> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Mr. X <from_alamut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> One of the first treaties was the Treaty of tripoli which stated
> > definitively to a muslim government that the USA was not a Christian
> Nation.
>
>
> That's a bit of a stretch. It stated that "the Government of the United
> States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,"
> which is obviously true, but does not speak to the religious
> characteristics
> of the states, nor to the degrees to which their citizens considered
> themselves part of any such thing as a "nation" (which was still a bit
> innovative in 1797).
When people (like, say, those on the Texas School Board) approvingly say that the United States is a "Christian Nation," they don't mean that most of its citizens are Christian or that the particular states are whatever. They literally mean that the Government of the United States of America is founded on the Christian religion. That's the whole point of teaching Aquinas as some sort of proto-liberal philosopher.