Why do (seemingly) a lot of USA'ers believe that USA is a Christian Nation/Country?

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raspberryemoji@reddit

Christianity is the dominant religion in the US, you’re right to say that separation of church and state is a big deal within American law, but religious extremists rarely care about facts or laws. Also I agree with the person telling you not to say USA’ers, it’s cringy.

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Suitable-Elk-540@reddit

Why are we criticizing someone who's likely not American for saying something in a way that's not idiomatic for an American? I think the intent of AskAnAmerican is different than LearnHowToImitateAmericans.

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

The sub is literally called “ask an American”. They’re being criticized because the correct term to use is literally staring them in the face.

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Dizzy-Ad-3073@reddit (OP)

I didn't see anywhere where it stated USA - Specifikally. Imagine an AskAEuropean subreddit, but everyone's saying "This is for French people only" America is a contenent. In other countries American can refer to anyone from the North or South of America. My use of "USAers" was to specify the country you were in. American is the term YOU call each other, but it is not the term the rest of the world might use.

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

> American is the term YOU call each other, but it is not the term the rest of the world might use. We regularly get this in the form of a question, such as "Why do you call yourselves 'Americans' when you're not the only country in America?" It often is based on incorrect beliefs such as: * "America" is a single continent from the top of Canada to the bottom of Argentina (hint: it's two separate continents, North and South). * There are other countries with "America" in the name (hint: there are none). Exonyms are valid things, but the above two things are simply wrong. The United States of America is the *only* "America."

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tubular1845@reddit

Are you actually trying to say that the name of the sub is unclear and that you thought it was referring to all of North and South America? lmao

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raspberryemoji@reddit

Was the American flag that is the header of this sub too subtle for you?

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Suitable-Elk-540@reddit

But who the fuck cares? Why are you trying to enforce grammar rules in this sub? This seems like an incredibly petty thing to take offense at.

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Prestigious-Comb4280@reddit

Super cringey and definitely not the English language ask someone from the UK.

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Alternative-Law4626@reddit

Our founding documents can draw a straight line back to Judeo-Christian political thought which informed them. Those founding documents set the tone for the civilization that exists in the US. While religiosity may ebb and flow for any particular sect, the underlying foundation remains.

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EasyQuarter1690@reddit

Even the question being framed says that “the US was founded by people from Britain escaping religious persecution” is a very American way of putting it! The Puritans were truly awful people and if you look at what was going on in Britain at the time, they were a big part of the trouble! Religious upheaval and literal wars based on religion were a big part of what was happening around this time. The country was in frequent turmoil over Catholic and Protestant, people were killed for being one or the other, royal succession was impacted by religion, good grief kings and queens were killed over this stuff! The claim that the puritans were “fleeing religious persecution” is one way of looking at it, another would be that their extremist views and intolerance of anyone that they considered to not be “pure” enough made them pariahs in the community they tried to force their beliefs on. They are called “puritans” for a reason, they believed in some pretty horrific methods of “purifying” and saw anyone that was not as extreme as being, quite literally, devils. So when it came time that a large enough area of land had been stolen from the Native Americans that were living here, and the colonists had gotten tired of being ruled and taxed by a king they never saw (who was quite mad periodically and his disliked, and totally lacking any form of PR) son was regent, the religious wars of Britain had made enough of an impact on the rest of the world that separating church and state was pretty much a “no brainer”. I mean, in Britain the king was literally the head of the church, based on nothing more than that Henry VIII wanted a divorce and a son. As far as those saying that the US was founded as a Christian country, it was founded by white people from countries that had been part of Rome and the Romans brought the religion on Constantine with them and kept that religion going even after Rome fell. So these people continued with this religion until the rise of Protestantism, but both religions are still “Christian” at their core. Being anything but “Christian” was even illegal across great swaths of these areas. Remember, religion is the means by which the powerful maintain their power and authority, the whole “divine right of kings” and all of that. So, these people were born and raised in societies which religion, and religious belief, was compulsory from birth. Of course they were going to maintain this belief for generations, that is why religion is such a powerful method to maintain power and authority over populations of people. People born into cults tend to accept the cult’s belief system and breaking free of the cult requires a lot of support and infrastructure from outside the cult to deprogram, and that didn’t really exist.

