h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And here I was, all set to quote the "self-evident" bit, and JWF beat me to it.

As we know from history, many of the framers of the US Constitution (esp. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison) believed a particular religion known as Deism, which believed that a god created the heavens and earth, gave the globe a spin, then wandered off to find something else more amusing to play with. Since this left the people very much on their own regarding how to live out the lives given them, they were indeed among the leading edge of the wave of secular humanism that washes over our shores today.

Enlightenment philosophers had been expounding on a government of completely humanistic principles, and they were the first of the modern era to make it a reality.

The "Creator" language in the text of the Declaration and the Constitution is deliberately vague, but not for strictly humanist reasons. Many settlements in the US were formed by religious refugees... the Puritans and the Quakers just to name the easy ones. If they wanted a country that would get the support of powerful states Pennsylvania (strong Quaker presence) and Massachusetts (Puritan), they would have to have a country that would span all religions. The people already had enough differences of class, region, heritage, and lifestyle to deal with. A religious divide or three would have made the country impossible to hold together.

Aside to jwf... aborigines and African slave beliefs would not have mattered to Jefferson when he wrote that, since neither would be citizens in the country he hoped to establish. Most slaves had their heathen ways preached (and beaten) out of them, and African Americans remain today one of the most fervent Christian groups in the country today.

So it would be fairer to say that the State that is the USA is agnostic

Nope. Actually, I don't think there is a label you can apply. Zagreb is partially right in saying the government is secular... but one look at Dubya and his scheme to publicly fund religion dashes that generalization to pieces.

I think the best we can do is say that the state was designed to be secular, and is intended to focus strictly in secular matters in a secular way, but the personal beliefs of any one or a group of leaders can somewhat invalidate that. The First Amendment (and more importantly, Jefferson's interpretation of it) protects us from full invalidation.

secular (of a specific faith but lay (not to do with the faith)) implies a specific religion if that is the case which one, RC, Anglican, Islam, etc

Ummm... I don't know where that definition of secular came from, but it's wrong.

From Merriam-Webster:

"1 a : of or relating to the worldly or temporal b : not overtly or specifically religious c : not ecclesiastical or clerical "

I note you listed just one of the many definitions available but we are however arguing about words...

My original point was that in Post 1 the USA was described as a Christian State, and I said I thought this was not so. Now are we all agreed that the first amendment of the Constitution of the USA provides that Congress may neither establish religion nor prohibit its free exercise, which means to quote Thomas Jefferson "the wall of separation between church and state" must be rigidly maintained.
So given the above can we agree that it would be fair to say describing the USA as a Christian State would be wrong

De jure, yes.

De facto. Not so sure.

Definition (c) from Blather's list could be interpreted the way Happy Dude was using the word, but the USA is secular in the sense of a and/or b which is the normal usage in political discourse.

Noggin

"De jure, yes.

De facto. Not so sure"


as opposed to UK for which you would have to reverse those two answers