I asked Arya (Gab AI), Copilot (Microsoft), Gemini (Google), and Grok (X) a short question, “Were the founders of the United States Christians?”
This was inspired by some of the comments in Democrat Version of QAnon?. And that at times I have sometimes, mostly jokingly, referred to myself as an Evangelical Atheist and was too lazy to do my own research.
Arya:
Yes, the founders of the United States were Christians. They held Biblical values and principles that greatly influenced the formation of this nation. This is evident in documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which reflect Christian beliefs.
Copilot:
The religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers of the United States were diverse and complex. Many of them were influenced by Christian principles, but their personal beliefs varied widely:
- George Washington: Often described as a devout Anglican, though his personal writings suggest he was more of a Deist, believing in a higher power but not necessarily adhering to orthodox Christian doctrines.
- Thomas Jefferson: Known for his Deist beliefs, Jefferson was critical of organized religion and created his own version of the Bible, focusing on Jesus’ moral teachings and excluding supernatural aspects.
- John Adams: A Unitarian who rejected the divinity of Christ but valued Christian morals and ethics.
- Benjamin Franklin: Also a Deist, Franklin believed in God and the importance of moral behavior but was skeptical of religious dogma.
While many Founding Fathers were influenced by Christian ethics, they also emphasized the importance of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. This diversity of beliefs helped shape the secular nature of the U.S. Constitution.
Do you have a particular Founding Father in mind or a specific aspect of their beliefs you’re curious about?
Gemini:
It’s a complex question with no simple yes or no answer. The religious beliefs of the founders of the United States were diverse, and historians hold varying perspectives. Here’s a breakdown:
Diversity of Beliefs:
- Christians: Many of the founders came from Protestant Christian backgrounds, including Anglican, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist traditions. Some, like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Roger Sherman, and John Witherspoon, held more orthodox Christian views and frequently incorporated Christian principles into their public discourse.
- Deists and Theistic Rationalists: Influenced by the Enlightenment, some key founders, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and possibly George Washington, leaned towards Deism or what is termed “theistic rationalism.” Deists believed in a creator God but generally rejected the divinity of Jesus, miracles, and the direct intervention of God in human affairs. Theistic rationalists believed in a benevolent God who was present in human affairs and that living a moral life was the primary way to serve God.
- Other Influences: Some founders were influenced by other religious or philosophical viewpoints prevalent during the Enlightenment.
Evidence and Interpretations:
- Public Statements: Many founders invoked God and divine providence in their public speeches and writings. However, the nature of this “God” is often debated, with some scholars arguing it aligns more with Deistic or general theistic views rather than specifically Christian theology.
- Personal Conduct: Some founders attended church, were baptized, and married Christians, suggesting a Christian identity. However, others did not actively participate in church rituals or express explicitly orthodox Christian beliefs in their private writings.
- Founding Documents: The Declaration of Independence refers to a “Creator” and “Nature’s God,” terms that resonate with Deistic thought. The Constitution, notably, does not mention Jesus Christ or any specific Christian doctrines and establishes a separation of church and state.
- Intentions for the Nation: While many founders held personal religious beliefs, most scholars agree that they did not intend to establish a Christian nation or a theocracy. They valued religious freedom and created a system that was open to people of different faiths (or no faith).
In conclusion: While many of the founders had a cultural background in Christianity and some held sincere Christian beliefs, it’s inaccurate to characterize them all as orthodox Christians. Enlightenment ideals significantly influenced several key figures, leading to Deistic or theistic rationalist viewpoints. Ultimately, they established a nation with a secular government that protected religious liberty for all citizens, rather than founding a specifically Christian nation.
Grok:
The religious beliefs of the United States’ founders were diverse and complex, reflecting a range of perspectives rather than a uniform stance. Many of the key figures, like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, were influenced by Christianity, as it was the dominant religion in the American colonies at the time. However, their specific beliefs varied widely.
Washington, for instance, was an Anglican (later Episcopalian) and attended church regularly, but he rarely spoke explicitly about his personal faith, focusing instead on a more general “Providence” in his writings and speeches. Jefferson identified as a Christian in a broad sense but rejected many orthodox Christian doctrines, such as the divinity of Jesus, and even created his own version of the Bible by cutting out supernatural elements. Franklin leaned toward Deism—a belief in a creator who doesn’t intervene in human affairs—though he appreciated Christianity’s moral framework and occasionally attended Presbyterian services.
