Was the United States founded on Judeo-Christian principles?

AlwaysRight.org ^ | October 17, 2003

[rightcoast]

Was the United States founded on Judeo-Christian principles?

Is the issue really about what religion our founding fathers practiced? With laws prohibiting many, if not all of the Ten Commandments, I wonder how there can be much doubt where these laws originated. However, I understand that many people believe that these are "universal" ideals, somehow ingrained in man from his conception.

In response to the belief that we are somehow born knowing right from wrong, I ask a simple question. Do you have to teach children to fight over toys, or to share them? I have two children of my own, and I assure you...sharing does not come naturally.

Regardless of whether you subscribe to the Judeo-Christian belief that man was created in the image of God, then man sinned, so now man has fallen and is inherently bent on evil until the return of the Messiah, it is inarguable that we are born with natural tendencies toward conflict and selfishness. These are the exact tendencies our laws were put in place to protect others from.

Michael Savage, in his book The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture poses an interesting question. Many people, usually those on the side of this argument believing that this country was NOT founded on Christian principles, would take religion completely out of society. They see religion as a destructive force, a source of great conflict, and something to be avoided in any enlightened society at all costs.

In many ways, their beliefs are justified, if even accurate. Many wars are fought over religious beliefs. Many conflicts begin over religion. So in that respect, I tend to agree. Religion does breed conflict. However, what would you replace it with?

The natural response is science. I actually subscribed to this belief at one point in my life...prior to becoming a Christian. It seems that the more and more society and science progress, the more we can explain through science. Religion can appear as simply something that weak-minded people use to explain things for which there is currently no explanation. So, again, the natural tendency is to believe that science will eventually replace society's need for religion.

There is one huge problem with this, and this is the crux of my argument. Science does not, and can not, define a moral code for a society. The example that Michael Savage uses is Nazi Germany. Look at the experiments that the scientists performed once they were relieved of the "restraints" of morality. They conducted innumerable atrocities on human beings in the name of science. I assure that similar things will happen in any society that removes the morality that is the fiber of it's laws.

So back to the basic question posed: Is the United States founded on Christian principles? I believe that the morality that we all ascribe to, whether Christian or not, stems from the Bible. There is a great deal of evidence of this throughout history, regardless of the specific religious preferences of our forefathers.

The real question, though, is would we have morals without religion? I think that, given the above example, the answer is no. Look at the morality of the Native Americans compared to the morality of European Christians. Look at the morality of a buddhist compared to the Native American. They are vastly different, given different moral and religious influences. Left to our devices, we will seek out religion to bring some form of order to our societies. Native Americans practiced some pretty atrocious and heinous things, but they still had a religion that defined what is and what is not acceptable.

In the end, I think the question that Christianity has influenced many of our laws has to go unquestioned. It is evident by simply picking up a Bible, and then comparing it to our laws. They are (or were) identical in many places. Given all of the evidence presented above, do you really believe that we would have these morals were it not for the effect Christianity has had on society?

[jwalsh07]

I took nothing out of context. You made a declarative statement that stood on its own. I think your statement was foolish. Religion is no more evil than Government, it is the men or women who occupy them that make it evil.

[RiflemanSharpe]

Is his Holiness Pope John Paul polish?

[VOA]

Our founding fathers represented people who were trying to reach a new level of reason.

And they did. Some of them turned to political philosophers of history, including
one who reminded people to "render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar's"...and early
enunciation of the separate kingdoms of the government and the human spirit.

Now, no human can read the inner recesses of the heart, soul and mind of the Founders.
Some who were publically religious may have been day-to-day bad-boys; fellows like Franklin
and Jefferson that were "off the scale" in terms of intellect may have
been much more religionally-oriented than they'd wanted their colleagues to realize.

I'll leave it here: whether it was the aspiration of pure human reason AND/OR
the guiding hand of Providence, the Founders did find a way to benevolently bridle the
good and evil found in governmental institutions and the minds of the citizens.

And most of the world has voted "Yes" to the results, by coming here, sometimes at risk of life.

[wardaddy]

Nice objective source you got there Pineal.

[hope]

Judeo-Christian is fine with me also since Christianity are the branches that were grafted in with the first Word of the Lord.

[VOA]

Was the United States founded on Judeo-Christian principles?

Well, I think conservative Jewish radio show host Dennis Prager has summed it up
pretty well: "America is the only Judeo-Christian country in the history of the world".

And as for a great book (Five Stars of five from nine reviews at amazon.com) on the topic:

On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding
by Michael Novak

Novak is at The American Enterprise Institute...and I think that he is a
Messianic Jew (a Jew converted to Christianity...talk about having all the tools
for a book on this topic!

[wardaddy]

I got my references too.

Let's have a link battle..lol

http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/heritage/heritage19.html

[wardaddy]

I agree but the founders were men of their day and not so politically correct as we are today.

[Publius6961]

The nation's government was formed more on Roman and English values than on any religious values.

Which Roman values?
Are you denying history post-Constantine?
How convenient and circular!

[VOA]

I think the constition came out of the founders' understanding of what made
the Roman Republic work and fail and of what worked in the English parliment.
The nation's government was formed more on Roman and English values than on any religious values.

I agree with the assessment of the philosophical source the Founders used to build our government.

I suspect the real reason this sort of thread gets all sort of noise is that
there is now a push in the country to censor any thought that (at least some)
Founders were imploring a higher power at the time they were deliberating.