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Fuzzy-Simple-370@reddit

Anyone who says the US is a Christian country is probably an extremist Christian nationalist. I haven't met a sane person who actually believes that.

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LifeApprehensive2818@reddit

I'm not sure I disagree with you so much as I want to impress that these extremists aren't rare. In the not so distant past, you effectively couldn't run for public office in many areas unless you were a protestant. No law prevented it, but the voters and political establishment wouldn't stand for it. Today, a number of the southern states keep trying to designate official state bible translations, and alter their public school curricula to fit fundamentalist Christian lessons. The whole country has never been a theocracy, and the people who want one are today a minority, but Christian philosophy and the established churches have always held a very privileged, influential, and exclusive role in our society and government.

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manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit

idk, but please don't use the term "USA'ers"

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Harrythehobbit@reddit

I find it really interesting how often I see foreigners on Reddit using "USA" or "the USA" to refer to the US, when I can't think of an instance of an American doing that. Americans almost always say "the US", "the States", or just "America".

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tubular1845@reddit

I hear Americans say the USA way more than I hear them say the states.

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Sasquatch_5@reddit

they say that because we aren't the only country in America, and also we are not the only country comprised of states.

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Argo505@reddit

I really can’t fathom the level of performative self loathing you’d need to have in order to pretend you don’t know what our demonym is.

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icyDinosaur@reddit

Usually it's just taken from our own languages. In German, there's actually a somewhat interesting distinction - "USA" is used as the (short) name of the country, "US" is used as a prefix. So in German, the President of the USA is the US President. "Amerika" is also used to refer to the US here, but it feels slightly more informal to me. As a sidenote, I find the distinction between countries translating abbreviations or not interesting. In German, abbreviations from English are usually kept and just pronounced with German letter sounds; in Dutch they translate the underlying term and use the abbreviation for that. So America is "USA" for "United States of America" in German, but "VS" for "Verenigde Staten" in Dutch.

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Fuzzy-Simple-370@reddit

I'm an American, and I actually noticed the other day that when I'm talking to foreigners, I will say/write out the USA. But when I'm talking to Americans, I will just say/write the US or America.

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

I also write “USA” when talking to foreigners purely because I am exactly never in the mood for the “America isn’t a country” “debate” to start.

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raspberryemoji@reddit

I lived in the EU for a little bit and I noticed that when people would ask me where I’m from I would say “the US” and often people would get confused, so I just started saying America.

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Sorry-Government920@reddit

except for the chants of U.S.A at sporting events

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BMK812@reddit

USA USA USA!

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WarmLeg7560@reddit

America is not a country

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Dizzy-Ad-3073@reddit (OP)

Well American could imply anyone within two different continents. So I thought I'd have to be more specific. What would you like to be called instead of USA'ers?

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JohnMichaels19@reddit

Americans. We're the only ones who actually use that demonym (i.e., in normal conversation as opposed to just to try and make a point), especially when speaking English

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i_GoTtA_gOoD_bRaIn@reddit

Just because we do it doesn’t make it right. It’s insulting.

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Argo505@reddit

You gotta be pretty fragile to be insulted by that.

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Pennsylvanier@reddit

A large portion of my social circle is from Argentina and I genuinely can’t think of a single person who would be insulted by me calling myself “American”. Hell, they call me American! These are Argentinians. Not exactly a people known for being humble about their national pride; either.

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i_GoTtA_gOoD_bRaIn@reddit

My experience is with immigrants that are currently living in the USA.

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

So people who are also American because they live in the USA

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chimugukuru@reddit

When speaking English, it is not insulting. When speaking Spanish or Portuguese it can be, and I defer to those terms in those languages. But claiming that it's "insulting" in English ironically doing the exact forcing of a worldview of one culture onto another that they claim to get so offended about.

