I have absolutely no issue with this fact. I have no problem if America were to be a predominantly Christian country for another 1000 years. In fact, much of the greatness of America comes from Christian values. Other parts come from the unique attitude of can-achieve-anything mindset. Still other parts come from the extreme generosity and kind-heartedness of American people.

What makes America unique is its willingness to open its heart to peoples of all background in the world. The requirement should be that people must accept America as their country.

But there’s something that’s been nagging, subliminally perhaps.

Must I be a Christian/Jew in order to be considered conservative? Must I be a Christian/Jew in order to be a Republican? Must we leave America because we are not Christian/Jewish? This is the message that is conveyed by people like Bishop Jackson.

People can be as devout believers of any faith as they wish. But when one says I am a blasphemer or kafir because I do not follow a particular faith, that is where I take issue. Some even try to convert others by forceful means.

I have turned away from many parts of President Obama’s ideology over the last few years (hence my patronage of Hot Air/Captain’s Quarters and Power Line). But I am grateful that he mentioned Hindus as being part of America.

We practice being Hindus without any sense of obligation from the government. Religion is an intensely personal (family/community/temple/church) practice. This is where it belongs.

Yep, and Franklin rejected supernatural claptrap. Did you know that the invention of the lightning rod got him in hot water with the religious zealots of his time? You know, subverting God’s wrath and all that.

Dude was a deist. The bulk of the Founding Fathers were. This isn’t some new age atheist fantasy garbage, but fact.

Sorry, not a Christian nation.

Here’s an Adams quote for you. We can do this forever…

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.

Do you think religion doesn’t require us to study? To put our best effort forward? Do you think we just sit around and ask our Heavenly Father to do everything for us? Well, my religion doesn’t. It sure would make it easier for me, if it worked that way. Just think, I wouldn’t have to open a book, just say a prayer. You know I’ve tried that, it didn’t work.
Of course religion flavors all of one’s life as it did the Founding Fathers. You don’t have to walk lockstep, it’s just what you believe and I’m grateful to my family and to my God for his values and teachings.

Bambi on January 26, 2009 at 2:21 PM

When it comes to science and history, that’s exactly how some religious people come to their conclusions. They read in their bible that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that’s the end of the discussion for them. They read that a flood covered the entire earth, and that’s the end of the discussion for them. Those people are unwelcome in the discussion of history and science, and for good reason.

I’m thrilled to hear that you’re obviously thoughtful and willing to accommodate rationality in how you view the world and live your life, and by no means do I think you’re the only Christian who does so. I think Sabbot had something else in mind when he whined about scientists and historians not listening to him, though. I think he had in mind that scientists and historians should submit to his faith-based, biblically literal views on history and science; and for no other reason than because he prayed, he read the bible, and somehow got the impression that he knows better than the scientists who studied math and performed experiments.

There’s no place in science and history for values and religious teachings. Values and religion have a place in how we use the knowledge gained from science and history, but the knowledge itself must be independent from religious dogma.

That’s not a contribution of faith, that’s a contribution by the faithful. You could have offered an even stronger example with Newton, who I believe was the greatest scientist to ever live, and also happened to be psychotically religious (not that religion is psychotic, he just was extreme in his beliefs). But his methodology, same as the Jesuits, didn’t rely on faith. This is a pretty simple distinction to make, isn’t it?

Never. Maybe faith has some value in our spiritual lives, but it offers nothing to science or history.
RightOFLeft on January 26, 2009 at 11:52 AM

Really? How do you explain this?

The Jesuits’ contributions to the late Renaissance were significant in their roles both as a missionary order and as the first religious order to operate colleges and universities as a principal and distinct ministry.

In addition to teaching faith, the Ratio Studiorum emphasized the study of Latin, Greek, classical literature, poetry, and philosophy as well as non-European languages, sciences and the arts. Furthermore, Jesuit schools encouraged the study of vernacular literature and rhetoric, and thereby became important centers for the training of lawyers and public officials.

…We are unwelcome in the discussion of history or science…

sabbott on January 26, 2009 at 8:04 AM

For good reason! History and science have established methodologies based on empiricism, and they work just fine without religion goofing things up. There has never been a discovery about the physical laws or history of our world uncovered by prayer or bible study. Never. Maybe faith has some value in our spiritual lives, but it offers nothing to science or history.

If your air conditioning broke down, would you pray for God to fix it? If you found yourself falsely accused of a crime, would you accept the verdict of a jury based on prayer? Or would you demand that your peers base their verdict on empirical standards? Faith does not produce reliable results in any field of inquiry. Even in matters of spirituality, 10,000 years of reflection has only sown confusion and discord.

Science will never yield to religion. That battle ended centuries ago, so get used to it. I wish I could write more clearly to make you understand: religion is neither welcome in nor relevant to science, and so it is rightly ignored.

1) As you note, the two largest sects both exceed “unaffiliated. Even if there were no other “Christian” sects, that would still mean that Christians outnumber “unaffiliated” by more than 2 to 1. Since there are other sects, many of them. That means that Christians outnumber the others by huge numbers.

2) Being unaffiliated does not make one an atheist. It also includes believers who don’t associate with one of the “sects” as you like to call them.

