"Explain all the references to God in the Constitution and early U.S. documents if the founding fathers weren't Christian."
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AloTWrnTeZbuk2WCpeH6hn3sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071204091802AAkA8UM&show=7#profile-info-c8bcfbbfd13bcec5c72a0478aaec5557aa
You know. I looked everywhere but I couldn't find a single reference to God, Jesus, or christianity in the constitution. Maybe cons have some secret version we don't know about?
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html
2007-12-04 05:03:00 · 17 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Excellent answer justgood.
2007-12-04 05:27:47 · update #1
Look all you want. You won't find any. You will find 2 references in the Declaration of Independence. "Nature's God" and "Creator" are referenced there. Neither specifically implies a Christian God.
I blogged on my 360 about McCain's "the US is a Christian nation" speech a few days ago.
The United States Constitution contains no references to the United States being a Christian nation. That is to say, none, not a one, nada. It contains nothing that you could even creatively twist into a justification for this nation being established as a Christian one. In fact, the words "Christian" and "god" appear nowhere in the entire document.
There are just two references to religion to be found anywhere in the Constitution: in Article VI, which provides that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States" and in the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Rather than establishing a Christian nation, the First Amendment requires just the opposite: that no state religion may be established.
2007-12-06 08:31:10 · answer #1 · answered by john_stolworthy 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Constitution is a legal document. It was of utmost importance to the designers that it not limit a man's right to worship as he will. As thinking men they could not limit their construct in that way. However, not approving of the church, as Jefferson, Madison, Adams and many others didn't, does not make them non-christian or deists. Jefferson and Madison were great believers of the Bible and of the Christian faith they were just very much anti-establishment and that includes the religious organizations.
The Declaration of Independence, a much more free-form document does mention "Their Creator" which suggests a single god not multiples or any other form which at the time was exclusive to Christianity, Juddaism and Islam. Which of these religions do you think they most identified with?
I am by no means a follower of the Christian religion nor do I believe in any man-created god, but 70some percent of Americans do believe in the Christian god, that single fact suggests that this nation was formed with Christianity in mind.
2007-12-04 05:29:43 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Constitution? No.
The Declaration of Independence (which has no legal standing) does open with "and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" and closes with a reference to Divine Providence.
No mention of the Baby Jesus, but certainly referring to some form of Sky Bully.
The Founders attended Christians churches, but their beliefs were pretty much all over the place.
They certainly weren't, as a rule, Pat Robertson types.
But then people who define themselves by their delusions wouldn't worry about such things.
2007-12-04 05:51:23 · answer #3 · answered by tehabwa 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Nope, there are none. Many Religious Right activists have attempted to rewrite history by asserting that the United States government derived from Christian foundations, that our Founding Fathers originally aimed for a Christian nation. This idea simply does not hold to the historical evidence.
Of course many Americans did practice Christianity, but so also did many believe in deistic philosophy. Indeed, most of our influential Founding Fathers, although they respected the rights of other religionists, held to deism and Freemasonry tenets rather than to Christianity.
Thomas Jefferson made an interpretation of the 1st Amendment to his January 1st, 1802 letter to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association calling it a "wall of separation between church and State." Madison had also written that "Strongly guarded. . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States." There existed little controversy about this interpretation from our Founding Fathers.
If religionists better understood the concept of separation of Church & State, they would realize that the wall of separation actually protects their religion. Our secular government allows the free expression of religion and non religion. Today, religions flourish in America; we have more churches than Seven-Elevens.
Although many secular and atheist groups fight for the wall of separation, this does not mean that they wish to lawfully eliminate religion from society. On the contrary, you will find no secular or atheist group attempting to ban Christianity, or any other religion from American society. Keeping religion separate allows atheists and religionists alike, to practice their belief systems, regardless how ridiculous they may seem, without government intervention.
2007-12-04 05:08:42 · answer #4 · answered by justgoodfolk 7 · 4⤊ 2⤋
Trovalta, you are right. The founding fathers were very "loosely" christian- meaning hardly at all. This country was not founded on any religion- it was founded on freedom for all. Period.
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Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of the god of deism (the term "Nature's God" used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson sought to organize his thoughts on religion. He rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus (see The Jefferson Bible) leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.
2007-12-04 05:10:09 · answer #5 · answered by Not so looney afterall 5 · 3⤊ 1⤋
The observe "author" looks in the announcement of Independence. I doubt there is taken into consideration one of these connection with be discovered everywhere in the U.S. shape. i've got in no way study it, so i won't be able to say for confident, in spite of the undeniable fact that it flies in the face of its guiding principle that state and church could desire to be seperate.
2016-10-10 05:48:19 · answer #6 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In the Constitution, no, you are correct. However, there are several in the Declaration of Independence and it's fairly implausible that they would abandon God entirely in the years between the drafting of the two documents.
Although I won't go as far as saying "our Founding Fathers were all Christian" I think it's equally dubious to say religion should be divorced from public life as many liberals are fond of claiming. (One Founding Father's opinion expressed in letters isn't really representative of the Fathers in general...)
2007-12-04 05:10:25 · answer #7 · answered by Greg R (2015 still jammin') 7 · 1⤊ 3⤋
It's was all inspired and written by people with the love of God in their hearts, who didn't put it in there in order to avod a theocracy, so that peope wouldn't complain, and now you're complaining that it's not in there.
Freedom of religion is stated in the First Amendment, and that's the reference.
Please read: http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/04-29-05.asp
Now, let me ask YOU a question. Where do the words "separation of churcn and state" appear in the Constitution? Point out the place and I will send you $500 (a reward I've had going on now for a few years for anyone who can't point it out).
2007-12-04 05:07:41 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 5⤋
It talks about the human rights given by Nature's God in the Declaration of Independence. Probably where they got the idea from. Still says nothing about a state religion, just a fundamental belief and motivation in Nature's God, not a Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu god.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
And I bet those of you who are giving me thumbs down for knowing about the second most important document in the history of America believe you are patriotic.
2007-12-04 05:06:02 · answer #9 · answered by Todd 7 · 3⤊ 5⤋
So, One whole single person said that, and quite ignorantly, too, and that means what?
There are more liberals on this site who claim that Clinton wasn't impeached!
Grow up and get over yourself.
2007-12-04 05:13:37 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 4⤋