Did George Bush Lie About America Being Founded on Christian Principles?

American Vision ^ | Feb. 9, 2005 | Gary DeMar

[PresbyRev]

“The lesson the President has learned best—and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him—is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration’s current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.” Thus begins an article by Brooke Allen that was posted on the website of “The Nation” on February 3, 2005.1 It’s obvious that Allen has not...

[PresbyRev]

Article 3 of The Declaration of the Rights of Man:

3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

[PresbyRev]

3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

Article 3 of The Declaration of the Rights of Man.

[nonsporting]

It's a distinction without a difference. True democracy hasn't really existed since the Greek city-states.

On the contrary, it is a distinction which needs be made every time someone tries to blur the distinction. Besides, I object to this sloppy use of language. It leads people to think that they can have anything they want as long as they can get a majority of votes. Whereas if "republic" were stressed, the people might discover on their own or be taught in their civics classes (one can hope) that there are some areas outside the whim of the majority. And this might prompt a discussion on the sacred areas which are off limits, even to the government (all branches).

[MamaTexan]

Deism, not conventional Christianity. Read the founding documents... they used Deist terminology. "Nature's God," that sort of thing... never Jehovah, or Christ, or whatever.

Christianity is part of the Common, or Natural Law. Therefore it is Christianity that is the basis of our government. Religion of any other type is not synonymous with the American experience of Liberty!"

God . . . is the promulgator as well as the author of natural law.

Justice James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration, the Constitution, Original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court, and the father of the first organized legal training in America.

"It is the duty as well as the privilege and interest for our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians to be their representatives, as this is a Christian republic -

Justice John Jay Supreme Court Justice

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
George Washington (Federer, p. 660)

“We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded."

President James Madison

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free...."
John Adams Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787

"Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering contumelious reproaches on our Savior Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land."
Sir William Blackstone, author of the Blackstone Commentaries, British jurist and one of the most quoted sources by the founding fathers.

[Borges]

This thread was quite good on this topic...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1323188/posts

[Modernman]

The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

That is not talking about sovereignty as in whether God is sovereign over man. It's dealing with whether political subdivisions of France can exercise sovereignty. Remember, France is one political unit, it is not composed of smaller sovereign states.

Up until Louis XIV's reign, various regions of France exercised a lot of sovereignty. This provisions is stating that such behavior is no longer acceptable. This is a purely political provision.

[Modernman]

Christianity is part of the Common, or Natural Law. Therefore it is Christianity that is the basis of our government. Religion of any other type is not synonymous with the American experience of Liberty!"

This might have been a statement by a FF, but it's wrong. American liberty works for members of all religions.

[P_A_I]

You claim:

There is no meaningful concept of "right" and "wrong" apart from an authority able to impose such.
If enslaving you makes me happy, there's no meaningful sense in which you can say I'm "wrong" to do so. All you can do is squeal your disapproval.

Odd theory. -- Do you have a name for it? Does any school of philosophy condone slavery on the basis of the slavers happiness?

Don't you agree that some variation of the 'golden rule' is evident in all of mans cultures?
-- Doesn't the 'rule' define right & wrong by simple self interest? -- IE - Everyone learns at their mothers breast that you don't bite the tit that feeds you, -- correct?

Utilitarianism states that I should obey a moral code, because it will benefit me to participate in a society that keeps said code. The argument hinges on self-interest.
The same self-interest implies that I should do what's best for me even when it harms you--as long as I can get away with it.

As I said you have an odd code. One that most criminals share.

Utilitarians reject this logial extension of their arguments, relying on the bare assertion that force is wrong. That's what libertarians do. What they don't do is prove that force really is "wrong", whatever "wrong" means exactly.

You seem to be the one confused on what is wrong, not libertarians. -- It's wrong to bite the tit that feeds you, isn't it?

Given the premise that humans are ontological equals, they are "interchangeable". If we give A permission to kill B, we are implicitly giving B permission to kill A. If we do not wish to be killed, therefore, we must not kill.

Yep, thats a version of the 'golden rule'.. Congrats.

In other words, the philosopher assumes that a "moral" principle must be equally binding upon all. You can indeed start there, and derive the principle of non-use of force.
The problem is, that simply replaces one axiom with another, equally unproven.

That last line is "axiom" gibberish. Do you really believe your own BS?

A self-interested utilitarian could equally derive the following alternative: since we are ontologically equal, morality must be the same for all. That moral principle is: we may each do anything within our power to seek happiness.

Ahh yesss, --- the rationalizations of the criminal mind are endless.

Applying that morality, I will try to be happy, and so may you. I will try to kill you if I can and deem it necessary to my happiness; so may you. I will usually refrain from killing you, because it's usually in my best interest not to; and so will you. From the same axiom, therefore, one derives a morality in which people mostly behave themselves. Not coincidentally, that's the morality that people actually follow.

Whatever turns you on sport. -- But as you said before, people who think that way usually die in jail, -- or on the street.

[aruanan]

John Quincy Adams: "The American Revolution forever joined the principals of Christianity with civil government. If it did not, then it was in vain."

Did he really write "principals" instead of "principles"?

[PresbyRev]

I beg to differ.

I understand that article 3 is a reference to the 'chain of command' of the French state.

That is precisely the point. There is no court of appeal apart from the State.

No individual may exercise any authority not proceeding from the State. The individual magistrate does not represent a court of appeal for people to lawfully resist tyranny from 'higher up' the food chain of the State.

A 'Continental Congress' of sorts to appeal to the Laws of God or an authority higher than or beyond the State would be impossible if article 3 was the law of the land. I think the subsequent history of the French Revolution/Bloodbath bears that out.

