Thursday, October 21, 2010

Is USA a Christian Country?

I opened a new email exchange with a man who posts on a well trafficked blog on the question of whether the USA is a Christian Country. His post stated the following.

“Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?,”  O’Donnell asks. The answer? It ain’t there. The First Amendment, passed after the Constitution was adopted by a Congress elected under that ratified Constitution, reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Meanwhile, “established religions” were flourishing in several states, and so were multiple prohibitions thereof. In no way does the Constitution or the Bill of Rights establish a “wall of separation” between church and state.
Of particular note, John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, supported a law in his native New York that prohibited Catholics from holding public office there. As I recall, the law was on the books until 1820.
Since 1789, activist courts have delighted in finding all sorts of “constitutional” principles that are not in the Constitution.


My initial rebuttal held that:

I disagree with your comment posted on the Lewrockwell blog. There is a wall of separation between State and Church specified in the Constitution for The United States cognizable by recognition of both a necessary and sufficient condition. The First Amendments prohibition on Congressional establishment of religion prevents the United States Federal Government from adopting any official religion. This is the necessary condition. However, The Establishment Clause is not a sufficient condition to rule out cultural inheritance of a defacto quasi official religion by means of commonality of shared traits. You correctly pointed this out in your comment by noting John Jay's support for religious tests of qualification for office holders.

You failed, however, to tell the whole story. The Supremacy Clause in Art VI Section 1, Clause 2 reads “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” This makes articles of Treaties the “supreme Law of the Land”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause

The Treaty of Tripoli's Article 11 reads “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

Consequently, “the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby,” is to be understood “ As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” This is a sufficient condition, and considered with the necessary condition of the Establishment Clause we are justified in concluding there indeed is a wall of separation between the United States of America and the obviously false and repugnant Christian religions.

Best Wishes and Regards

Robert Bumbalough


His subsequent response prompted additional thoughts on this matter.

Greetings from Robert Bumbalough.

Sir, I hope you are well and prospering. This third message is the second I am writing to defend that the United States of America is not a Christian country or nation and is in fact both free and secular in nature. But first allow me to clarify my own position, I am a Randian Objectivist and as such, I advocate a minimal minarchism in governmental structural organization although for me the jury is still out on the question of whether or not government should be monolithic or can be a plurality of competing free market enterprises a la Anarcho-Capitalism. Religiously, I am a strong or positive atheist because I know God, imagined as consciousness without existence and source of information, is impossible. I am a fan of all sciences. In no sense could I be described as a leftist, a liberal, a progressive, a socialist, or Marxist. However, I am neither a conservative or libertarian as those positions are fraught with error. I argue for Laissez Faire Capitalism and maximal personal liberty and responsibility.

To answer the question, “Is the United States of America a Christian Country?”, the terms Christian and Country need to be defined. I think a nominal Christian can be and only be a living human being that is capable of cognitive reasoning, volitional will, and has “faith” that at least one of either the Nicene, Athanasian, or Apostles Creeds constitute a proper profession of religious observance.

A country is a political entity, a state, and is constituted by sets or rules called laws. In no sense can a country be considered a metaphysical thing or a living human being, nor can it in any sense be considered as having a mind or capacity to reason. It is a schema of organization for a group of human beings who mutually desire to form an association to obtain benefits of civil governance.

Since countries cannot think and are not alive, they cannot be Christian or otherwise religiously construed even if the people who made the rules were religious. However, in the case of the United States of America its founding Charter, the “Constitution for the United States of America” clearly predicates in the first amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....”. The Congress and Senate passed this amendment. It was signed by George Washington, and it was ratified by the States. These actions predicated a general sense that the United States of America were founded as a secular country. Jefferson made this clear in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists:

“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 prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” ~ (Thomas Jefferson, as President, in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 369)

In your original blog on Leerockwell.com you wrote

{“Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?,”  O’Donnell asks. The answer? It ain’t there. The First Amendment, passed after the Constitution was adopted by a Congress elected under that ratified Constitution, reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Meanwhile, “established religions” were flourishing in several states, and so were multiple prohibitions thereof. In no way does the Constitution or the Bill of Rights establish a “wall of separation” between church and state.
Of particular note, John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, supported a law in his native New York that prohibited Catholics from holding public office there. As I recall, the law was on the books until 1820.
Since 1789, activist courts have delighted in finding all sorts of “constitutional” principles that are not in the Constitution.}~http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/67471.html

O'Donnell's and your own fallacy lies in thinking the wall of separation can be found in the Constitution itself. But your failure to understand stems from not knowing that both a necessary and sufficient condition is obtained for a man made rule by virtue of universal assertion of an axiomatic corollary. Such predication as was the case with the universal adoption of the establishment clause caused the wall of separation to likewise be established. That is the reason why the Treaty of Tripoli's Article 11 reading in part “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...” is true. The founders intended to set up a secular country where all people could have religious freedom or freedom from religion.

