Uncle Snurly driving you snarly with his rants about how the U.S. is a “christian nation”? Point him to this New York Times op-ed piece: “A Nation of Christians is Not a Christian Nation.”
Some snippets:
The only acknowledgment of God in the original Constitution is a utilitarian one: the document is dated “in the year of our Lord 1787.” … The Connecticut ratifying convention debated rewriting the preamble to take note of God’s authority, but the effort failed.
snip
Andrew Jackson resisted bids in the 1820s to form a “Christian party in politics.” Abraham Lincoln buried a proposed “Christian amendment” to the Constitution to declare the nation’s fealty to Jesus.
snip
In the 1790s, in the waters off Tripoli, pirates were making sport of American shipping near the Barbary Coast…. Washington sent Joel Barlow … to Tripoli to settle matters, and the resulting treaty … bought a few years of peace. Article 11 of this long-ago document says that “as the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,” there should be no cause for conflict over differences of “religious opinion” between countries.
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thnx to delgoff for the foto; go HERE to see more.
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