In honor of 235 years of your citizens bickering

Per usual, I'm reading the CNN Belief Blog on my lunch break.
Per usual, I'm seeking out the posts about church & state.

And I found this gem.

In honor of Independence Day, it's a post called "Why the U.S. is not a Christian Nation." And it's fascinating.

If you don't feel like reading through the whole thing, here are some quick facts that interested me:
- Thomas Jefferson was the one that coined the term "separation of church and state", but it wasn't part of the Declaration of Independence, his most notable work. It was in a letter to a Baptist church in Connecticut.
- The author says that most of the founding fathers were Protestant (I was taught in my religion classes that they were mostly deist).
- The Constitution states, "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Then at the end of the Constitution is a "Year of the Lord" reference. (Hey, they tried.)
- One of America's earliest foreign treaties, signed under John Adams, says, "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 tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ..."
- "In God We Trust" was first stamped on American currency after the Civil War, and didn't become the national motto until 1956.
- "Under God" was added into the Pledge of Allegiance 60 years after it was written (for a children's magazine) in 1954.

And the most hilarious:
- The "Ten Commandments" statues in various places around America were mostly established as a publicity stunt for the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments."

I blame the 50's.

Now I'm not saying that we need to immediately remove all evidence that anyone in America ever believed in God, I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't get our panties in such a bundle when someone threatens to. The symbols of "America's faith" are not the cornerstone of our country.

All this being said, the money doesn't say "In the Christian God We Trust" and in the Pledge it doesn't say, "one nation, under Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior." The argument should be whether we're a country of theism or not.

Either way, Happy birthday, America! And thanks for the ability to criticize you and blog about you as much as I want. You're still my favorite.