This view is further buttressed by the fact that nowhere in the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, or the Constitution for the United States is there a mention of the Christian religion or that the USA should be styled a Christian nation. The reference to God in the Declaration is to nature's God. This is not the Triune fantasy of Christianity known as Theos. Theos is the name of the Christian God in the the New Testament. The English word, God, used by Jefferson in the Declaration was a reference to the Age of Enlightenment's ideal of a personification of reason and creative energy as imagined by deists like Jefferson, Henry, Franklin, Voltaire, Madison, and Adams. Some of the founders were Christians, but those closely related to the Declaration were Deists and had no faith in Jesus so called Christ. Even if Jefferson and et al had been Christian fanatics, the text of the Declaration has no import or affect upon the nature of the United States, for it is still the case that countries cannot be religious. People can be and they can stipulate rules that require others to be religious upon pain of some punishment, but the USA does not have such rules.

In fact, Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution says “... but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

This is not how religious fanatics act in forcing others to adopt their faith as an official state religion. No country that is styled by its citizens as being religious in some way lacks an official or defacto official religion.

What about the Federalist Papers? Didn't they somehow entail that the people were expecting a religiously oriented country beyond The Articles of Confederation's complete silence on all matters religious save motivations for invasion by foreign enemies? NO! Jesus is not mentioned at all. God is mentioned twice. Once in context of a discussion of the ancient Greek god, Apollo, in reference to a discussion of Phippip of Macedonia (Alexander the Great's father) in Federalist No. 18 and once in Federalist No. 43 as a reference to the general Deist God of Nature referred to in the Declaration of independence. Madison was a Deist. Christianity is mentioned once as a time reference to the condition of the Germanic tribes just prior to the Carolinian empire in Federalist No. 11. So there is no evidence in the Federalist papers that the People expected a religiously oriented government or confederation.

Indeed, religion is mentioned several times in the Federalist Papers, however, but only once in a context of a national religion. Hamilton in Federalist No.1 wrote: “...nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.” This warning about forcing others to accept one's faith was part of what was expected of the new Constitution. It was in the air in a general sense that the new and improved United States of America was to be a secular and free country.

I shall now address Mr ???????'s comments. The Bricker Amendment was never passed. The Senate defeated it. Eisenhower was opposed to it. A few years later, its champion, Senator Bricker was defeated for reelection. Those predications refuted the doctrine that Congressional approval of Treaties or Executive agreements is required.
Mr ???????, invocation of Missouri v. Holland does not help you. This case says the United States has power to implement Treaty obligations even if doing so would otherwise violate a State's Sovereignty protected by the Tenth Amendment. This is supportive of the Supremacy clause and enforces the Treaty of Tripoli's declaration that the United States was in no way founded upon the Christian religion. So if you wish to make a case that Treaty of Tripoli Art.11 is not the law, then you need something else. Missouri v. Holland helps my side. The United States is a free and secular country.

Mr ??????? mentioned the treaty powers in a general sense by writing “...the history of "Treaty Law,...” Please note that

“No part of any treaty has been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court” and that

“The language of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI, which identifies treaties together with the Constitution and the laws of the United States as “the supreme Law of the Land,” was held to mean in Foster v. Neilson (1829) that a treaty must “be regarded in courts … as equivalent to an act of the legislature” (p. 254) and thus that a treaty is not valid if it contravenes the Constitution. The controversy engendered by the Bricker Amendment in the early 1950s resurrected fears generated by Missouri v. Holland that the treaty power might somehow be superior to constitutional restraint. In Reid v. Covert (1957), the Court held that civilian dependents of American military personnel overseas are entitled to a civilian trial, notwithstanding a contrary statute, and a plurality stated that no treaty or executive agreement “can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution” (p. 16). ~http://www.answers.com/topic/treaties-and-treaty-power

Since the Treaty of Tripoli Art. 11 has never been over turned, it is , via Foster v. Neilson to be regarded in court as equivalent to an act of the legislature and thus declaring the United States in no way founded upon the Christian religion is within the powers of Congress and the President as empowered by the Establishment clause that instantiated the wall of separation by universal predication by congress, Senate, President, and State Legislatures. The United States is a free and secular country.

Then Mr ??????? mentioned the “...facts of American history,...” The fact is that The United States is a free and secular country and has never had an official state religion nor can any country be religious as only people can be so silly.

Mr ??????? wrote: “Put bluntly: a treaty stating "down is up" is not therefore binding on the law of gravity -- nor does it reverse its application in the past.”
Treaties speak to man made states of affairs encoded in rules of conduct called laws. It is absurd to suggest any human can affect metaphysical reality by simply writing words on paper or saying something.