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ENovi@reddit

It does in English. I understand that in Spanish and Portuguese “America” refers to one continent and as such I’ll refer to myself as “estadounidese” (USian, I guess) when in Mexico. However, in English we’re taught that there are two continents and refer to those as “The Americas” (plural) and therefore there isn’t any confusion when I say “American” in English. Please don’t tell us how to refer to ourselves in our native language. I assure you it isn’t insulting in English and no one in the English speaking world will take “American” to mean someone from Argentina or Belize. I do my best to honor linguistic differences when in another country and I expect the same courtesy. Neither is right or wrong *depending on a specific linguistic context* but to tell me that the way I use my own native language “isn’t right” is significantly more insulting. You don’t hear many English speaking Canadians calling us shit like “USA’ers” or performatively acting offended whatever we say Americans and it’s because that distinction simply doesn’t exist in English. Again, it’s incredibly insulting to English speakers to tell them how to speak. In English we’re Americans.

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Only-Finish-3497@reddit

I’m in the UK right now and plenty of Brits have called me American. The word for American in Japanese is American. It’s only offensive if you make it offensive.

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Argo505@reddit

> Well American could imply anyone within two different continents Nope. > What would you like to be called instead of USA'ers? “Americans” will do fine.

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madelmire@reddit

"USAers" is awkward to type and sounds very unpleasant to say allowed in English. You'll never hear an American call themselves that. Literally never heard that aloud in my life. Purely internet bullshit. Or maybe something that someone says overseas I guess but I wouldn't even think somebody from Canada or Mexico would say that if they were speaking in English. Sounds terrible and inorganic. When we refer to each other, it's Americans. When we are talking about our own country in a formal political conversation, we usually say "The US". When we're talking about our country in a philosophical or culturally political context, something where we want to draw on emotion or nationalism, we'd say America.

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FlakyAlternative4137@reddit

Europeans make an "R" sound at the end of vowels, so it's actually USRs (U-S-Ar) or America'rs.

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therealdrewder@reddit

No it can't. Nobody says American and means anything other than a person from the us.

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Libertas_@reddit

Americans

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tubular1845@reddit

Literally nobody will think you're talking about Brazilians when you say "Americans". Everyone knows you mean people from the US.

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Seeggul@reddit

The Anglophone world uses American to indicate the nationality of people from the USA, and would refer to somebody from North or South America as North American or South American. If this was a genuine question consider it answered.

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manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit

In English, American refers to people from the United States of America. That's what we want to be called. In other languages, a different word may be appropriate, but in English, we are Americans.

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ChewBoiDinho@reddit

Americans

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TonkaHeroDreamCake@reddit

People from the US are called Americans

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minnick27@reddit

Yeah, I prefer United Statesians.

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i_GoTtA_gOoD_bRaIn@reddit

What is a better term for us? Keep in mind that every country in North, Central, and South America is part of “America” and their people are therefore “American”.

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YeahNoYeah333@reddit

People always say that but I’ve never heard a Colombian say they’re American. Or a Mexican say they are American. Do they really?

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i_GoTtA_gOoD_bRaIn@reddit

I hear them say how insulting it is for us to have co-opted the term when we are all technically Americans.

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

No one is talking about 2 entire continents at once. In English we are American end of, they get to pick what they call us in their language, they don’t get to tell us what we have to call ourselves in ours.

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TaquitoLaw@reddit

It's a never ending pointless argument from people who apparently think people should be identifying themselves by continent for some unknown reason.

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leeloocal@reddit

I have never. I lived in Mexico for a year, and they get SO pissy when we use “Americano,” but a) Mexico is also a “United States, and b) they don’t refer to themselves as “americanos.”

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BubbhaJebus@reddit

No, they're part of "the Americas" or of the continents North America and/or South America. The word "America" by itself denotes the US.

