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Originally Posted by MikeSTI
Its not wrong. The idea would have been that people where already christian and didn't need to be told how to warship.
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People coming over from Europe weren't a very faithful breed. Some were, but a lot weren't. And if they were faithful, they were driven out of Europe for being an unwanted sect. They were on the hated side in Europe and saw firsthand the destructive nature of overzealotry, especially when tied to the national government.
The Framers weren't any singular denomonation of Christanity (and occasionally none at all). Even the Christian ones didn't share the same branch of protestentism as the others. There was a huge mismash of ideas, basically boiling down to a general Christanity (not one specific sect/branch) and Deism. These two factions, amazingly, got along. No one whined that their religion was getting trampled on. They seperated their political duties from their spiritual ones.
The common ideals that made its way from the belief system to our political system can be found in most any organized religion. It is easy to assume because a Christian outlawed murder that being 'against murder' is a Christian ideal. It is true, but that doesn't mean the law is Christian in nature,a lot of major religions also don't allow murder. It is a one to many relationship, not a one to one. If you can find me one law based in the Christian faith and no others, I'd be suprised.
The idea that the country is founded on is that you live well, you work hard, you have your faith (whatever it may be), and you don't let goverment make those decisions for you. "Keep the governments hands off my Bible", so to speak. Didn't Jesus say it is better to pray in confines of your own home then to spout your faith to a deaf public? (Google is down at my work, and I don't know a lot of my Bible passages by heart. I'll try to find the exceprt later).
Now, to assume that Christanity helped shape the prosperiety of our nation is a little flawed too. To me, what makes this country economically strong is Capitalism and Greed. One of which is a decidedly non-Christian value, and one that can be tied together with Social Darwinism pretty easily. America is also strong because it was given time to grow and invent without constantly being attacked from all quarters. There were struggles, for sure, but nothing like what the middle east has been seeing for the past 4,000+ years. Take any country, and seperate it from its enemies and would be attackers and it could prosper (given the appearance of smart minds and an enviroment to nuture them in).
The country may be going down the drain, but it isn't due to lack of religion. The country has a record number of faithful people right now. In raw numbers and percentage wise, we have more faithful people (largely Christian) then any other time in our history. You can't give a person religion and expect them to become hard workers. A lot of work (esp. in my field) gets shipped off to India and China. Neither nation is strongly Christian, yet they work harder then a lot of faithful Christians here in the states. Its not religion that is affecting these people, its is a desire to better their lives for themselves and their children. If you want to talk about the downfall of American society, it has to be mass media. It makes everyone lazy ("Hey, you don't have to go out and do stuff, just sit back and we'll make you happy"). You certainly cannot blame the downfall of American values on the lack of religion.