Who are these people that think Jamestown and the Mayflower were filled with Jews and Muslims and atheists?

Question

Who are these people that deny America is culturally a Christian nation?

Answer 1

And your question was? I haven't heard anyone saying that the Mayflower was filled with Jews Muslims and atheists, I know that the captain of the second ship to arrive was an ancestor of mine and according to family tradition all the people on those ships were Christians that were suffering persecution at the hands of the primarily Catholic society at the time.

Answer 2

Well, when the Mayflower (full of Puritans, I might add) landed, there was no United States. The Mayflower began a colony of the UK, which was - at the time - largely Christian.

I will note here that nobody believes the first colonists were Muslims, Jews or atheists. That seems to be an assumption on your part, though I can see how you would come to that conclusion.

Anyway, the men who wrote the Constitution were deists. They believed in God, yes, but they were not exactly Christians by the modern understanding of the faith. And they did not see fit to steep the foundation of the country in biblical Christian doctrine.

"Believing... that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
--Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281

Answer 3

Understand that most Christians confuse the colonization of the Americas with the founding of the nation.

The original settlers were overwhelmingly Christian, and were moving specifically for that reason. In this sense, many of the colonies were founded as Christian colonies. This started to see a rapid downfall, however, after the Salem Witch Trials, when the governor of Massachusetts forbade spectral evidence when the girls pointed their murderous fingers at his wife.

When the founding fathers came together, most were Christian in one form or another, but many of the authors of the documents were in fact Deists. So why did the Christians sign off on Deistic texts?

Had any one of the Christian groups won, the other groups would have been slighted. The Deists really ultimately had no stake in that war, so were a logical neutral position, and one that ensured that no matter what faith was believed, it could be practiced in good faith so long as the civility of the society was maintained. Thus, the Christians among the founding fathers knowingly and intentionally signed off on Deistic documents, to ensure their own continued freedom to worship as they saw fit.

The physical colonization was Christian in origin, however, the legalistic founding of the USA (the Declaration of Indepedance and the Constitution of the USA) was Deistic in nature, and did not describe any one true correct religion. In fact, the Declaration references only once the Creator (a term Deists use since it's the only definition they ascribe to the divine), and the Constitution never mentions a creator at all.

Further, Washington signed off on the Treaty of Tripoli which outright stated that the USA was in no way founded as a Christian nation -- which is true. The nation was founded on Deistic principles, even though the colonies were founded on christian principles.

Once you separate the two types of involved 'foundings', the issue becomes very clear.

Answer 4

I dont know if Jews were on the Mayflower, but Columbus did have several Jews with him on his voyage. The issue of the nation being founded as christian has already been answered by the person who mentioned tripoli..

Answer 5

You have answered your own question. Who are they? They are the Jewish the Muslims and Atheists. (since the nation is founded on Mosaic law, the Jews should not be in this assumption, I know of no Jew who wants to deny America's foundational facts..)

Answer 6

Were the ships filled with them? No. Did some eventually settle down there to work? Yes. Also, atheism caught peoples' imaginations in both Europe and America during the Enlightenment, in the 1700s.

Answer 7

First off, the Mayflower carried Pilgrims.

Pilgrims founded Jamestown and nothing more.

The people who founded the United States of America chose to create a secular system of Government.

If you don't like it, the Middle East awaits you.

Answer 8

We were started by chrisitans, but they clearly stated we are not a christian nation. 'Seperation of church and state' is not the actual term, it actually says that the state may not have an established religion. Each state use to actually have a religion, mostly christian sects. No were does it say 'you cannot put a state of baby Jesus' up, but we cannot become a religious country.

Answer 9

Culturally America is predominantly a Christian nation but it was founded as an explicitly secular nation.

Answer 10

umm just because some christen people came to America does not make it a culturally Christian... unless you want to prove the theory that christens are indeed murderers because they sure did murder most of the "NATIVE AMERICAN" population when they got here........... SO America is naturally paganistic ( i don't think that a word but u know what I mean) because NATIVE INDIANS believed in paganism and many good not Christianity.