I recently read a 2007 study by the First Amendment Center that shows the US general population to be very misinformed about the US Constitution:
In response to this prompt:
"Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
The U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation."
38% "strongly agreed" with the statement.
How are people so misinformed? And to my utter bafflement, I've heard people say things like, "well, that's just their opinion". No. No it's not. There is no such “opinion” that the US Constitution establishes a Christian nation. This is a fact of the matter.
It is incorrect to think of a fact of the matter as a something that a person can have an opinion about.
You would be wrong to say something like, "Gold is more dense than water – in my opinion."
No. Gold is either denser or not denser than air – regardless of what you think of it.
A common objection is next, but people can have different beliefs about…
YES. But those are beliefs, not opinions either.
A person can have a “belief” about a fact of the matter -- which I'm going to call a fom ( F - fact O - of the M - matter) for the rest of this entry.
It’s ridiculous that people can’t keep these ideas straight. Why get annoyed over these mistakes?
First of all, an opinion cannot be wrong. “I think blue looks better on you than green.” That is a statement of an opinion. The only way it would be wrong is if the person talking is not reporting his or her thoughts accurately. It is right to say that something "is only a matter of opinion" in order to allow people to hold differing opinions, AS LONG AS THEY ARE OPINIONS.
A belief can very easily be wrong.
"I believe that cars can’t hurt me." -- for example.
Ok, great, that’s a fom (fact of the matter), and we can test it in this street over here…
You know what, I don’t want a word for "fact of the matter", I want a word for the specific mistake that people make when they call a fom an opinion.
Now that we’ve cleared this up, when someone says, “I believe that the US Constitution establishes a Christian nation.” And someone else says, “well, that’s your opinion” you can say, screw that – you’re calling a belief an opinion. c-calling a-a b-belief a-an o-opinion…. cabao.
Or in this case, calling a belief about a fom an opinion – cabafomao.
So no, the US Constitution manifestly does NOT establish a Christian nation. This is a thing we can look up. There is a right answer to this question. If you want to say that this is just an "opinion", you're making the cabafomao mistake.
I actually thought the government was formed through Christian beliefs since our founding fathers were Christians...weren't they? That's so weird, then why do I hear God this and God that on the gay marriage issue? I wouldn't call it misinform...it's more like misinterpretation. Is it because there are more Christians in United States?
No, we are founded mostly on the principles of the Roman Republic. Most of the founding fathers were not Christians. Many were deists and agnostics. Even those who were Christian did not want a Christian nation.
We here god so much on the Gay Marriage issue because we are currently the most religious Christian nation in the world and a lot of these people think they have a right to force their belifs on others.
No, they are not misinterpreting the Constitution. They probably haven't even read it. If they had, they would have realized that it in no way supports a nation based on any Religious principles.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
I'm sorry jsaj, but this statement...
> Most of the founding fathers were not
> Christians. Many were deists and agnostics.
...really isn't true. Most of the founders were at least nominally christian at the time of the founding. Much like today, some were devout and some were not, but most did identify themselves (more or less) as christian.
It is true however that some of the most prominent and influential founders were not christian. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and a few others were classic examples of the deists that filled the ranks of the 18th Century intellectual society.
What really drove the common belief that church and state should be separate, however, is that the men of the founding were widely varied in their beliefs. The men of the founding were men of conscience for the most part, and as such they valued highly their freedom to think and decide on religious matters without the interference of the government. Their recent history had seen centuries of state-sponsored, religion-motivated wars, and no small portion of the New World had been colonized by chistian folks of one sect who were specifically trying to escape religious persecution by christian folks of some other sect.
But, the idea that the U.S. was "founded on christian principles" was not an idea that most of the founders would have agreed with. Jefferson himself points out in his letters that the system of Common Law in the U.S. had been around for centuries before chistianity had even been introduced into the British Isles.
Very shortly after the founding (during the 5th sitting Congress), our Senate unanimously passed into Law a treaty which stated that, "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...
The treaty was read aloud in its entirety, passed unanimously, was signed into Law by our Second President (John Adams, who was of course a founder himself), and was widely published in newspapers throughout the country. There was no public outcry. There was no attempt to reject the treaty in debate because of this statement. In fact, there seemed to be any notice of oddity at all behind the passage of a statment that would be unbelievably hard to swallow, if the men of the founding had really believed that the U.S. was "founded on christian principles."
Freedom of religion does not mean athesism vs. christianity. Freedom of religion means that we, as citizens, have a right to make up our own minds about religious matters, and the government is supposed to stay the heck out of it. It means that our religions need to stay out of the government, as well.
percivale
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"Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici." ~ V.
I should have said many, not most. I was't really paying attention. Sorry.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
Gold is more dense than water; Gold doesn't float in water. Gold is more dense than air; Gold doesn't try and fly away.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Many writers of the Constitution were deist (for those not familiar with deism, it claims that God exists and had created the earth etc..., but there is no need to try to please him and worship him).
Actually, nowhere in the original constitution (articles+bill of rights) is there anything that could be interpreted as a "Christian" ideal.
In fact, the establishment clause basically says that no laws shall be made establishing religion (interpreted by many as treating one religion as being superior and more "correct" than any others.
Wow.
Then why are we all putting up with the arguments that something is against God.
And the division between church and state is slowly blurring before our very eyes.
Well, not all of us are putting up with the god arguments.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
Thank you! I'm glad SOMEONE finally realizes this!
[Krst]