IAP Political Forum

USA was founded on Christian values?  What exactly are Christian values?  I don't see what Christianity has thats so special and different?  What are you guys trying to claim?

America has a lot of freedoms because of Christian values?  Considering the buybull advocates for slavery I find it rather odd to claim that Christianity is about freedom.

I wouldn't say USA is founded just on Christian values or even that Christian values make up the majority of the United States Traditional values. Many of Americas values come from Philosophers, and Enlightenment ideas, the Constitution and the Declaration might as well have been written by John Locke. Thomas Paine and the Deist movement which swept across the wealthy in the Colonies had a huge effect on the seperation of Church and State. So I think if America is founded on any core principles or values it would be that of the Enlightenment thinkers.

The United States is and has been since colonization an overwhelmingly Christian nation with a population adhering to Christian values, but some people confuse this with the government and its principles, ideology largely being based on Christian values. The two aren't the same. The US government and the founding philosophy of the Republic had little to do with Christianity, as many of the founding fathers were either Deists or despised organized religion in general. Some were Christians, genuinely, while others still were only "cultural Christians."

As someone mentioned, most of the core ideology was borrowed from the French and English Enlightenment to the point wherein the Founding Fathers basically lifted whole ideas with slight modifications.

The COLONIES, however, were quite a different story during the 17th and early 18th centuries: they were largely religiously founded. People also tend to confuse colonial governments and the governments of individual states with the Republic itself.

There's little about Christian ideology that supports a democratic federal republic and a liberal ideology

The U.S. was NOT founded on Christian principles. It was founded on the ideas of the Enlightenment in Europe. Essentially freedom, American is nothing if it is not Freedom.

Religion in its most basic level is authoritarian.