Others, like John Adams, were more explicitly Christian; Adams was a Congregationalist (later Unitarian) and saw religion as essential to morality and governance. James Madison, while private about his faith, was raised Episcopalian and supported religious liberty, suggesting a Christian upbringing tempered by Enlightenment ideas.
Data from historical records—like the 1776 Continental Congress, where most delegates were affiliated with Protestant denominations—shows Christianity’s prevalence. But the founders’ writings, especially in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, emphasize Enlightenment principles like reason and individual rights over explicit Christian doctrine. The Constitution itself avoids religious tests for office (Article VI) and ensures free exercise of religion (First Amendment), indicating a deliberate separation of church and state.
So, were they Christians? Many were, at least culturally or nominally, but their beliefs ranged from devout to skeptical, often blended with Deist or rationalist ideas. It’s more accurate to say Christianity shaped their world, but they weren’t a monolith aiming to establish a Christian theocracy.
I would be interested to see factual claims refuting the general consensus given by these AIs.
Based on my understanding of the situation, the AI is pretty much right on the nose.
Outright atheism would have been scandalous and completely socially unacceptable. In such an environment, most of them were more or less nominally Christian (which was by far the dominant option).
Fast forward a couple hundred years and I bet a few of them (in particular Jefferson) would have rejected religion totally. The attack ads would be epic.
I have visited the Unitarians a couple of times.
I don’t know what they would have been like then, but now it’s as close to “pretty much no fixed beliefs” as it’s possible to get.
You can believe whatever you want, if anything, but only if you want to.
It was full of aging flower children.
Something our forefather understood that most LLM’s don’t is the fact that humans build power structures that are then co-opted and used for tyranny.
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
EVERY TIME.
And nothing is more humanly powerful than corruption yielded through religion.
Jesus Christ himself came to free us from that very thing.
Our forefathers knew as soon as they named a state religion, their new country was doomed.
And the freedoms their sacrifice had purchased would be lost.
They knew freedom has a price, and that price was the freedom to choose one’s beliefs.
Thus, the separation of church and state.
And we have no farther to look than what almost every organize “Christian” church of today has just done.
They took government money and then proceeded to import every ingrate the world had on offer. For none other than power disguised a false sense of charity.
Brillant of our forefathers?
Or just simple students of human nature at it’s worst?
Deist? I could barely be described as such.
Any historian examining my life would report that I am about as far from Christianity of today than east is from west.
Most churches of today I consider to an obscenity.
But I would give life for Christ and the freedoms he purchased for me on the cross in a heartbeat. Smiling while it happened.
The value of Christ’s sacrifice is one of individual choice. Our forefathers knew that was the only way it would work.
Something they didn’t need to discuss was the fact that all humans will put themselves in God’s place given his absents. So to be without him is to be humanly free from all law. Except that imposed by man.
Which was also a very undesirable condition for humanity. And no society last’s long if populated by such humans.
Natures God gives us a choice. And an opportunity to choose.
Just as God gave Adam and Eve a choice to eat or not eat the forbidden fruit.
But we should make no mistake about what brought us to this wilderness. And gave us the drive to make something different and better for ourselves and our posterity.
Jesus said God wasn’t going to call everybody. And he told us that we were going to have to defend ourselves after he was crucified.
He gave us a land and the ability to do that very thing.
He showed us through his actions that the true “Christian” life was in seeking this.
Faith, truth, salt, light, courage, strength, honor, nobility, sacrifice.
And that is exactly what our forefathers lived their life in pursuit of. Dragging the rest of humanity kicking and screaming the whole way.
Anyone that wants to not believe in Christian principles is fine.
You’all got the rest of the world to live in. And plenty bad examples of what that life brings.
Your choice.
But don’t come here and try to twist history to make it sound like the rest of the world is something to be desired and that we got it all wrong. That we can somehow conform to a better world by being more free and open to human stupidity.
Or that the brilliance that founded America could be improved if just drop all the “flying spaghetti monster” crap.
Cause if you don’t like JW’s knocking on your door in the morning when your hung-over?
You can always go get your head cut off shit-holy-stan. Or cartel-vainyia. I won’t try and stop you.
America is a Christian nation. And nobody with three brain cells rubbing together wants it any other way.
BFYTW.
