Tuesday, July 7, 2009

What Is a Christian Nation?

In the various arguments I've seen regarding religion in the US, I've often bumped into people supporting their views by saying that we're a "Christian Nation". I don't know what exactly they are referring to.

Is it the "In God We Trust" on our money? Became our country's official motto in 1956. It actually has its roots in religious sentiment from the Civil War. But it was hardly because of anything having to do with our country's founding or its founding fathers.

As a bit of trivia, Theodore Roosevelt opposed putting that slogan on money. He considered it an act of sacrilege.

Indeed, contrary to what many of the citizens seem to believe, many of our founding fathers were Deists, although sadly I'm not sure most of our nation's citizens are even aware of Deism. Here's a quick quote from Wikipedia:
*********
Deism is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme god created the universe, and that this and other religious truth can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without the need for faith. Deists generally reject the notion of divine interventions in human affairs - such as by miracles and revelations. These views contrast with a dependence on revelations, miracles, and faith found in many Judeo-Christian,[1][2] Islamic and other theistic teachings.
*********
What got me thinking about this was an article on the Jefferson Bible. Scratching your head yet?

Apparently our 3rd president of the United States extracted the parts of the Bible that he found to be contradictory or unreasonable, creating a version that was purely consisting of the moral teachings of Jesus Christ; it was also arranged in a manner that made a consistent narrative. The result was called the Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazereth. The article said that the resulting book was 46 pages long.

It was also Jefferson credited with the idea of "separation of church and state." He was an admirable man; he believed in God, but did not believe in supernatural revelation, and as such didn't feel it was right to legislate his beliefs onto the people he was elected to lead.

Thomas Jefferson was indeed a remarkable man with more achievements than most people could hope to attain in his lifetime. From the Wikipedia entry on him:
****
When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
****

No comments:

Post a Comment