Thanks to the biased teaching of history for the past generation or so,
people seem to be clueless that the folks trying to erase the country's religious
heritage from the commons would make Stalin proud (Ref: the book "The Commissar Vanishes"
a collection of series of photos in which Stalin had disfavored party members "disappear"
from various edits of the photos.)

[Tammy8]

You are correct, also why is it that most people alive have not even heard of Diesm? Well if you read the later writings of the Diesm followers- especially Thomas Jefferson they said it was a failure, because the whole premise was that man did not need religion to be moral; that man could be moral based on ideals and not belief in a higher power. They said later they found that not to be true. It sounded good, but did not work. If you study a great number of writings of Thomas Jefferson you will find that he was seeking the truth throughout his life and that is why today his writings seem confusing. In some he sounds like an athiest, believing religion has NO place in Government and in other writings he makes it plain that any Government that is not supported by people with a belief in a higher power cannot long exist.

[wardaddy]

Our founding fathers represented people who were trying to reach a new level of reason.

They were hardly messianic. They were theocentric with one foot in anthroprocentric thought or perhaps maybe viceversa. Except for a handful, they frequently referred to God or the Bible. The more radical leaders were admittedly influenced by the anthroprocentrists of the time.

[GeekDejure]

But again, I say that it is not the Faith that is at fault but those who would abuse that Faith. While you may be able to get rid of God, you would still not get rid of the violence that "Man" is responsible for. We would just find a different reason to fight each other.

Of course it's the Faith that is at fault. Islam teaches, over and Over and OVER, to KILL THE INFIDEL, lie to him, betray him, wait for him in ambush wherever you see him, chop off his fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs, ears, tongues, heads, etc., etc., etc.!!! Would you call that a faultless faith??? Only if you are a Muzzle-em!!!

In stark contrast the Christian Bible teaches The Ten Commandments and love and forgiveness!!!

.

[truthandjustice1]

Given the case in front of the Supreme Court right now (Pledge of Allegiance) this question has enormous implications. I happen to agree with you, btw.

[Sam Cree]

The article seems to be more an exercise in semantics than anything.

It should be pretty obvious to everyone that the United States was consciously founded within, and depends upon, the Judaeo Christian system of ethics.

The primary goal of the founders, that of creating a nation which could not threaten the natural rights of the citizenry, was not, IMO, based on Judaeo Christian tradition. However, most of the founding fathers recognized that this nation, with its system of individual freedom and personal liberty, could never work without a "virtuous people." And although they undoubtedly would not have approved of a theocracy, there is no doubt that they generally meant those virtues practiced by Christians.

[wardaddy]

I am betting that 6-3 or 5-4, they will leave in "under God".

Scalia and Thomas and Rhenquist are sure bets for our side.

Ginsburg is the only sure bet for the left...but she'll have some company no doubt.

I guess she'll have to see what French or Latvian law and customs have to say first.

[VOA]

I believe organized religion(s) to be the bane of human existence and the cause
of endless misery.

I would have made similar statement for...decades after I graduated from college.

But, as Churchill would say about democracy being the worst political system, except for
all the other systems that have been tried...my view now is that about the same thing
can be said about organized religion of the Judeo-Christian bent being the worst belief system...
except for all the other belief systems tried.

As the writer Chesterton said, when people stop believing in religion, it doesn't
mean they stop believing in anything. And the suggested books (below) shows the
bitter fruit of that approach.

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
by Stephane Courtois, Mark Kramer (Translator), Jonathan Murphy (Translator),
Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin

from the Editorial Review at amazon.com:
Communism did kill, Courtois and his fellow historians demonstrate, with ruthless efficiency:
25 million in Russia during the Bolshevik and Stalinist eras, perhaps 65 million in
China under the eyes of Mao Zedong, 2 million in Cambodia, millions more Africa,
Eastern Europe, and Latin America--an astonishingly high toll of victims.
This freely expressed penchant for homicide, Courtois maintains, was no accident,
but an integral trait of a philosophy, and a practical politics, that promised to
erase class distinctions by erasing classes and the living humans that populated them.


Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine by Jasper Becker

from the Editorial Review at amazaon.com:
Journalist Jasper Becker conducted hundreds of interviews and spent years
immersed in painstaking detective work to produce Hungry Ghosts, the first full
account of this dark chapter in Chinese history. In this horrific story of
state-sponsored terror, cannibalism, torture, and murder, China's communist
leadership boasted of record harvests and actually increased grain exports,
while refusing imports and international assistance. With China's reclamation of
Hong Kong now a fait accompli, removing the historical blinders is more timely than ever.
As reviewer Richard Bernstein wrote in the New York Times, "Mr. Becker's remarkable
book...strikes a heavy blow against willed ignorance of what took place."

[VOA]

Scalia and Thomas and Rhenquist are sure bets for our side.

Scalia has stepped aside from the deliberations and the eventual ruling...apparently due
to the plaintiff's request because Scalia made some negative comments about the
Ninth Circuit ruling at some meeting.

Of course, I've yet to hear all the times Justice (guffah, barf) Ginsburg
has stepped aside on issues she was involved in when she was a hack at the ACLU.

A 4-4 tie will affirm the Ninth Circuit ruling.

My info source? American Center for Law and Justice counsel Jay Sekulow, who argues
religious freedom issues even before the US Supreme Court.

You might check www.aclj.com and his show "Jay Sekulow Live" to see if he's on in your area.

[truthandjustice1]

"I guess she'll have to see what French or Latvian law and customs have to say first."

Boy, you are spot on. Imagine a court that looks to other countries courts for guidance, and not the constitution. Darth Bader is a bad judge. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[wardaddy]

I had no idea....that is not good news.