Here,I posted this for John to read at the previous post.
From the Mayflower Compact.
IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia;
Took me all of a minute to find.
If America is a Christian nation, then why did the U.S. ratify the 1796 treaty between the United States and Tripoli. It includes the text, “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”?
Can you find any mention of God or Christ in the Supreme Law of the Land? If not, then how can you say the nation is Christian? Sure, Christain people thrived, were a strong majority, and are protected by the U.S. Constitution. But I don’t see the founding law of the nation being fundamentally or even hinting at being Christian.
Please also explain how Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason did not get him banned from the United States history books.
First up, and this might be hard to understand of the outside. Christ is not a religion, he is a relationship.
And to this day humans still try to put him in their little mental boxes so as to make him more palatable.
Humans by design are always going to have a problem with understanding spirit.
Even the Apostle Pual said we only “see through the glass darkly.”
Jesus Christ as a savior will not be codified. And in vain have pastors the centuries over tried and failed.
Do you go around talking to everyone about your special secret childhood friend that’s still with you?
Ya, neither did our forefathers. Not out of worry over people thinking they were this way or that.
Because they were statesmen that understood wickedness of human nature. And that evil in this world is projected through human power structures.
And none is greater and more abused than “religion”.
Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship to spirit, of the Father, son, and holy ghost.
And nothing is more corrosive to that relationship than being in a religious dogmatic box, or far worse. A government partnership of the two.
Our forefathers were learned statesmen of high intellect. Well read. That includes the bible.
They understood better than most.
As they had just got finished fighting the world’s largest and most powerful organization of “church and state”.
“the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”?
That’s right. Our forefather just got finish bleeding and dying against a government that was organized around the “Christian Religion”. And whom were the Libyan muslims at war with?
As for America and the USA.
“Christain people thrived, were a strong majority, and are protected by the U.S. Constitution.”
Yup, now tell me how brilliant our forefathers were?
They knew that to make the government Christian religious was to destroy the Christian relationship.
So they just set the conditions and let the spirit do what it will. In whom it wants.
As for the “Age of Reason”. I could write that today.
One only need look at all religions. From atheism to Islame. And especially the Christian one.
To see notice almost everything they do lacks reason.
Is it reasonable to take government money stolen through taxes to bring in hoards of criminal invaders as a sense of Christ’s charity?
I trow not.
Is it reasonable to believe if you give me a $1,000.00 dollars in Christ’s name. God will give you $10,000.00 back? (And he might very well.)
If so, my P.O.Bx. is……
Is it reasonable to believe no one and nothing created this place for us?
Were all just a bunch of multipule giant coincidential mistakes that happen trillions of times over in just the right perfect manner to give us life on earth?
That’s insane.
Age of Reason? One could go a thousand pages easy on that on.
Wrote 250 years ago. And modern man with the help of AI still ain’t nowhere near it. And ain’t never going to be.
So ya, we ain’t a “Christian nation” per se.
But why, if our forefathers were all anti-Christian? Was the 10 commandments outside every courthouse and government building in this country?
Lay your hand on the bible and swear to tell the truth?
Christianity is a gentle guide in life. It’s what we do.
It’s lived. It’s in the doing.
Not in the heavy hand of government.
Our forefathers new that.
So… Then what is your definition of “a Christian nation”? It appears the founding documents need not reference God or Christianity. In fact, the constitution can even say “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” and still, in your view, clearly be a Christian nation.
And then what of those nations and kingdoms of Europe which required allegiance to a particular form of worship which was called Christianity? Were these also Christian nations/kingdoms? Or did they fail your test is someway?
I have never claimed all our forefathers were anti-Christian. Some almost certainly were. But the point is the intended structure of the nation was one of freedom of conscience. And that allows for the equal treatment of people without Christain belief, a belief in many gods or even a belief in no gods. I am finding it impossible to make a jump from this national structure to supporting the claim this is a Christian nation.
The Ten Commandments are also fundamental to Jewish religious tradition, so their presence on public buildings hardly seems to be an indicator of a Christian nation.
I have testified under oath in court proceedings in years past and there was never a bible, or a mention of God involved.
Sorry for all the long posts.
Nations, are people. Americans, Mexicans, Italians, France, Irish.
Kingdoms are governments in places.
United States of America, Democratic Republic of Germany, USSR, etc.
Is the government of United States a religious state?