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UpstairsCream2787@reddit

Most people who think the U.S. is/should be a Christian nation don’t consider that at odds with separation of church and state. I recommend reading through these [polls](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/10/27/45-of-americans-say-u-s-should-be-a-christian-nation/) which generally show that support varies a lot by how people define being a “Christian nation”. Many view it as meaning that the country is majority Christian or should be guided by some nebulous “Christian values”. Of course there are some people who do want to get rid of separation of church and state, but for others their thought process is simply that they think Christian values are good so they think it would be good for the country to follow Christian values.

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AwakenedDreamer__44@reddit

Please do not called us “USA’ers” lol. Anyway, Christianity has been the dominate faith in the U.S. since its founding, no one disputes that. But the idea that the U.S. IS and SHOULD be an exclusively“Christian” country mostly stems from Christian nationalists. Due to increased secularization and immigration in recent years, many Far-Right American Christians feel that their status, dominance, and way of life is being threatened, so they fervently insist that the U.S. is, was, and always should be a “Christian” nation- hence, Christian nationalists. Their attitude towards people of different religions is that, at best, their populations should monitored and limited in number to, at worst, being forced to convert or removed from the country entirely. Through violence if necessary. They’re not nice people, if you couldn’t tell. The reason the Founding Fathers separated church and state in the Constitution was mainly because they disliked the Church of England and its connection to the British government. They didn’t like the idea of a centralized church forcing its beliefs on everyone else, believing it violated civil liberties. They were also well aware of the European wars of religion happening around that time, and really didn’t want to deal with that. During the Cold War, however, there was a bit of a reactionary, religious resurgence to differentiate from the “Godless communists” in the USSR, and as I stated above, another one in recent years as a backlash to dwindling religiosity and increased arrival of people with different faiths.

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TimelyToast@reddit

I hear foreigners call US a “Christian nation” far more often than Americans. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it from Americans. Its 100% a foreigner thing. The reason why foreigners obsess over American Christianity is due to a number of cultural/propaganda reasons. Europeans, for example, are staunchly atheist. While many Muslim nations despise Christianity so that is a part of US culture they latch on to and use to attack the US.

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Dizzy-Ad-3073@reddit (OP)

Well, it was more my incorrect fact of USA history that the people fleeing were more atheist. I have since been corrected. But "In God We Trust" and "One Nation, Under God", as well as your officials being sworn in on a christian (although I think someone did do Protestant?) bible, and any fallout if they choose to swear on something else. So was just curious.

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Hegemonic_Smegma@reddit

It mostly comes from fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants who are social conservatives. There also is a significant number of politically conservative people who pretend to be Christians for political advantage who spout such nonsense. Many, if not most, of these people have no respect for the freedom of religion guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and would gladly have the U.S. become a Christian theocracy. Culturally, though, it's no wonder that the U.S. might appear to be a "Christian country" with its excessive celebrations of traditionally Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter, as well as St. Patrick's Day and the Christian-adjacent Thanksgiving, Fat Tuesday and Halloween.

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confusedrabbit247@reddit

The USA is *supposed* to be a secular nation. White men have added things and pushed their own agendas to try and change that, like adding "ne nation under god" to the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" to the back of our money. The Founding Fathers were right to keep things separate but that was a long time ago. People still fight to keep things secular but most people here are Christians so like I said that agenda is pushed.

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NS_8099@reddit

I’d rather be called an American but I’d say it’s because it’s quite religious compared to other developed countries.

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FondleGanoosh438@reddit

Probably because the country has been majority Christian since the founding. The government is technically secular but that doesn’t mean policy hasn’t been informed by religion.

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Feeling-Taro-4944@reddit

Because it was founded by Christians

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DharmaCub@reddit

Ah yes, famous Christians like Thomas Jefferson, who wrote his own Bible that removed every mention of God or miracles.

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Feeling-Taro-4944@reddit

He still identified as a Christian.

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leeloocal@reddit

He identified as a deist, which is not Christian. It’s someone who believes in a God.