That would require a shared knowledge of the founding fathers, wouldn’t it?

Krydor on January 26, 2009 at 8:21 AM

You and so many others make the mistake (or play a deceptive game) of trying to size up these men in a vacuum as if their upbringing counted for nothing.

They were all Anglo Saxons, beneficiaries of the concepts laid out in the Magna Carta, and they all came from a Christian tradition. Whether or not they subscribed to organized religion only describes a small part of who they were and what formed and informed their character and beliefs as men. Note the influence of the Puritans on Benjamin Franklin and John Adams:

The roots of American democracy can be seen in these Puritan values of self-government, the importance of the individual and active indignation against unjust authority, which were passed on to Benjamin Franklin and other founding fathers, such as John Adams. One of Josiah’s core Puritan values was that personal worth is earned through hard work, which makes the industrious man the equal of kings, which Ben Franklin etched onto his father’s tombstone, from his father Josiah’s favorite Bible quote, from the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs 22:29: “Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings.”[5] Hard work and equality were two Puritan values Ben Franklin preached throughout his own life (ibid, p 78) and spread widely through Poor Richard’s Almanac and his autobiography.

And

Franklin had been baptized and educated in a Presbyterian Church based on the doctrines of John Calvin. Franklin’s wife, Deborah, retained a life-long association with Christ Church, Philadelphia. Franklin later in life rarely attended Sunday services but commented that “…Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter.”[46]

Miss_Anthrope on January 25, 2009 at 8:51 AM

That would require a shared knowledge of the founding fathers, wouldn’t it? Because my studies of the main ones point to them being deists and not Christians. They were men of science and reason. Religion was not what drove them. The USA was the only success to come from the Enlightenment. Jesus and God are not mentioned. “The Creator” is. Who might that be? That’s up to you.

Start with Jefferson, then go with Adams and finish off with Madison.

We Christians have no problem respecting atheists. It’s the atheists who have a problem with us and seek to limit our influence and PDF’s (public displays of faith).

Johnny 100 Pesos on January 25, 2009 at 8:14 PM

It’s dangerous to generalize for all atheists or all Christians, but I think you have things exactly backwards.

Not the first or last time I’ll note this, but you can worship however publicly you want, just don’t drag the government into it. That’s the only thing any atheist has ever asked. You can sing hymns hanging from a cross in Times Square, for all I care, just leave some secular space for the government.

I’m sure that when Obama said atheist, the MSM hunted high and low for some offended Christian, and this guy was the most prominent they could come up with?

We Christians have no problem respecting atheists. It’s the atheists who have a problem with us and seek to limit our influence and PDF’s (public displays of faith).

And as has often been noted, atheists have more rights in Christian countries than Christians have in Atheist countries.

But this is a non-story. I’m sure you can find someone offended by the colour of Obama’s tie if you looked hard enough.

The dude should really walk into a WalMart some time. Or the DMV in a major city. I’m sure he’d find it to be a little shocking at first, but it’d be therapeutic for him, I think. It’s just no good for him to wait until he’s got to see some doctor down the road who happens to be the best in his field and Hindu, after all.

And for mojave & ignoramous (whoops ignopoy or whatever) – nice try – you just can’t get through any post without trying to slap us, can you? Doesn’t matter what the post is about.

Why were Budhists left out?

paulsur on January 25, 2009 at 11:05 AM

Buddhists aren’t know for killing people?

Of course, Buddhists have been as good at war as many other groups. And the Dalai Lama has caught on to the evil of Islam. Things will hopefully change in this regard. Buddhism, over all, is a religion that will play fair with others like Judaism and secularized Christianity. The Buddhists will be good allies against Islam.

America is a melting pot, but is it really a melting pot of ideas from different cultures? What ideas did America take from Muslim or Hindu culture?

Phoenician on January 25, 2009 at 3:39 AM

As we all know, India was a British colony for a long while. I’ll suggest that Hinduism has influenced liberal Christianity and non-Orthodox Judaism strongly on one issue. Hinduism attempts to claim all monotheism are the same monotheism. The rabbi at the closest synagogue to my house, a Reformed synagogue, yesterday argued that point. (He did make the concession that people who worship a God who tells them to do the sorts of things that Allah tells people perhaps aren’t worshiping the same God, though he is way too politically correct to actually use the word “Islam” in this context in a sermon.)

Personally, I would argue that the Three-In-One Oil of a God of Christianity is not at all the God of the Hebrew Bible, but I suppose I would be pilloried at an ecumenical event.

No, this isn’t an issue. Even for some with understandable grievances here, making an issue of this is completely stupid and does no one any good.
Esthier on January 25, 2009 at 2:10 PM

This is what Obama said in context:

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Start here:

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers.

He is specifically making the claim that Muslims, Hindus and “nonbelievers” are a part of our heritage. Further, he is claiming that we are strong because we are a “patchwork”. Surely you don’t mean to say that it is “stupid” to dispute those claims?

Obama goes on to say:

We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth;

That is ludicrous! The only true part of that statement is that people have come here from all over the world.

He also implies that we are a “tribal” society, which is also silly, and ironically, by promoting multi-culturalism instead of assimilation it is he who is encouraging tribalism.

Why should we blindly surrender to these assertions without challenging them?