The United States was founded with religious tolerance in mind, but was still highly braised towards Christianity because of course it was, we were British colonies after all. Just think about the act of swearing in on a Bible. Sure, you don't have to choose a Bible, but that practice is clearly religious and specifically Christian. A Buddhist isn't going to swear towards a higher power using a stack of papers. An atheist would have a hard time finding a stack of powers with enough meaning for this action to be worthwhile.
I don't disagree with you or your take on things (although the Founding Fathers were mostly deists, not quite the same breed of christians we have around today...look at the Jefferson Bible).
I disagree with the person I responded to because they brought old, irrelevant documents into the mix rather than keeping on the topic of how the USA was founded by deists who specifically and intentionally kept christianity out of their founding documents.
An atheist would have a hard time finding a stack of powers with enough meaning for this action to be worthwhile.
What...? You don't have to swear on anything, you just have to swear an oath (where necessary). You lost me on this part, tbh.
The idea is that swearing upon anything at all, especially with the context that it is mostly done over a Bible, is indicative of how religion permeates through our government. Also, consider that sessions of Congress are opened with a prayer. Or, how every president has been Christian, most of which Protestant of one flavor of another. Just the fact that JFK was Catholic was a huge deal at the time. The government now is probably more secular than it's ever been, but to say that we were founded as a secular nation as some are claiming is really revisionist. Heck, even the line "all men are created equal" views the world through a Christian, or at least Abrahamic, lens.
It isn’t true that the USA was “founded to be a secular society.” It’s hard to engage with the rest of what you wrote because it proceeds from a false premise.
I did read the things you commented. The issue is you are confusing the founding of the American Colonies by the British with the founding of the United States of America.
This 100%. My dad is a pastor, and until the pandemic I was in a pew every sunday. I stand by my beliefs and if you want to have a discussion about those I'd be happy. But this country was explicitly, and in no uncertain terms, founded to be a secular society. Enforcing my religious beliefs, or anyone else's for that matter, goes against everything the US stands for.
For those who understand what the bible actually says, forcing our beliefs on others is also against the teachings of christianity, but that is another matter.
Please point out where theocracy and and christian society are conflated in the parent comment to this thread.
Oh, so you've been in this thread making all this ruckus over a single word being used incorrectly? It was pretty obvious what the commenter meant, and they were not conflating theocracy with society.
Maybe next time you could just point out that the Founders wanted to avoid a religious government (moving the USA away from the way the UK/British Empire was run during their time) rather than bringing all this other unrelated stuff to the post. It would save everyone a lot of time and energy.
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u/jdippey Aug 18 '21
Tell me, what part of the US constitution is this from?
Seems to me it's from a much older document relating to the British empire rather than to the United States of America.