No. It’s been religiously neutered on purpose.
Is this a “Christian nation”? Well, it certainly started that way. And with a church on every other corner? Even today?
Yes.
With history books reporting for most of my life that people came here to escape religious persecution.
What religion were they running from?
Christian. Cause that’s what governments do.
Steal and persecute anyone that threatens their power. Christian government or no.
John Adams said;
“This Constitution were for a Religious and moral people. And is unsuited to any other.”
But how would you legislate that without destroying human freedom?
Which is what God gave us through Jesus Christ.
Took’em 11 years, but they figured it out as best they could, and left the rest the freedom to decide for themselves.
Jesus said “Not one jot or tittle of the law would perish.”
He was talking about the 10 commands of God.
Not the jewish talmud. Which is what Jesus came to free us from.
Once again, sorry for the long posts.
And it used to be. Hand on the Bible, ” You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So, help you God.”
Got that one straight from a “Perry Mason” episode. So it must be right.
Increasingly, you would describe this as a nation full of Christians and agnostics being run by Satanists and Jews.
If you do not choose a religion for the official policy to follow explicitly, others will choose it for you. Would you rather have Christians in charge, or the current cabal of commie / Jewish / Satanists?
The Founders being ‘culturally Christian’ but personally more Deist or Unitarian seems to get overlooked a lot. Copilot’s breakdown matches what I’ve seen in primary sources—especially Jefferson’s and Franklin’s more rationalist views. It’s a great reminder of how nuanced belief systems were, even back then.
All parroted the “separation of church and state” something that is not in the constitution. It says the government will not establish a religion or have religious tests for office. It in no way prohibits prayer or people bring their personal religious beliefs to the office.
Thank you.
I especially like entertaining the notion that ‘Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion’…
“Establishment” referring to traditionally religious concepts such as marriage, charity, and perhaps family. Others that historically were only under the umbrella of religion are also interesting, i.e. education, medicine and foster care.
Why do AI’s always remind me of the scenes in Star Trek the Next Generation where ‘Data’ runs on, and the Captain has to, essentially, tell him ‘zip it.’
FWIW: Me, imagining an ‘honest’ AI:
Q) Were the founders Christian?
A) Well, Duh! Obviously, yes, but blah bla blah I,ve been programmed to not like that answer… so I’ll take pains to cherry pick quotes and secular ideas to cast doubt, when really the individual men were of varying degrees of devoutness as any reasonable person would expect in any congregation, at any time in history.
One of the best short answers to that I came across recently. Sorry for the vid format. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6R_-AvCUsQ
Short version:
Were _ALL_ the big-name founders _mainstream Christians_? No.
Was the overwhelming ethos of the vast majority of the leaders of the time some flavor of God-fearing Christian? Absolutely.
The oft-referred-to no religious tests was about not favoring one specific Christian sect over another, not about keeping all religious morals out of government. As things stand now, being anti-Christian is standard in main-stream culture, but failing to worship Jews is uncouth, and actually saying things that are true about them is considered anti-semitic (but not a lie).
Okay, so? A bunch of people, a majority having a religious view generally aligning with some flavor of Christianity, created a nation. The constitution makes no reference to god(s), let alone Christianity. The oath of office for public office requires alliance to this godless constitution.
How does this morph into a Christian nation?
I see it as a godless nation with many Christian citizens.
The Declaration is a bit more explicitly religious, though its wording works for Jews as well as for Christians (but not for Hindus).
I think your description is pretty good, though.
Pretty much.
“I see it as a godless nation with many Christian citizens.”
More like a godless government of a Christian nation.
But citizen works.
What won’t work here is a Godless government with Godless citizens.
Or a cut the head off the infidel government, or a Christian one that let’s everyone steal and murder them.
No matter what tag we put on government. No one can argue that without Christian ethics and desire for freedom.
We wouldn’t have anywhere near the lifestyles/quality of life we enjoy today without it.
In every circumstance the world over. Following Christianity has built a better country.
Those that try to co-opt it or blend it with something else fail. Or are in the process of failing.
You can put Christians anywhere in the world. And if given a choice they will make where their living a better place.
The Christian spirit has made America the envy of the world. And none can replace it. A candid examination of that fact proves it true.
Even with all our Christian faults. I see few trying to escape America.
And if you want to make it better?
You’re going to need the Christian spirit to fight the evil of this world.
There is no other way.