Is America a Christian Nation Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Is America a Christian Nation - Research Paper Example The research paper "Is America a Christian nation?" pays attention to such fundamental questions as human rights, freedom of conciseness, and ideas of the Revolution. Both in Christian and liberal worldview and in value system an important place is given to seemingly one and the same value – the value of the individual and the associated value of individual rights and freedoms. But it should be understood that this similarity is illusory and formal; it contains the principal substantive differences and contradictions. These differences come to the fact that in Christianity these considered values have an absolute divine source, and thus are endowed with an absolute moral dimension; in the liberal paradigm all these values have only human, relative and conventional sources, and thus lacking absolute moral dimension. History of the formation of the liberal system of values is directly related to the history of Western secular thought, which, starting from the secular humanism of the Renaissance and the secular philosophy of the Enlightenment, put by the wayside Christian religious value orientations, and subsequently totally withdrew from them. In the basis of values and principles designated by the new liberal system were not absolute divine reasons, as it was in the Christian system, but the relative secular human conventions. Because actually beyond religion there can be no justification for the absolute; only religion provides absolute divine source and the absolute divine basis of its values – morals, man, his freedom, and rights. ... Secular values and principles—above all, the values of secular freedom, human rights, morality and values—are not absolute and universal, but relative and conventional, and historically borrowed from Christianity and secularly reconsidered. Approved by the new secular philosophy these concepts of â€Å"natural man†, his â€Å"natural state†, his â€Å"natural rights† are understood beyond the divine and moral dimension. These secular concepts became the basis of subsequent concepts of â€Å"social contract†, â€Å"Declaration of Independence,† â€Å"Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen†, adopted by anti-Christian French Revolution, and finally, the â€Å"Universal Declaration of Human Rights† adopted by the UN General Assembly in1948. Secular concepts prevailed, and Christian religion lost its leading role in the beginning of the US history. In 1796 the United States entered into a treaty with Tripoli durin g the Barbary wars. Article eleven of this treaty stated clearly that the Unites States officials considered their country as not a Christian nation: â€Å"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Lillian Goldman Law library online). As a matter of fact, this article only proved that all the religions were equal in the territory of the United states, just as the First Amendment of the Constitution states: â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a