Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

Our resident rabble rouser, Barbara, has been leading quite the discussion over the last couple of days. If you haven't read her last few posts and the resulting comments I highly recommend that you do so, it is fun reading.

The discussion has ranged from whether America is turning into a theocracy to the Christian view of homosexuality and has been bantered about by people of all philosophies and religious leanings.

There have been a couple of comments where people have stated as absolute fact that America is a Christian nation, established by Christian men who meant to pass on Christian values. I'd like to explore this line of thought and get your opinions on what you think our founding fathers may have believed and intended.

Now of course the majority of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were Christian but does that mean they intended the nation to be Christian also? The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights are very secular documents. The only mention of religion is to establish that it must be kept separate from government. It would have been very easy for the framers of the Constitution to have included the establishment of a religion and religious law into our Constitution had they chosen to do so, but such things are conspicuously absent.

Now, because of who I am, I firmly believe that the framers had no intention whatsoever of establishing this as a Christian nation.

John Adams wrote a book in 1788 called A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. In it, he wrote:

"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. "

Once again this is a case where we can't speak to the people in question, but there are several letters, papers and books written by these men which still survive and give us some insight into their minds.

What do you think?