Why else would there be God In We Trust written on our paper money and emblazoned on governmental buildings?
brian t
www
Assuming you’ve read the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment to the US Constitution, here’s a quote from the Treaty of Tripoli, which was unanimously ratified by Congress in 1797:
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 Mussulmen; ...
Conversely, the saying In God We Trust was only added to some US currency in 1864, and was used intermittently until the 1950s.
RTambree
Most of the founding fathers, such as Jefferson, were Deists – that is, they didn’t believe in a personal God that intervenes. They knew the horror of religious wars in Europe and didn’t want the same in America, so they set up the barrier between church and state.
America is not a Christian state in the way that Iran is an Islamic state. Using Faith to make political decisions is a recipe for disaster, as everyone has a different interpretation of that faith, and there is no independent objective way of deciding whose faith is the right one.
Atheists are often accused of being relativist, with no absolute morality, but if each theist has a different personal experience of the Lord, there is no absolute means of determining which one is correct. Some religious apologists claim “it’s true for me” – isn’t this being relativist?
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