A letter writer challenged us to seek out the facts about our nation's Judeo-Christian heritage. I did and some surprising facts did present themselves.
Jeff gave a quote he claimed that came from George Washington that started out as, "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible...". The problem with this is that George never said any of that. Part of the quote even came from A Life of Washington (1836) by James K. Paulding.
Patrick Henry never said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ." That came from a 1956 piece in The Virginian that was about Patrick Henry.
The most important fact to glean from our Founding Fathers is that within the two most important documents they were a part of, The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, Jesus is not mentioned once in either of them.
He also mentioned the Washington Monument and the writings inside of it. What he neglected to mention is that those writings came on stones donated by Masonic Lodges from around the country. The United States Government did not endorse the writings of any of those stones. Did you know that one of the stones inscribed in the monument came from a Muslim leader?
Also did you know that John Adams signed a treaty that stated, "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion?". This was a treaty with the Tripolitanias that were Islamic.
I'm not trying to be hard on him. He is correct that the United States was founded on Christian principles but not at a government level. The average everyday citizen of the United States back then were Christians and lived their lives with that discipline. All the Founding Fathers did was to make it possible that the citizens of our nation can worship freely and to express those beliefs when they vote.
James Kendall
Walker, W.Va.
