Not a Xtian Nation!
NO. He was absolutely wrong! Alot of people like to justify his actions by saying that the U.S. is a xtian nation, which couldn't be further from the truth. Only 3 of our country's laws parallel the 10 commandments. The Ones about killing, stealing, and lying (purgery), which would have became written in our laws even if there were no 10 commandments.
Many say that all of the Founding Fathers were xtians. Quite the contraire. Although there were practicing xtians back then, the Founding Fathers were NOT all xtians. Here were some of their stances on xianity:
Thomas Jefferson (third president and author of the Declaration of Independence) referred to the Revelation of St. John as: "the ravings of a maniac"
Thomas Paine: "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity."
James Madison (fourth president and father of the Constitution): "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
Treaty of Tripoli ( written in the Washington Administration): "As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Benjamin Franklin (delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention said):
"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble."
Notice that I underlinded *present dissenters in England.* There is evidence that many Founding Fathers and earlier Presidents were of other deistic beliefs and even FreeMansonry rather than xianity. Remember, The Founding Fathers wrote that we all have the Freedom to *worship* *whomever* we choose. Everyone knows that one of the main reasons that led to early Americans rebelled against England was due to religious persecution. So if the Founding Fathers were all the jehovah loving, bible banging xtians that so many extremists claim they were, then why fear persecution from a form Government that was based on their own religion? Think about it.