The rights that are described after article 3 are thereby, also, contingent upon the all sovereign State described in article 3.

[Son-Joshua]

James Madison, our 4th Pres, and considered the Father of our Constitution made the following statement.

"We have staked the whole of our politican institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

America was a country founded upon Godly principles!

[PresbyRev]

Our Declaration makes no such claim for the State. The State is a means to an end. To maintain already existing rights. The despotism of the State or any man is repudiated.

It is the right of the people to abolish tyrannical States.

All authority/sovereignty does not reside in the Nation.

---

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

[Huntingtonian]

Excellent references. You will undoubtably be deluged with naysayers arguing that your quotes out of context or that a few quotes aren't enough. Of course, these doubters will NEVER apply the same standards to the the legions who will supply context free quotes from those on their side.

It is clear that the founders were almost universally believers in God. Many (but not all) were Christian. I doubt ANY would have had us abandon the works of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, Kant, Hume and Decartes in favor of those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In fact I suspect they would have seen the rise of biblical litteralism as the cancer to free thought that it is.

[PresbyRev]

I wholeheartedly agree. America is a nation founded four-square upon the precepts of the Law of God.

[GarySpFc]

This might have been a statement by a FF, but it's wrong. American liberty works for members of all religions.

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: 'It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." President Adams, July 4, 1821

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity." -- John Adams in letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams from his Oct. 13, 1789 address to the military.

"Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there contained! Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance, frugality and industry: to justice, kindness and charity towards his fellow men: and to piety, love and reverence toward Almighty God....What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be." John Adams diary entry Feb. 22., 1756.

"The Christian religion is, above all the Religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of Wisdom, Virtue, Equity, and Humanity. Let the Blackguard Paine say what he will; it is Resignation to God, it is Goodness itself to man." John Adams retorting to Thomas Paine in his diary, July 26, 1796.

"A patriot without religion, in my estimation, is as great a paradox as an honest man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men? Can he be a patriot who, by an openly vicious conduct, is undermining the very bonds of Society? ...The Scriptures tell us righteousness exalteth a Nation." Abigal Adams, wife of President John Adams in letter to husband John Adams 1776.

"...a true American Patriot must be a religious man...He who neglects his duty to his maker, may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public." Abigal Adams, wife of President John Adams in letter to husband John Adams 1776.

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but the God of Israel is He that giveth strength and power unto His people. Trust in Him at all times, ye people, pour out your hearts before Him; God is a refuge for us." Abigal Adams, wife of President John Adams in letter to husband John Adams 1776.

"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty." John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 401, dated June 21, 1776.

"The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were . . . the general principles of Christianity." John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813, The Adams-Jefferson Letters,ed. Lester J. Cappon (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), vol 2, pp. 339-40.

[HitmanLV]

In any case, the political left has an odd fixation with lies. They seem bent on construing as much as they can as 'lying,' yet had an almost pathological inability to accept when President Clinton lied.

Indeed, Clinton's lies are unambiguous. Bush's 'lies' usually turn on an unusually narrow definition of a word, a difference of opinion, and their inability to distinguish between being wrong and intentionally deceiving people.

I really am glad my mind doesn't operate like theirs.

[jwalsh07]

Article 1 of the FDOR is untenable and makes everything that follows it farce.

"1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good."

Karl Marx logic. You're group doesn't obtain with the general good, ergo you're social niche is less than human, off to the Gulag. All nicely codified in their DOR.

[GarySpFc]

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." President Thomas Jefferson

"The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson

"Of all systems of morality, ancient of modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to be so pure as that of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson To William Canby, 1813

"I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man..." President Thomas Jefferson

“I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, better husbands... the Bible makes the best people in the world." President Thomas Jefferson

"My views- - - are the result of a lifetime of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-Christian imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference of all others—" Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush On April 21, 1803

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a cisciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator." Thomas Jefferson wrote on the front of his Bible.

[GarySpFc]

"It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God." President John Quincy Adams

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity." President John Quincy Adams

"My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising... It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day... It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue." President John Quincy Adams

[P_A_I]

You claim, at post 148:

--- There is no meaningful concept of "right" and "wrong" apart from an authority able to impose such.
If enslaving you makes me happy, there's no meaningful sense in which you can say I'm "wrong" to do so. All you can do is squeal your disapproval.

Now you say:

Now we're faced with the fact that you appear not to know the difference between opinion and fact. Thus the reference to relativism above. Since you're positing relative reality, rather than just relative morality, I also mention solipsism--after all, the belief that each person's reality is unique, is equivalent to denying the existence of reality.

Your comment;
" --- There is no meaningful concept of "right" and "wrong" apart from an authority able to impose such."
-- Is a relativistic claim.

In effect YOU are now denying the existence of the reality of right & wrong.

. How so? What I mean is, no it isn't. If I say, "There is no such thing as morality," I am making an absolute statement. If I say, "Morality exists if and only if an ontological superior exists and imposes it," I am still making an absolute statement.

Big deal. You're making an absolute statement defending a relativistic claim. -- You're playing word games with the meaning of "absolute".

In one sense I'm making the absolute statement that if the atheists are right, then morality does not exist.

Atheists make no such claim.
Do you really think you're making valid points with such sophomoric comments? Grow up..

In another sense, I'm merely making the observation that no atheistic morality can conceivably exist, because it will depend on axioms that I'm free to reject.

You need some "axiom" rest. You can't fool all the people all the time by mouthing gibberish.