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PdxGuyinLX@reddit

Many of the founding fathers were Deists but not Christians. Even if they were it’s crystal clear that they believed in religious freedom and did not want an established religion.

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leeloocal@reddit

I mean, I don’t believe that, but the people who were escaping religious persecution were SUPER religious. And super Christian.

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raspberryemoji@reddit

The whitewashing of the puritans in popular culture is pretty insane

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Difficult-Value-3145@reddit

They had some belief that Quakers where better off sans ear some of the people burnt at the stake for witchcraft were also Quakers including the last one of the salem witch trials who was also 90 , and they where fellow Christians for what that's worth also America has had a long history of separation of church and state being more like separation of church and a Christian state . Hopefully that will change. Btw I was raised a Quaker all-thou my father is more of an outspoken atheist . Christmas one year my dad said something long lines of Mary just only bitch got pll to believe that excuse for why she was knocked up . And I was never 100 on some of the Quaker ways John Brown is one of my favorite historical figures .I consider myself an agnostic but I feel like my country makes some unfortunate decisions based on its Christian leaning past and present the revoking of Roe vs Wade is one such decision.

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leeloocal@reddit

Well, history is usually written by the victors. And the victors tend to make themselves look good. Luckily, history classes have gotten better at telling kids “hey, the Puritans weren’t that great. This is why.” At least they did when I was in high school and college, and apparently it’s even better now.

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LifeApprehensive2818@reddit

Essentially, the northern wave of settlers mirror the people today who think that it's discrimination that they get called out for being intolerant. There were significant political reasons they couldn't stay in England; disagreeing with the established church was equivalent to civil disobedience, and thus hazardous to your health. But they were also a bunch of hateful prudes that no one wanted around. You know you've set a new low bar for intolerance if you persecute Quakers.

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leeloocal@reddit

The reason why Maryland and Rhode Island were established was because of the persecution of Catholics, by the way. It wasn’t just because of Puritans.

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LifeApprehensive2818@reddit

Many thanks for the reminder. Hopefully I've clarified.

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Eat--The--Rich--@reddit

Christians hating each other is as old as Christianity is.

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dnext@reddit

Who in turn persecuted other Christians that didn't share their own specific view of Christianity - that's why they were kicked out of England and Holland, and that's what they did in the colonies. Jefferson and Madison saw this when people were being thrown in jail for not tithing to churches they weren't a part of, and vowed to ensure that this stopped. Hence the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that became the foundation of freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights.

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leeloocal@reddit

Correct.

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SwordTaster@reddit

You're mistaken. America was founded by people who wanted to do the persecuting. They were pissed that the UK had gotten too liberal so they left to create a puritan nation.

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i_GoTtA_gOoD_bRaIn@reddit

Jesus Christ. What other countries think they know about us is maddening.

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Dizzy-Ad-3073@reddit (OP)

Well, that's why I asked in an AskAnAmerican thread, so that I could learn more.

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i_GoTtA_gOoD_bRaIn@reddit

You asked a question based on an incorrect belief. It’s really annoying.

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Dizzy-Ad-3073@reddit (OP)

Well I did learn some new things from the comments, so that's helped broaden my knowledge. I'd rather be shown the correct information, than just told "You're wrong"

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ThisIsPureTrash@reddit

I mean a lot of Americans believe (and are taught!) they were founded on religious freedom, when “religious freedom” actually meant “the freedom to be batshit insane with no pushback”.

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Only-Finish-3497@reddit

It’s Reddit. All Americans are dumb for not knowing everything about Slovakia but non-Americans can know nothing about the US and get upvoted to heaven. It’s just circlejerking.

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Unsolven@reddit

You can read letter from Jefferson talking about religious persecution of Christians by Christians when America was a new country. The issues of separation of church and state were contentious at the time, and remain contentious today.

