE bible belt. All I learned as that this country was founded on freedom and the founding fathers made sure that religion wasn't a part of our goverment. That was explicit.

I only read on here that this country was supposedly founded on Christian beliefs. That's so not true. Any reference of God was tacked on in the 50s because of the Cold War scare. It had nothing to with God at all.

Answer 4

Yea I didn't learn that either. Well you can look at it one of two ways. There were indigenous tribes living here prior to the Europeans landing, and they certainly were not Christian. However, considering a country as a whole (or in this case, the original 13 colonies bound together by their status as colonies of the British Empire) was founded by Christians.

Answer 5

I don't remember learning this in public school. I remember the discussions on the enlightenment and Native American influences (I went to 9 schools from K-12!).

Sure we went over the pilgrims a lot, but, they were always brought up as more of a separatist movement that came over here than the types of founders that started this nation. Believe me.. I've heard all about the pilgrims on enough occasions. lol I'm an ancestor of 3 of them. It's a wierd pride thing on my dad's side.

Answer 6

I never learned that, I learned the right way through research, but apparently, from what I have seen on this forum, the Christians were paying attention, and they have no idea what they are talking about :O Many of the founding fathers despised organized religion.

"one nation, under god"

--Sigh, this is making my head hurt.
Most of the founding fathers were deists, meaning for you not too bright people, they believed in a higher power(God), but did not believe in organized religion.

Many of those 'Christian quotes' you are actually talking about are deist quotes. Now if you want anti-Christian quotes, those you can find, because as I said, many of the founding fathers thought Christianity was a disgusting system. 11 of 13 were free masons, and thus, NOT CHRISTIAN!

Answer 7

I can't believe how many people on here were brainwashed into thinking the founding fathers were christians. I didn't think there were that many idiots on these boards but I guess I was wrong.

Oh, especially by the girl that said they wouldn't put 'one nation under god' in the pledge unless it meant something. Whoever that girl is, please look it up and you will find that it was only added in the 1950's because.....? If you can't figure that out you're dumber than I originally thought.

Answer 8

I didn't even learn that in a Catholic school.

The religions of the individual people who founded the United States is irrelevant. What matters is the Constitution, which holds a guarantee of Freedom of Religion for EVERYONE.

Answer 9

Who told you that it wasn't true? For the most part everyone was a Christian except for a select few. I don't know who told you what, but as they say in Missouri, " Show me."
By the way, the Constitution does NOT have anything in it about separation of church and state. Read it for yourself. It says that the congree shall NOT establish a religion. That is not separation of church and state. It means that there will be no Church of England type establishment. As far as diests, only a few were diests and anybody claiming otherwise is full of crap and tellg a big lie. Congress had a preacher come in to lead prayer before every meeting. Hello. If that isn't Christian, the sun is a big cold ball of ice.

Answer 10

I was never taught the religious background of the founding fathers.

We did touch on the religious groups that founded the colonies: Puritans, and Quakers. Making the leap that they shared beliefs with the founding fathers, is a bit extreme though.