but the religious fanatics still control our government.

I believe Mark Twain said something along the lines that Christianity is such a great idea that it's too bad it's never been tried.

I'm a Yankee relocated southwards by life and career, and whenever somebody starts telling me about America being a Christian nation, I can't help thinking of the various lynchings that happened in American history* in which the participants, after murdering somebody, then went to church on the following Sunday and sang hymns about what good Christians they were.

*not all of them in the South by any means. Consider the 1933 lynching in San Jose of two kidnap-murderers. And not all of them by white people only. But I digress.

who raped pillaged and pogromed their way southwards from Europe to the Levant, burned witches and such, then hell yeah. Hitchens is dead wrong. Look at the behavior not the intent.

This is from Article 11 of the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli:

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 tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

That highlighted bit is pretty categorical. This treaty was approved by President John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers, and ratified without a peep by the Senate. If the US was indeed founded as a Christian nation why would they do that?

I sure hope not. If we are, we aren't doing a very good job of it.

What the United States actually is, according to its Constitution, is a country where each person, not the government, determines his or her own religious beliefs. The greatest number have determined to identify themselves as Christian, but their are wide differences in the understanding of exactly what that means and how it should be expressed in our common life. It is not a justification for the government to pursue policies that promote Christianity over any other religion, especially one specific branch of it.

Most churches in this country are bought and paid for by the republican party. As a result, their fortunes are going to rise and fall with said party. Maybe if they hadn't blindly gone along with everything Bush wanted, including actually saying he was "appointed by God" in some cases, they might not have this problem. What a lot of people may not remember or never knew was that in the run up to the war, there was a guy going around the country giving sermons in various churches about why the war in Iraq is justified. I can't see these churches doing that for a democrat. Go back and watch any number of televangelists from 2002-2003 and see it for yourself. These people made it clear whose camp they were in.

One of the more powerful churches where I live hold a fourth of July rally every year and in 2003 it was broadcast on all the local stations to see. One of the musical "acts" was a local singer who basically wrote a song attacking war protesters and defending Bush and complaining about how they didn't protest when Clinton bombed Iraq. Needless to say it didn't even ryme. How this broadcast skirted the tax law is beyond me. So no, these churches get no sympahty from me. They picked thier side and now they have to live with the consquences.

I read my Newsweek cover with a hearty "I wish." But though true Christians are few and far between, approximately one half of the government seems to want to do things in a profoundly "Christian" way.

The US Constitution gives us freedom from religion, meaning that we cannot be forced to worship ANY religion.

The believers need to understand that they do not have the right to govern us.

... but even the defender of Christianity claimed only that US culture is based on "Judaeo-Christian" values, whatever they might be.

Well, I guess the idea of universal literacy and education is a Christian idea, with Christians being the people of the Book, but even so one could argue that non-Christian nations (e.g. Japan) share the same values.

Universal health care also seems to have sprung from the role played historically by monasteries and Christian charities, but we don't even have that in the US.

The idea that the "Judeo-Christian" values on which our nation is built include Old Testament commandments like the injunctions against killing, stealing, and committing adultery is pretty weak, seeing as how these things are frowned upon in non-christian nations, and these sins are certainly widely practiced in the US.

Britain is a Christian nation, at least in terms of having an official religion, history, and a monarch who is the titular head of the church, even though few citizens actually believe any religious dogma. The United States is not a Christian nation, though it does contain quite a few churchgoers.

When asked their religion, many people will respond "Christian" although they rarely attend church, don't read the Bible, etc. It's a default response, meaning their family or community was Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, or whatever and that they still believe in God. A lot of people don't concern themselves with organized religion and find that they have better things to do on Sunday than get dressed up, drive to church, and listen to a preacher tell them how sinful they are and hit them up for money. Who needs it?

Also, why do these surveys always assume that everyone is Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or nothing? What about Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, and other groups? Why are members of non-Abrahamic, non-monotheistic religions considered "non-believers"?

Jesus can kiss my ass.

Anything really good done in the name of Christianity for the most part has been done by individuals. As a movement, in its various guises, Christianity is a malicious and destructive force...always has been. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are like the three gorgon sisters. Stay away from them and never look directly at them. They're evil, divisive, corrosive entities.

I've said it before, somewhere Jesus is saying "Elvis, what did we ever do to deserve THIS?"