The United States is not a nation based on Christianity

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@Metis2 I agree with most of your points. You are correct, this nation was not founded upon Christianity. It was founded on Enlightenment Age ideals and English Common Law that allowed the requisite freedom for Christianity to thrive in the United States. I don’t agree that most of the founders were Deist. You did have an influential group of Deists, but you also had a number of people with strong Christian backgrounds, particularly in the Anglican and Reformed traditions. That being said, the Founding Fathers did presume that Christian virtues and morals undergirded the system of law and government that was created. They essentially admitted that the Republican form of government instituted in the Constitution is wholly unsuited for a citizenry that lacks virtue, referring to the predominance of the Judeo-Christian ethnic that was overwhelmingly accepted by the vast majority of the population. The government, as was established in the Constitution, cannot long survive if you throw away the social order provided by a population that agrees on the Judeo-Christian ethic as its moral undercurrent. I think we are beginning to see that play itself out in society today.
 
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Based on the broad subjects of enlightenment, and philosophy? That narrows it down!

Throw away words.
 
porthos11 said:
Massachusetts Bay was only one colony that gained independence from the Crown and predates the Declaration of Independence by over a hundred years. Even though the Colony itself may have had religious origins, the principles under which Massachusetts Bay and the other twelve colonies severed ties with the Crown were not based on Christianity but on the Deist and Enlightenment thought prevalent during the time. The same holds true for the new federal entity later established in 1788.
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The colonies that founded the United States were definitely Christian at least in the Northeast. Plymouth Plantation was a religious colony and without Plymouth Plantation, there would have been no Massachusetts Bay Colony so America would be not be founded as a British colony. Massachusets Bay Colony changed its charter but that was 60 ears later in 1691.

So in that concept, the founding of the United States was as a Christian colony, now one could split hairs and say that the actual founding of the USA with the Declaration of Independence was not as a Christian nation and that would be true…

So essentially Christian people came to America first and founded the colonies. Later it became the USA .
 
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“We the people” were Christian. We the people formed a Christian government and had Christian representation. Not “diest” which wasn’t really a thing, not Buddhist, not Native American theology, not atheistic. Not Muslim. We were Christians forming, fighting dying for, praying for a country.
All this revisionist history is a slap in the face to honorable people who built our world and made it possible to be free. American or not. We should thank them, pray for them, honor them, and continue to build their dream and their dream was Christian in nature.
 
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America was founded on revolutionary principals based on taxes, rejection of the monarchy, by philosophers and businessmen. It is a secular government that enshrines freedom of all religions.
 
It’s fair to state America is not a Christian nation but it flies in the face of reason to suggest that America was not founded on Judeo-Christian principles. I think that’s where people get confused.
 
From the Federalist Papers (#2)

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general liberty and independence.

In the Federalist Papers, the Founders point to shared Judeo Christian values as firewall which would prevent the will many from overrunning the needs of the few. “Love thy neighbor” was relied upon as a key principle in the concept of granting rights. For whenever we grant a right to one, we take away one from another.

The Founders might not have all been Christian, but they levered Judeo Christian values in carving out the Republic. This is a great book discussing this concept:

https://www.christianbook.com/keep-the-forgotten-promise-american-liberty/eric-metaxas/9781101979990/pd/979990?en=google&event=SHOP&kw=books-0-20|979990&p=1179710&dv=c&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwOeQo6Li6wIVj8DACh2mLwsiEAQYASABEgIO9fD_BwE
 
gam197 said:
One has to wonder why they were talking about a creator if they are not Christian.
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TBF, a lot of religions believe there are Creator-gods.

But to answer the OP assertion, the US was founded on philosophical roots that came from Judeo Christian culture.
 
In the same vein, it was recognized that Americans shared a Christian heritage with Great Britain.

“I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in recommending my country more and more to your Majesty’s royal benevolence, and of restoring an entire esteem, confidence, and affection, or, in better words, the old good nature and the old good humor between people, who, though separated by an ocean and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred blood.”

This was John Adams to his former sovereign and former enemy, King George III. This is one of my favourite episodes from American history.
 
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