Backyard Skeptics

Many Christians think that this is a Christian nation - it is not.  It is a constitutional and free nation.  Our founders were above all, secularists.  Some were deists but all were stongly opposed to religion.  Our country is founded upon constitutional values, not religious ones, although religious values have some shared instances with civil laws.   If you believe the opposite, please research and study the issue before sounding false statements from our founding fathers. You may google "were our founding father religious" to get the truth behind our constitutional nation. 

If you think about how the framers of the Constitution wrote this great document, you would see that they wanted religions to flourish without governmental promotion.  If the founding fathers wanted freedom of religion, why would they single out Christianity?   Of course, they would not single out ANY religion.  That is why it is UNTRUE to say this was founded as a Christian nation. 

A great website to show how anti-religious our founding fathers is at  http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html

Our constitution was designed to protect the minorities from the majorities.  As an atheist I want to protect your freedom OF religion as much as I want other Christians to protect my freedom for  no religion.  In other words, I want you to have the right to believe in any religion you want as long as you give me the right to not believe in a religion. Currently atheists cannot hold office in 14 states or testify in court in 7 states.  This is a direct assault on our constitution. 

If you think this is really a Christian Nation - would it change your mind if all of the founding fathers ratified and signed a document says the opposite? If your answer is yes, then research the Treaty of Tripoli:

Article 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

If this ratified statement doesn't convince Christians that is is not a Christian nation, nothing will!

Thomas Jefferson,

If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.        -Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind ... to filch wealth and power to themselves.  [They], in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

From Thomas Jefferson's Bible:
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

From the Virginia Act  For Establishing Religious Freedom

.... that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the promotion of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his own, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions.

George Washington,

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.  letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792; from George Seldes, ed

Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religions.

Thomas Paine

Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy can forgive sins ... and you will have sins in abundance.  I would not dare to dishonor my Creator's name by [attaching] it to this filthy book [the Bible].

and

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind”

John Adams

Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in.

 October 19, 1756

James Madison 

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

Ethan Allen

Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian."

Bertrand Russel

The more intense has been the religion of any period has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs

Why I am not a Christian

The Riddle of Epicurus (341-271 “BC”)

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?  Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?