Should Christianity be declared the official religion of America?

Not going into the various denominations of which rthere are thousands. But just the general underlying believe in the christian bible, and the tenants of which it preaches.

 

Even though I'm a Christian, no, according to the Constitution, there must not be any belief established as some kind of "official" religion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause It's kind of a no-brainer, really. This is one of those hypotheticals that everyone can agree on, Left and Right....

 

32% of Americans ( according to a poll I saw ) would readily accept this.

 

Christian here, I voted no. We have to stick to the Constitution.

 

Why? You could express the underlying tenants of the Bible without establishing a state religion if you wanted. It could even be argued that a state religion goes against those tenants in itself. What practical benefit would you perceive it bringing?

 

I personally would find no benefit. I am agnostic.


But most Christians do see benefits.


Most christians I speak with think that there is a "war on christianity" going on in America. MOST Christians ALREADY believe that government should at least FAVOR christianity. Why not go the next step and make it official?

 

What's the point? Christianity in America hasn't progressed much further than 17th century Puritanism.

 

Screw the atheist.
The Founding Fathers were deists like the Boy Scouts and believed as the expression
"the laws of nature and nature's god"

This is a good and proper attitude toward good citizenship.
I would not "require" it.
I just would not ban it from government expressions.

And don't let Christians corner the spiritual area of America.


Moi

No ​

 

Maybe you should give a link to that poll then. . .I wonder if it was conducted in Churches all over the US, leaving those who don't go to Church out!

 

Not this Christian! But I must admit that I have my own "variation" of Christianity, which includes the belief that God is UNIVERSAL, and that the "CHRISTIAN" God is only ONE culturally based image of the ONE universal God.

 

this many spelling errors is why Christianity should not be the official religion of the USA

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The Bible doesn't have "tenants".

It has tenets!!!!!!

 

You should probably find a better class of Christian to speak with then because you appear to be limiting yourself to the idiotic minority.

 

No. Of course not.. ..wait, not just no, HELL no!

This is america. We defend religious freedom, we don't establish it. Sure, there are some anti religious types who think that separation of church & state mean animosity from the state toward religion, but they are kooks anyway.. atheist rebels without a clue.

 

Nope, country was not founded on religion and therefore there should be no official religion

 

The First Amendment of the Constitution is plain in rejecting an "establishment of religion." That's 18th century English for an official state-sponsored religion. England had been riven by violence as kings made their personal religion official - "established" - and burned dissenters. The framers wanted no such destruction here. We were founded as a nation where all people could exercise their religion freely. The Constitution elsewhere requires those taking high office by "oath or affirmation" to express their fealty to the Constitution. In other words, holders of high office need not be religious because they can "affirm" rather than swear their loyalty. This even handedness toward all shades of spiritual belief is an essential part of our national identity. Having an official religion - thus unavoidably impairing the rights of believers in all other religions - would effectively end America.

I'd add that Christianity is a religion only in the abstract. People are Baptists or Roman Catholics or Seventh Day Adventists, etc. If the differences feel unimportant now, it's because faith has waned. When people truly believed, the doctrinal differences among sects were matters of life and death (often literally). Now we have "relaxed fit" Christianity, where it's enough to think Jesus brings gifts on Christmas, or something like that.

 

Only if a colony of ants sets up shop in an old Bible. Known to happen by the way.

 

Thing is, no one can really agree what those tenets should actually be. Christianity has a very broad, general meaning.

 

Not only does the Federal government have no authority to do such a thing, its authority in this area has been explicitly denied through the first amendment.

Makes sense really, all the states had different religions and nobody wanted the Fed to pick sides. Leave religion to the states and the people.

 

If we cannot even agree on an official language....how can we all agree on a religion.

 

language English point blank.. religion no. Why, country founded on the English language, no religion. Gotta learn English to be a citizen if not born here. Everything is written in English. Makes sense for English to be the language. No religion makes sense, because the country wasn't founded on ti and religion does not run every aspect of the country, like the English language does

 

That only applied to the Federal government. Many of the states themselves kept their own state religions, some until around 1840, some 50 years after the ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I'll add that the secularism' was a result of lobbying by Christian sects, particularly Baptists and Methodists, and in no way was it considered to be construed as being freedom from religion.

As for the thread topic, I have no problem with Christianity being the 'official' religion per se, there are far worse choices out there, but good luck getting Christians to agree which sect is the 'true' Christianity. I confidently predict no success whatsoever in resolving that discussion.

 

Not to derail the thread but just what does that part I bolded mean?. Do I have to pick some Church and go every Sunday or what?

 

It means what it says. Here in the U.S., the extremist sociopaths have sued to remove all non-denominational Christian symbols from government buildings, sue to keep Christian holiday displays and the like out of government buildings, eliminate any mention of it in public schools, etc., etc., i.e. nutjobs with a pathological obsession and hatred for all things Christian. They use a dishonest distortion of of the freedom of religion clause in the Bill of Rights as a basis for their nonsense; its a major part of the PC Nazi political agenda re abortion and the homosexual rights hoax, and no, you don't have to pick a church or anything.

You're not derailing the thread; your post is on topic re the U.S.

 

Freedom from religion is a subset of freedom of religion. The framers certainly didn't intend to compel religious belief. Arguing that they did is just casuistry. There was no unity of belief among the framers. It is NOT anti-religious to say there's no national religion. There is simply no belief forced on people against their will. That includes atheism. Those who think they're defending Christianity from atheism by proposing a state religion are over-reaching. It's the absence of compulsory belief which protects everyone, including Christians. That some states violated the Constitution in the early 19th century (though the Constitution is the supreme law, and supersedes any state laws) was an unfortunate remnant of England, with its "establishments of religion." Slavery was also practiced by some states during those years, and surely you don't think that creates a binding precedent for slavery today.

 

So would you be fine with a state declaring a state religion?