"John Knight" <jwknight at polbox.com> wrote:
>"Dan Holzman" <holzman at panix.com> wrote in message news:akmqgd$593> God
>Himself. What's more, the Treaty of Malta explicitly notes that
>> the United States is in no way founded upon the Christian Religion.
>First chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay, wrote:
>>"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is
>the duty ... of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for
>their rulers." (1816)
>>William Penn
Not a founder.
>Justice David Brewer said this:
>Christian nation. (1892)
Not a founder.
>As recently as 1952 Justice William O. Douglas wrote:
>"We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."
Not a founder, and a Supreme Being need not be the Christian One.
>Even liberal Supreme Court chief justice, Earl Warren, wrote in 1954:
Not a founder.
>Supreme Court justices were certainly not the only political figures who
>wrote such things either. George Washington wrote a prayer addressed to "O
>most glorious God, in Jesus Christ" and ended it like this:
>>"... Let me live according to those holy rules which Thou hast this day
>prescribed in Thy holy word ... Direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ
>the way, the truth and the life. Bless, O Lord, all the people of this
>land."
>>Washington also said:
>>"Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can
>prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
>>"It is impossible to rightly govern . . . without God & the Bible."
>>"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all the
>religion of Jesus Christ." to a group of Indian chiefs.
>>Roger Sherman:
>>". . . all civil rights and the right to hold office were to be extended to
>persons of any Christian denomination."
>>John Adams wrote:
>>"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is
>wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
>>"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with passions
>unbridled by morality and religion."
>>"Religion & virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and
>of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in
>all the combinations of human society."
>>"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."
>>Thomas Jefferson, the man "blamed" for the wall of separation between church
>and state said:
>>"I have always said, and will always say, that the studious perusal of the
>sacred volume will make us better citizens."
>>"And 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? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just:
>that His justice cannot sleep forever."
>>"No power over the freedom of religion . . .[is] delegated to the United
>States by the Constitution."
>>"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my
>observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus."
>>"I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be;
>sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing
>to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any
>other." Letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
>>James Madison:
>>"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not on the power
>of government...[but] upon the capacity of each and every one of us to
>govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
>>"Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be
>considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe."
>>John Quincy Adams:
>>"The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one
>indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of
>Christianity."
>>"No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so
>profoundly meditated upon as the Bible."
>>"Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social
>compact on the Foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid
>the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of
>Christianity?"
>>Abraham Lincoln:
Not a Founder
>Grover Cleveland:
Not a founder
>Teddy Roosevelt:
Not a founder
>Woodrow Wilson:
Not a founder.
>Calvin Coolidge, speaking of the founding fathers:
Not a founder.
>Benjamin Franklin
>>"Whoever will introduce into public affairs the principles of Christianity
>will change the face of the world."
Which doesn't mean that HE did.
>John F. Kennedy:
Not a founder.
>Gerald Ford, quoted a speech made by Dwight Eisenhower in 1955:
Not a founder.
>Noah Webster
Not a founder.
>Gov. Morris
>>"Religion is the only solid basis for good morals; therefore education
>should teach the precepts of religion, & the duties of man toward God."
http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/flawq.htm
deals with the flaws of many of these quotes in proving your claim.
http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/quote1.htmhttp://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/quote2.htmhttp://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/quote3.htmhttp://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/quote4.htm
Most of your quotes are NOT from the Founders, most are not specific
to Christianity. Meanwhile, here are 250K of quotes from the Founders
that disagree with you.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_buckner/quotations.html
And more:
>http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/quotes_founders.html
The *weight* of the evidence is strongly against you. You lose again.
lojbab
