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December 13th, 2007, 17:36
Originally Posted by JemyM View Post
That's two different statements. Christianity had nothing to do with founding the United States, if anything the US constitution is meant to protect the nation from becoming influenced by religious establishments. The founding fathers were well read on political philosophy and that is what they used. Some makes the mistake to confuse the founders Deism with Christianity. Deist do not mean Christian and some of the founding fathers were rather vocal in their criticism of religion. They recognized the tyranny that mixing religion with state lead to in Europe and they saw they had to avoid that if liberty and freedom was going to be preserved in the new world.
True, but completely beside the point. Let me quote the point again:

The fact is that Christians and Christianity *did* have a major role in the founding of the United States and the formation of the western civilization.

The resolution isn't phrased that way by accident: if they had stated that the USA is a Christian nation, the resolution wouldn't have passed, for the exact reasons that you state.

Let me guess. They were nice to Muslims and Christians complained?
Sort of, but there's more to it than that. There's a pretty important debate going on the US right now, concerning the meaning and identity of America — what kind of a country is the USA, what should it be, and how should it relate to the rest of the world? These two resolutions are a part of that debate. On the one hand, we have people who feel that America is or should be a universal beacon of hope, freedom, and opportunity for all nations, religions, and people; on the other, we have people who feel that it will permanently lose the defining characteristics of its culture unless it imposes an assimilationist, "national-interest" type of policy with regards to immigration, cultural influences, and relations with other nations and cultures.
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