Reply #93: Of course you're correct, impeachdubya [View All]

But the argument that is being put forward by a lot of people in the US (and which is being copied here in Australia) is that "our country was founded on Christian principles".

And to examine this assertion, the Declaration of Independence is the key document. It was its proclamation on July 4 1776 that brought the USA into being as a sovereign nation -- "Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal...."

There are in fact four references to God in it -- " the laws of Nature and Nature's God' in the first sentence, the reference to the Creator in the second paragraph, and in the very last "...appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions..." and " with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence..."

You are right in saying that these references are carefully ambiguous, but if the intention had been to assert Christianity as the governing principle, there would have been no need to invoke Christ specifically. "Almighty God", the phrase used in British law, would have been sufficient. As it is, the terms actually used were inherited from the Romans, by whom they would have been taken as referring to Jupiter. But I've never heard it claimed that the United States was founded on the principles of the ancient Roman religion ...

You are correct in pointing out that the Constitution is the legally binding rule book which the government must adhere to -- "the supreme law of the land', which, not so incidentally, is a rejection of any scriptures as having higher authority -- and in noting that any references to God, ambiguous or otherwise, are carefully excluded from it: but the D o I is still the statement of principle on which the US was founded.

That the constitition is carefully areligious only confirms that the founding fathers (to use another American phrase that is being imported here) did not intend to give Christianity or its adherents any privilege in the new country. And the assertion that the US was "founded on Christian principles" is a direct claim for that privilege, which is why it is being made.