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HauntedOryx@reddit

In English, there is no continent called "America" so there is no conflict or confusion in referring to people from the United States of America as "Americans." No other group of people is called "Americans" in this language. If you want people to believe you're interacting in good faith, don't use made up terms like "USA'ers." It comes off like you're arrogantly telling three hundred million people that the way they refer to themselves is wrong, which is an antagonistic way to begin a conversation.

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SabreDuFoil@reddit

There's a lot to it, but the most succinct explanation is that it all comes down to greedy people trying to gain and maintain power and wealth by using religion to reinforce the inherent prejudices found in a lot of folks here. The public education system is also kneecapped (reduction in funding, banning books, banning certain subjects that would teach the students about these prejudices, basically just banning critical thought in general) by the same greedy people to make students in certain, more heavily populated regions, susceptible to their propaganda. These intentionally under-educated folks tend to have more kids (because they don't know better, or are taught that their religion requires them to have a ton of kids), which then leads to a recursive under-educated population gain loop, which then leads to more voters that will vote for certain power grabbers because the under-educated voters were programmed to share the same religious views (which is presented as the morally correct position) as the candidates that are trying to grab power. Then give it oh... idk, 50 or so years, and here we are.

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forceghost187@reddit

None of the people I know believe that

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OptatusCleary@reddit

First of all, most of the colonies were not founded by people fleeing religious persecution. That is a big part of the story that is often told about the “Pilgrims” in the Plymouth colony, but it is only partially applicable to them and not especially applicable to other colonies. Subsequent religious developments like the Great Awakenings and later immigration by other religious groups like Catholics and Jews probably shaped the religious landscape of the United States more than the Separatists or even the Puritans did. The Founding Fathers were mixed, although prominent ones like Thomas Jefferson were deists. Many were in fact Christians, although the American Revolution was not especially religious in its motivation. The government it established was definitely not religious, although it was also not aggressively or punitively anti-religious. Most of the people in the new nation were Christians, or at least people raised in a largely Christian culture. I think the term “Christian nation” could be taken a few ways. Definitely the United States is a “Christian nation” in the sense that Christian cultural traditions are the “default” and the majority of people are either Christian by belief or at least by ancestral tradition. A lot of countries in Europe and Latin America are also “Christian nations” by that same definition, even if they’re largely secular today. “Christian nation” could also mean an explicitly, definitively Christian government and constitution, which the United States does not have. It could also mean a nation where nearly everyone is a practicing Christian, which is also not the case. So depending on how you definite the term “Christian nation” it could be a fair description, but not one that gives all that much information.

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st_brendable@reddit

While I think it's debatable whether the Calvinists did, indeed, "found" the country (I think we like them because it's a prettier story than Jamestown). And while they did want freedom to practice their puritanical views, one of the first things they did was deny the freedom of religion to any other people. But to answer your question, you had many European countries spreading their Christianities as they colonized and those people stayed here and many more people moved here and many protestant Christianities were founded and spread. "Separation of church and state" was made by a bunch of lawyerly Deist intellectual founders during the Enlightenment that loved rhetoric, but I don't think it ever necessarily meant what we think it means today. Around 70% of the USA at least considers themselves to be some kind of "Christian" (whatever that means-- I was raised Roman Catholic and never saw other Christians as valid or correct), for better or for worse, but that would indicate it's a predominantly Christian country population wise.

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Josephcooper96@reddit

You can blame the govt in the 50s tbh. Thats when they started putting God in the pledge of allegiance and on the money and everything.

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Suitable-Elk-540@reddit

Some of the original colonies were founded by people who believed they were fleeing religious persecution. But (as one might expect of humans) those people just ended up persecuting other people that belonged to a different religion. Separation of church and state came from the realization that no religion was safe if the state was able to adopt a state religion. If you're lucky enough to be of the right religion, then you're safe, but are you willing to take the gamble that your religion will be the one the state adopts. But even with all of that, the religions we're talking about are almost all sects of christianity. So there is some logic to saying that the US was founded as a christian country. But that logic still misses the point about separation of church and state. The US was culturally christian but structurally agnostic. But being able to say that the US was christian has great political utility. In today's USA, christians can see the dwindling dominance of christianity in culture (it's still extremely dominant, but any degradation in dominance is threatening to small minded people). So, they've basically banded together as a political entity in order to use government to cement their dominance. This typically requires suppressing other views, including basic secularism. Re-interpreting the history of the US to say it was founded structurally as a christian nation (rather than just culturally) is a propaganda strategy, not a reasoned conclusion.

