America's Founding Values

American Creation ^ | Jon Rowe

[Jon Rowe]

It's often said that America was founded on "Judeo-Christian" values.

[Jon Rowe]

It's often said that America was founded on "Judeo-Christian" values. This statement is somewhat fairer and more accurate than "America was founded as a 'Christian Nation.'" However, left alone, it still is not entirely accurate and has the effect of trying to exclude those of us who aren't Bible believing Christians or Jews from America's heritage. On the other hand those who argue America was intended to be a wholly secular Enlightenment nation distort history just as much. The truth is somewhere in between: America was founded on a confluence of three value systems, and as such was founded to be a pluralistic nation within the confines of the American Creed -- the Declaration of Independence (which in turn was constructed from those three value systems).

So what are those three systems? One is indeed biblical Judeo-Christianity. The second is Enlightenment rationalism. And the third is a "noble-paganism," a Stoic sense of virtue that draws its inspiration from Greco-Roman antiquity. As Thomas Jefferson summed up the value synthesis regarding its inspiration on the Declaration of Independence:

"All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c. ..."

In that letter Jefferson also said: "All American Whigs thought alike on these subjects." It was the Whigs who synthesized these value systems into their own "Whig-republican" culture or worldview....

[To read the rest see here:

http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/08/americas-founding-values.html]

[BykrBayb]

IBTZ?

[mainestategop]

America was founded Judeo Christian, PERIOD!

IBTZ!

[mainestategop]

[Religion Moderator]

[Uri’el-2012]

"Except the Lord build the house, They labor in vain who build it." "I firmly believe this." Benjamin Franklin, 1787, Constitutional Convention

[Uri’el-2012]

"The highest story of the American Revolution is this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." President John Adams

[darkangel82]

in after the ZOT

[Allegra]

Don't you hate it when you're standing under a tree for shade and a bird craps right on your head? And you've got bird guano running down your forehead and it's all gross? And nothing handy to wipe if off with?

I hate that.

[rottndog]

Dang!!! IATZ...

[IrishCatholic]

Your mistake is separating them out. You can't.
Faith in Christ and Christianity was the foundation. Reason, attributed mistakenly to the enlightenment, was the tool they used (Reason and logic being integral to the reading and education they received. When citing ancient philosophers you cut the core of your argument out) Finally that ancient and contemporary philosophy you cite was used to build the frame on their moral bedrock of Christian principles.

A group of Christian men under the framework of Christianity constructed a secular government. It is correct to say the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian values.

[mainestategop]

WOOOOO YEAH!! MY FIRST IBTZ! EVER!

[Genesis defender]

You have an Islamikitty on staff? Wow.

[Delta 21]

[TEXOKIE]

Big Bump

[mainestategop]

I second that big bump.

[mjp]

The Judeo-Christian logical chain of natural law begins with man’s God-created essence, moves to the ends God proposed for him, and from that to what God wants man to do, namely, to man’s duties. Once it has been shown that we have the duty to preserve our lives, it is easy to deduce that we have the right to preserve them.

Self-evident axioms are recognized by a form of reason which Locke called intuitive reason. A second form of reason, which Locke called discursive reason was used to deduce theorems from them.

American revolutionaries who agreed with this and accepted some truths as self-evident and then reached conclusions about rights, were products of the Age of Reason and the age of Enlightenment

[darkwing104]

Next!

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Viking Kitty/ZOT ping list!. . . don't be shy.

[UCANSEE2]

Thanks for posting the article.

---

As far as being a ZOT article, I’m not sure.

It gets points for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and paragraph breaks.

[ConorMacNessa]

Piling on after the ZOT!