# Was the US founded on Judeo-Christian values? If so, which ones? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 26, 2011, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808 "2011-10-26T02:02:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/41 "2011-10-27T14:54:47Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > No, republic in its literal sense means there is no monarch. Can you give any evidence of this? Or that this is the way the word has been used…ever? Actual evidence, please. “I read it somewhere” doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/42 "2011-10-27T14:59:54Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Well, I never said in this thread that the Bible denounces infanticide so there’s no reason why I should provide a cite for it. (Though if I wanted to provide such a cite it would be easy. Luke 18:19 would be one of a great many possibilities.) I don’t know which translation your sect favors, but I don’t see anything about infanticide in this one: > [@King James Version (KJV)](#): > > Luke 18:19 > [sup]19[/sup]And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/43 "2011-10-27T15:34:13Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > I do not believe there has ever been a society in all of human history where killing and theft were simply permitted. What human beings _have_ greatly struggled with is extending the universal prohibitions against killing and theft to “others”, to people _outside_ the society. A long history of Christian crusaders, conquistadors, and colonizers demonstrates that the Christianization of the Roman Empire and post-Roman Europe certainly did not lead to a quick and easy shift to the recognition of universal human rights, even for people who are not members of our own tribe, city, religion, or nation. Many Christians over the centuries had no problem with killing other people, enslaving the survivors, and taking their loot–as long as the victims were “pagans” or “heretics”. > > The end of Patria Potestas over members of one’s household may be a genuine shift from pagan to Christian values. However, as late as the 18th century, Christians _were_ still asserting [a right to kill slaves as a matter of convenience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zong_Massacre). As for decimation and so on–those were _punishments_, meted out to people considered criminals (including religious dissidents). Christian societies certainly continued for many centuries to carry out capital punishment, often by extremely gruesome methods, and for all sorts of offenses that we would now consider relatively trivial or not even crimes at all (including the “crime” of dissenting against the established religion–the same as the pagan Roman Empire once did to Christians). The topic under discussion here is whether the founders of the United States made the decisions that they made on Christian values. Regrading that discussion, your ability to list off a bunch of bad stuff that some Christians did sometime doesn’t prove they didn’t, and isn’t really relevant here, though I’d be happy to debate the topic elsewhere. Furthermore, considering your claim that Christian societies had capital punishment for minor offenses, the same is true for the United States in its early years. Most law on this topic and countless others came from colonial times and its origins were in English law, either explicitly or implicitly. (If I recall correctly, Pennsylvania was the only state in which the death penalty was limited to murderers, and this decision was directly linked to the state’s Quaker heritage.) The question to ask, rather, is whether the founders, when making their decisions, used ideas and principles and values that came from Christianity and knew that they were doing so. The answer that most historians would give on the topic is a definite yes. For instance, the book _[A Brief History of the Presbyterians](http://www.amazon.com/History-Presbyterians-Lefferts-Augustine-Loetscher/dp/0664246222/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319728602&sr=1-1)_ documents that early Calvinist and Presbyterian communities in different western European countries applied concepts including democracy and separation of powers and then traces how these ideas influenced the government of the colonies and then creation of the United States. Other concepts in American government come from elsewhere in Christian history. The founders did not invent the idea that an accused person would have the right to a defense lawyer, to call witnesses, to know the charges, and to face the accuser, and so forth. Some of these ideas existed in early form in ancient Judaism; all were developed in definite form in the courts of medieval Europe. Now the founding fathers surely were knowledgeable about law, history, religion, and politics. They surely knew that the ideas they were putting at the basis of the American government did originate from Christianity, did not exist in ancient civilizations, and for the most part didn’t exist in other contemporary civilizations. Thus it makes sense to say that they did, in fact, found the country on Judeo-Christian values. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/44 "2011-10-27T15:37:00Z")
**Lobohan:** I made a mistake; I mean to post Luke 18:18-20. > [@](#): > > A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” > > “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’ ---
**Author:** ![gumpy3885](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d9b06d/32.png) [@gumpy3885](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gumpy3885)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/45 "2011-10-27T16:08:28Z")
It seems to me that the phrase used in the OP is usually meant to imply that the founders had no other values they used in forming their opinions and decisions. Of course their religious views factored into their opinions. But ALL of the delegates to the constitutional convention were extremely educated and well read. They were all familiar with different types of governments and philosophies. They were not trying to establish a “Christian” nation. They were trying to establish a common framework that would allow the nation to succeed and most of their arguments (if not all of them) didn’t take religion into account at all. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/46 "2011-10-27T17:30:47Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’m not claiming that you’re lying, but rather that the statement you posted was untrue, which I’m very much allowed to do. You said: “The prohibitory stance on infanticide was a Jewish cultural choice that Jesus actually called the priests out on as not following the scripture.” This is untrue. The fact that the Jews denounced infanticide is true, the claim that Jesus disagreed with this is flatly false. It’s easy to read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and verify that Jesus never did any such thing. Therefore your claim is wrong. > Well, I never said in this thread that the Bible denounces infanticide so there’s no reason why I should provide a cite for it. (Though if I wanted to provide such a cite it would be easy. Luke 18:19 would be one of a great many possibilities.) Mark 7:9-13 and Matthew 15:3-4 He was aware of the rule, but I think he was mocking it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/47 "2011-10-27T17:34:53Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > **Lobohan:** I made a mistake; I mean to post Luke 18:18-20. Perhaps you meant to post Leviticus 18:21 ESV You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. Leviticus 20:1-5 ESV The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. 2 Kings 21:2-6 ESV And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Deuteronomy 12:31 ESV You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. Ezekiel 16:20-21 ESV And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? Ezekiel 20:31 ESV When you present your gifts and offer up your children in fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you. Jeremiah 7:31 ESV And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. 