Founders didn’t create a ‘Christian nation’

Once again, I feel I must reply to Harold Knudsen’s Jan. 26 letter in which he states that America was established on Christian principles. First, Thomas Jefferson never believed that God shaped people’s lives and never believed that America should be a Christian nation.

Second, Article 11 of the Tripoli Treaty had everything to do with the fact that we are not a Christian nation. The treaty was written during the Washington administration and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration. It was read aloud to the Senate, and each senator received a printed copy. This was the 399th time that a recorded vote was required by the Senate, but only the third time the vote was unanimous.

Further, regarding the Founding Fathers, the early presidents were generally deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal God, but rejecting the divinity of Jesus. Thomas Paine disbelieved all religions. George Washington never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. John Adams stated in later life that “this would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion at all.”

I could on with quotations from James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen and more. The crux of the matter is that the United States is not a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Yemen are all Muslim nations founded on Muslim principles. We are certainly different from those nations in that we do not profess to be a Christian nation, and believing that the United States is a Christian nation is wrong thinking and not in accordance with the facts.

Further, regarding the evil atheists, remember who was responsible for the bloody crusades and the inquisition, all in the name of religion.

Michael Lee

Wheeling