Too often, I read or hear about the evils of atheism. It’s like atheists aren’t actually human. In my country, the U.S., I’ve come to believe it’s a product of a society that believes our country was based on religion – one in particular- Christianity. It was not and no matter how many apologists a person reads, how many Christian Historians quote from the founders, it’s clear, especially in our Constitution, that America was not founded, fought for freedom, in the name of Christianity or any other religion.

Think about it, at best those that. make that claim can quote from the Declaration of Independence which states the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…

But wait! I forgot the first paragraph of the same document where it’s stated:

…the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…

So a creator is mentioned, once. The earlier paragraph mentions Nature’s God – maybe these people were actually Wiccan. No, I’m not claiming that any of the founders, or framers of the Constitution were atheist. In fact, consensus among most historians were that many were Deist. None of their individual writings express any allegiance to any specific religious belief.

So, I’ve never really understood why there are those that make the claim, that the U.S. is a Christian Nation. Sometimes we hear it as being founded on Judeo-Christian values. Certainly there are apologists that have written numerous books that  will say the opposite.

Of course, some early European settlers crossed the Atlantic to escape religious persecution, but most came for economic opportunities. to say anything else s to exaggerate the importance of the one over the ther. It’s certain that religion was a greater part of all of these early Americans, but to say America was founded on any religious principles would be a gross exaggeration.

America was founded during a period of what we now know as The Enlightenment. This was an intellectual movement in the 18th century that emphasized reason, science, and the rights of the individual. Philosophers of the time, eg Voltaire, Kant, through their writings, challenged authority and led the way toward modern democracy, as well as human rights and scientific progress. Whew, that was a lot!

So our founding fathers were greatly influenced by thinkers such as John Locke, William Blackstone, and Charles-Louis Montesquieu. These 3 were instrumental in the formation of our country. Locke was instrumental in explaining natural rights (life liberty, and property) which government is supposed to be there to protect. Montesquieu gave our founders the idea of the separation of powers (executive, legislative, judiciary) so that no one person pr group could claim absolute power.As we all know (or should) this is the basis of our current Constitution. Blackstone is the basis for our laws in general. He formulated English common Law which was more easily translated to American law by describing what rights were and how they were to be applied. None of these were preachers or pastors or rabbi’s. they may have had religious influence, but they wrote from a secular standpoint.

So is America founded on Judeo-Christian principles? If you consider the number of people that left their home countries to be able to worship as they pleased, then yes, there was an influence there in the beginning. But the principles that founded the government in 1776 until today were clearly secular in nature. America, by it’s founding words in the Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution, shows that those same men did not found this Great Experiment on theocratic principles, but those of reason.