2 Kings 17:17-18 ESV And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/48 "2011-10-27T21:08:04Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The topic under discussion here is whether the founders of the United States made the decisions that they made on Christian values. Regrading that discussion, your ability to list off a bunch of bad stuff that some Christians did sometime doesn’t prove they didn’t, and isn’t really relevant here, though I’d be happy to debate the topic elsewhere. I wasn’t actually directly addressing the topic in the OP, I was responding to your assertion: > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > In many primitive and ancient societies, killing or theft or both were permitted in some or all cases. As I was pointing out, this is a fairly ridiculous assertion. There is no great black-and-white divide between the wicked pagan world, where theft and murder are acceptable, and the world of enlightened Christian virtue. To reiterate, all human societies ban killing people or taking their stuff; all human societies have exceptions to these rules (self-defense, capital punishment, or war; taxes or tribute); and in a great many human societies–including many Christian ones–unfortunately one set of exceptions to the rules of moral behavior has been that they don’t apply to “others”–foreigners, strangers, barbarians, pagans, infidels–all too often it’s been held to be perfectly OK to kill _them_ and take _their_ stuff. The rise of Christianity certainly didn’t end that kind of thinking. > [@](#): > > Furthermore, considering your claim that Christian societies had capital punishment for minor offenses, the same is true for the United States in its early years. Most law on this topic and countless others came from colonial times and its origins were in English law, either explicitly or implicitly. (If I recall correctly, Pennsylvania was the only state in which the death penalty was limited to murderers, and this decision was directly linked to the state’s Quaker heritage.) Yes, of course, Christianity influenced American legal thought. All too often, though, it was the _bad_ stuff that could be and was defended on Christian or Biblical grounds: slavery, sodomy laws, inferior status for women. (Women in 19th-century America may have been better off than they were in some times and places, but they certainly could have had it better, and nowadays, as our society has become more secular, they do.) > [@](#): > > The question to ask, rather, is whether the founders, when making their decisions, used ideas and principles and values that came from Christianity and knew that they were doing so. The answer that most historians would give on the topic is a definite yes. For instance, the book _[A Brief History of the Presbyterians](http://www.amazon.com/History-Presbyterians-Lefferts-Augustine-Loetscher/dp/0664246222/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319728602&sr=1-1)_ documents that early Calvinist and Presbyterian communities in different western European countries applied concepts including democracy and separation of powers and then traces how these ideas influenced the government of the colonies and then creation of the United States. Other concepts in American government come from elsewhere in Christian history. The founders did not invent the idea that an accused person would have the right to a defense lawyer, to call witnesses, to know the charges, and to face the accuser, and so forth. Some of these ideas existed in early form in ancient Judaism; all were developed in definite form in the courts of medieval Europe. > > Now the founding fathers surely were knowledgeable about law, history, religion, and politics. They surely knew that the ideas they were putting at the basis of the American government did originate from Christianity, did not exist in ancient civilizations, and for the most part didn’t exist in other contemporary civilizations. Thus it makes sense to say that they did, in fact, found the country on Judeo-Christian values. Was there _no_ Judeo-Christian influence on American constitutional and political thought? That would be hard to defend. However, the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution were very much a product of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was in large part a reaction against Christian Europe–of course, that in itself in a way means Christian values were an influence on Enlightenment and therefore American thought; if the Enlightenment has been reacting against, say, Hinduism, it would have had a different shape to it. The idea of separation of powers, for example, can be traced to the writings of men like Baron de Montesquieu, who was very much an Enlightenment figure. There was much self-conscious looking back to classical (Greek and Roman) precedents in Enlightenment (and therefore American) political thought. (There’s a reason why American government buildings have long looked like Greek and Roman edifices rather than Gothic cathedrals.) Such principles as “that an accused person would have the right to a defense lawyer, to call witnesses, to know the charges, and to face the accuser, and so forth” are rooted in the Common Law of England. Thomas Jefferson for one [actually argued](http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=225&division=div1) that the Common Law had pagan, Saxon roots, pre-dating Christianity. Perhaps he was wrong in that view, but clearly Jefferson at least was not just a self-consciously Christian political theorist. And amusingly enough, _the Bible_ actually provides evidence that the right to face one’s accuser has pre-Christian, pagan roots: > [@](#): > > I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over anyone before they have faced their accusers and have had an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges. – [Acts 25:16](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2025:16&version=NIV) ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808/49 "2011-10-30T12:47:53Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > You are aware, are you not, that the whole “Render unto Caesar” story is a liberal corruption of what Jesus actually taught? Fortunately, the [Conservative Bible Project](http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project) has finished the New Testament, so the truth is out there. Their noble aims:[ol] > [li]Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias. For example, the Living Bible translation has liberal evolutionary bias; the widely used NIV translation has a pro-abortion bias.[/li][li]Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these).[/li][li]Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level.[/li][li]Utilize Terms which better capture original intent: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent; Defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer;” similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle.”[/li][li]Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”; using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census.[/li][li]Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.[/li][li]Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning.[/li][li]Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story.[/li][li]Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels.[/li][li]Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”[/li][/ol] If one studies the writers life of Jesus, and ‘if’ he said and acted as written, he would be called a bleeding heart Liberal in today’s society. Look at the Conservatives and compare them to the Pharisee’s, their judgment of others, there public display of their religion etc.. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-us-founded-on-judeo-christian-values-if-so-which-ones/600808.md?page=2)