I fully agree with you that this nation is so great because it was founded in Judeo-Christian morals and principles, and that abandoning those pillars of our nation is bringing it to its demise.
Far from demerit, I profoundly admire the works of the Founding Fathers, regardless of their religious background. I am not as blind, as you are, as not to recognize the achievements of those who do not share my religious convictions.
Most parents try to give the best education possible to their children, but not every child takes advantage of their education the same way.
Also I believe it is not very enlightened in your part to despise the education of children while they were also receiving the Word of God. Before the middle of the 16th century, bishop Zumárraga brought the first printing press to Mexico, almost at the same time that printing was introduced in Madrid (100 years prior to Boston.) In 1539 they published the “Breve y más Compendiosa Doctrina Cristiana en Lengua Mexicana y Castellana”, the first book edited in America, a catechism in two languages, Nahuatl and Castilian. By 1575 they were publishing books in 12 different native dialects. Grammar books and dictionaries of several Indian languages were also published in the Universities of Mexico and Lima, whereas in United States’ colonial times, John Eliot’s Indian Bible stood alone.
As a man of faith you should appreciate that in the Spanish colonies, since the very beginning of their arrival to this Continent, the education and saving of the soul of their children were as paramount for them as the education and saving of the souls of Indians.
Your admired John Calvin even though he established a tyrannical theocracy in Geneva of the style of today’s Iranian Islamic republic, but even bloodier. I believe that the Constitution was made to avoid the creation of a theocratic government in U.S. rather than to follow John Calvin’s example. I also think that the Calvinists certainly had also a deleterious cultural influence that justified the burning of witches, trade of slaves, religious intolerance, the foundation of the KKK and the persecution and killing of Blacks, Catholics and specially, Black republicans. It is a historical fact that the main slave traffickers were British and Dutch Reformers. You should not throw stones at others when you have a glass house.
You stated that there is a relationship between the “Enlightenment” and the Reformers, even though the “Enlightenment” gave birth to the age of reason. The Enlightenment attacked basic Christian beliefs and rejected God. Reason and enlightenment became the new Gods.
Although Enlightenment had positive contributions to the world, Marxism and Nazism also found their roots on the Enlightenment. Hitlerism is firmly rooted in the rationalist and scientific outlook of the 18th-century European Enlightenment. Marx is indebted to Enlightenment rationalism.
“Also I believe it is not very enlightened in your part to despise the education of children while they were also receiving the Word of God....In 1539 they published ...a catechism in two languages”
Roman Catholicism BANNED God’s word for centuries from the common people. A catechism is NOT God’s word. It is what someone wants to indoctrinate you with.
I started to write a bunch of response to your comments about enlightenment, but deleted them, because it is way off topic to this thread, and because they wont get through your ear plus anyway.
It think your fixation on a couple of acts by Calvin in one city funny. Try instead to look at the centuries of much worse from the papacy. Try reading Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (”Foxe’s work remains one of the key and most read books of the early modern period.”:BBC)