Mr ??????? wrote “In the case of the preamble you cite...” No preamble was cited. This is a casual exchange so exactitude is not necessary. But I did provide links for reference purposes.

Mr ??????? wrote “regarding the Tripoli language gives you grounds to assert that we are not a Christian nation” Sir, this statement indicates you do not understand what a nation is and why the United States is not one. A nation is a group of people who form a body politic for some purpose. Those who formed the United States of America are all dead. There is no nation here. The United States is a Country, a contract between States consisting of sets of rules, and cannot be Christian because only people can do that. Sets of rules can do nothing on their own. The language of the Treaty of Tripoli Article 11 is operative and is the Law.

Mr ??????? wrote “...300 years of history ...” The culture of Americans was not incorporated into the Constitution or Articles of Confederation before. Yet your claim here rests upon a false view of truth. If the religious beliefs of people were incorporated into the Constitution without any reference or specific enumerated power delegated to the Federal Government to establish an official religion, then how is it that all the other aspects of the cultures of the Colonial peoples were are not be be construed as part and parcel of the Constitution? Are we mandated to use candles and whale oil lamps for lighting because the Colonials of the 1780's did so? Your making the fallacy of Composition by assuming that one of traits of the populations which were designated We The People was somehow transferred into a contract made by their representatives even though they expressly did not do so. Just because a part has a property does not mean the whole has that same property. Your fallacy stems from a wrongful view of the Coherence Theory or Truth.

Mr ??????? wrote “...the Declaration of Independence...” I've already written about the Declaration. Jefferson was a Deist and the God references were to the God of Nature not Jesus, Theos, Jehovah, or YHVH. Besides the Declaration had no part in the formation of the United States of America. The USA #1 was formed with final ratification of the Articles of Confederation. USA #2 with final ratification of the Constitution. The assumption that the actions of the Continental Congress somehow made a country is wrong.

Mr ??????? wrote “...unless there are no rights, God-given or otherwise...” Rights presuppose Law and Legal context which in turn presuppose civil society and associations of citizens. Rights do not come from nature but rather from the minds of men. We mutually decide on what we will allow each other to do and those actions we shall be responsible for and are required for our cohabiting cooperation. Even if it were possible for God to exist, it could not make rights for us unless it forced us to do certain actions against our wills.

Mr ??????? wrote “...self-evident-truths like the Laws of nature...” Sir, are you a Christian? Do you believe that your god made the world, the universe, existence? Do you believe the Gospel stories of miracles and the Resurrection of Jesus? If so, then you must necessarily reject the idea of natural law or self-evident-truths. Natural Law means reality is only real if it still exists if there is no consciousness aware of it. Christianity's mythological worldview of a magical realm of miracles and teleology, means there can be no uniformity of nature and hence no possibility of induction and thus no self-evident-truths. Christianity is pure mental subjectivism asserted as primacy of consciousness over existence. The problem here for Christians is that consciousness is and only is awareness of existence and cannot make, modify, or terminate existence.

Mr ??????? wrote “...Nature's God...” Sir, {I should have wrote here that "Nature's God refers to the God of Deism and not the fantasy God of Christianity"}. God, as imagined by most Christians is impossible. Consider the following syllogism that I composed. (This is not a cut and paste job.)

1. To believe that a theistic creator deity exists and is responsible for existence, the believer must imagine their deity was in some timeless fashion akin to "before" existence alone in a timeless, non-spatial, void, without matter, energy, location, dimensions, fields, concepts, knowledge, symbols, perceptions, physical natural law, logic, or referents. And that it was a primordial consciousness that wished existence to instantiate.

2. Consciousness is an axiomatic irreducible primary that at the most common denominative rung on the ladder of complexity consists of awareness of existence.

3. Consciousness of consciousness necessarily requires primary consciousness to first obtain as awareness of existence.

4. Prior to existence there could not have been anything to be aware of.

5. Without anything to be aware of, there could not have been any awareness.

6. Without awareness there could not have been any consciousness.

7. From 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 there could not have been a primordial consciousness prior to existence.

8. Creator gods are defined as primordial consciousness.

9. From 7 and 8 Creator gods cannot exist.

Mr ??????? wrote “in which case there are no bonds on government power
other than our wishful thinking and our cartridge boxes.” Sir, you're just wrong. In a republic the limits of government power come from, checks and balances, Constitutional limitations, the Courts, and in some cases from Nullification. If the government does something you don't like, sue it, or get some friends and protest. Going to war over this shit ani't worth it as Clint Eastwood as fictional Josey Whales said “Dying ain't much of a living.” If it ever gets as bad as East Germany, then bug out for Chile or Argentina.

Mr ??????? wrote “All the best, “

Well Thank you. I hope you find prosperity for yourself and your family.

Cheers: Robert Bumbalough

The Articles of Confederation http://www.constitution.org/cons/usa-conf.htm

The Federalist Papers http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpaper.txt