{"id":482,"date":"2009-08-05T09:48:37","date_gmt":"2009-08-05T14:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=482"},"modified":"2009-08-05T10:26:10","modified_gmt":"2009-08-05T15:26:10","slug":"america-is-not-a-christian-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=482","title":{"rendered":"America is Not a Christian Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On occasion, some Christians will inform me that America is a Christian Nation. In the sense that the majority of Americans are Christian that maybe true, but in the sense that Christianity is the national religion, it is obviously false. These particular Christians who claim that America is a Christian Nation really mean to say that America was in some way founded on the Christian belief system. This too is false.<\/p>\n<p>In an attempt to prove their position, they bring out the Declaration of Independence which contains the terms, \u201cCreator\u201d and \u201cDivine Providence.\u201d It is easy to point out that the Declaration of Independence was not America\u2019s founding document (the Constitution is) and that those terms aren\u2019t even Christian terms, but rather they are deist terms. I also point out that Jefferson originally didn\u2019t even have them in the Declaration, but added them at the \u201crequest\u201d of the southern colonies.<\/p>\n<p>The Constitution for the record has just two mentions of religion. The first is to protect citizens who seek public office or positions of public rust from a religious test and the second is the First Amendment\u2019s \u201cEstablishment Clause.\u201d No mention of Jesus, God, or Christianity at all.<\/p>\n<p>But that rarely sways a Christian who holds to this dogmatic belief that America is a Christian Nation. They then tell me that God presupposes the laws in this country and that he is the lawgiver. Unfortunately for them, the Constitution and even the Declaration are pretty clear about who the lawgiving in America is, and it isn\u2019t God. America\u2019s laws are from the consent of the governed, \u201cwe the people.\u201d<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=482\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On occasion, some Christians will inform me that America is a Christian Nation. In the sense that the majority of Americans are Christian that maybe true, but in the sense that Christianity is the national religion, it is obviously false. These particular Christians who claim that America is a Christian Nation really mean to say [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[467,16,9],"tags":[83,674,442,675],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}