America (I) The Secular Constitution

Glenn Beck and those on the Republican Right feel that America is based on Judeo-Christian values and identity. But this is a lack of deep historical understanding. Democracy was birthed in Ancient Athens. Athens not Jerusalem is the city that influenced the American Constitution and its values. Greek democracy and the Roman Republic were the inspiration of American Democracy not the Kings of Israel. George Washington was the Roman leader Cincinnatus not the King of a theocratic State. The Philosophy and Democracy of Greece is much more important to broad American values than the religious tribalism and blood sacrifice of the Bible.
The phrase "[A] hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world" was first used by Baptist theologian Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island, in his 1644 book The Bloody Tenent of Persecution.[12][13] The phrase was later used by Thomas Jefferson as a description of the First Amendment and its restriction on the legislative branch of the federal government, in an 1802 letter[14] to the Danbury Baptists (a religious minority concerned about the dominant position of the Congregationalist church in Connecticut), assuring that their rights as a religious minority would be protected from federal interference. As he stated: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their "legislature" should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Jefferson's letter was in reply to a letter[15] that he had received from the Danbury Baptist Association dated October 7, 1801. In an 1808 letter to Virginia Baptists, Jefferson would use the same theme: We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.

What Athens was in miniature America will be in magnitude. The one was the wonder of the ancient world; the other is becoming the admiration of the present.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

It was the Greek heritage of Democracy and the Roman Republic that inspired the American thinkers and revolutionaries not the Judeo-Christian Kings & the Dark Ages of Christian Europe. It was the Roman Republic of Cicero that was the inspiration not Christian Europe that ushered in more Kings and Church state power.

From the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, the Founding Fathers looked to classical history as a reliable guide to their successful experiment in building a lasting republic.
Dr. Joe Wolverton II

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[pangeaprogressblog]

It was the Enlightenment (John Locke) and the example of pre-christian Greece and Rome that led the way to American Jeffersonian Government.

[willbraddell]

Personally, I'd say that Athenian Democracy is radically different to the Enlightenment Age democracy that the U.S. was built on...In Athens, slaves, women and people who did not own property couldn't vote.

[pangeaprogressblog]

@willbraddell In detail yes but the challenge is to Glenn Becks assertion that America is based on Judeo-Christian heritage. Democracy is from pre-christian Greece. An older variable if you will. The newer variable was the Enlightenment which was preceded by the Renaissance which was a rebirth of Ancient Greek and Roman ideas. The inspiration was from the Classical pre-christian world and from the Enlightenment not Biblical Kings and dogma.

[leicamaster]

Christianity was not the predominate philosophy used to frame the constitution.

[bearchewtoy75]

@BT3701

You don't hear about from "secularists" because it still doesn't establish the US as a "Christian Nation". It quite irrelevant, actually.

No one dissented because that was the proper way to cite a year at the time. Today, it's more common to us "AD" or nothing at all.

The phrase was also added AFTER it was voted on.

Google: The U.S. Constitution and "the Year of our Lord" john fea

[pangeaprogressblog]

@joedabomb13 John Locke was influential but the facts remain that Pagan Greece and Rome (Democracy and Republic) were the inspiration to Adams, Jefferson and Madison.

[SSJ3Ulcer]

@songshepherd Which biblical principles of liberty, specifically, do we find in the framework of the American government, and where, specifically, do we find explicit mention of these principles?

[SSJ3Ulcer]

The ironic thing is that the principle of church-state separation was at least as much (if not more so) a deeply held conviction by devout christians like Roger Williams and George Mason, rather than by deists like James Madison.

[Abbadon380]

damn u fundamentalist nuts u TURN SOUTH OF THE US JESUSLAND INTO THANKGOD FOR ATHEISTS AND SECULARISTS FOR KEEPING THE US FROM BECOMING A COMPLETE A THEOCRACY AND THE STING THE COMPLETE FUCKIN WORLD ON FIRE

[songshepherd]

The founders drew from a variety of resources to frame our nation. Judeo-Christianity is clearly the predominate philosophy, but secular sources where also used. Greco-Roman democracy along with Renaissance ideas of capitalism were re-imagined in light of Judeo-Christian doctrines and ideals that most of the founders held. This is why they didn't give us "Athens 2.0" Rather, Athenian ideas firmly rooted in the ideals of Moses& Jesus, Biblical principles of liberty predate the Athenian model.

[BT3701]

I hate to be the one to inform you, but God is in fact mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, Under Article VII and right above the ratifying signatures of the founders. The founders wrote "in the Year of OUR LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven" No one dissented from having mention of the Lord mentioned, but rather agreed with those words and signed the historic document. Of course that is something you won't learn from secularists.

[jfsfrnd]

2 - Secular power is that which superintends and governs the temporal affairs of men, the civil or political power; and is contradistinguished from spiritual or ecclsiastical power.

[jfsfrnd]

1 - SEC'ULAR, a. [L. secularis, from seculum, the world or an age.]

1. Pertaining to the present world, or to things not spiritual or holy; relating to things not immediately or primarily respecting the soul, but the body; worldly. The secular concerns of life respect making making provision for the support of life, the preservation of health, the temporal prosperity of men, of states, &c.