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SpaceCrazyArtist@reddit

Because the Fundies like History Fan Fiction. The republican party decided to go super pro christian in the 70s when they needed a new talking point. They realized that they could get a lot of supporters by going full on Fundie and giving people an enemy

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Prestigious-Comb4280@reddit

Would you call an Argentinean American? In English you wouldn't

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Classicman098@reddit

Because America has always been a (Protestant-oriented) Christian-majority country, which has shaped the fabric of the country's culture. I never understood the phrase as having anything to do with law, just a statement of the country's population demographics. I was very surprised years ago when I found out that a lot of people interpreted the phrase as meaning "Christian law should be the law of the land."

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Prestigious-Comb4280@reddit

Where are you from? I travel abroad extensively and literally never heard the term USAer. Latin Americans use the derogatory term Gringo. Canada=Canadians Mexico=Mexican There are derogatory terms for them too but this is the English language.

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Eat--The--Rich--@reddit

Because they want it to be and fascists dont accept outside viewpoints

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DharmaCub@reddit

First of all, your understanding of the US is wrong to begin with. The US was not started by people fleeing religious persecution. The original colonies were heavily founded by Puritans who wanted a STRICTER theocracy. 200 years later, the US was founded mostly over taxation disagreements with the British.

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TheLurkingMenace@reddit

The religious persecution was them not being allowed to persecute others. Not much has changed.

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PdxGuyinLX@reddit

They were fleeing religious persecution AND they wanted a stricter theocracy.

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Disheveled_Politico@reddit

First off, it’s Americans not USA’ers. Second, the colonies were absolutely populated by people fleeing religious persecution, though often times because they were less, not more, tolerant toward religious differences. But, certainly by the time the Bill of Rights was adopted there was a sense that governments often used religion improperly, that a lot of strife and wars were caused by the intermingling of politics and religion, and that it was best to keep the church hierarchy and the governmental framework separate. The idea that we’re a Christian country mostly stems from the fact that the vast majority of Americans were Christian for most of America’s history. Even if there was a wall between the church and the government, a dominant religion is always going to bleed into the social and political fabric. This manifests itself in everything from drinking laws to abortion laws, but it’s through a legal framework, not an edict from the clergy. Some people are also just zealots. They want to push their beliefs onto the broader public and so they try to rile people up around a (majority) common religion. States still fight over evolution being taught in schools, or pride flags in government buildings, or whatever. These folks use the rallying cry that we’re a Christian country because it’s popular to say that to a bunch of other Christians. I’d also say that a good number of people who would agree with the statement “America is a Christian country” would be doing so out of a practical assessment that Christianity is the dominant religion, not that they think the clergy either has or should have control over the government.

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BubbhaJebus@reddit

Brainwashing by religious-right organizations. Though it's true that the most common religion in the US is Christianity, the country was founded as a secular nation, with church-state separation enshrined in the Constitution.

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kmoonster@reddit

The US as a Christian nation is a common "founding myth" in a lot of the more militant elements of Christianity. It's incorrect to say the Pilgrims were fleeing persecution; if anything they were upset that they couldn't do persecutions (in a manner of speaking) in England or in Holland. That's a bit of an over-reach, but not by much. Their sect had no control in the larger church, and their view was reformist (that the church had drifted too far / too liberal). There were not any laws limiting them from practicing the way they wished, but neither did they get any financial or political support for their reform desires. This led to the second settlement by England that actually stuck around, earlier attempts had all failed except for Jamestown (Virginia). Business was a big part of that 150 year span between those first two settlements and the Revolution, along with no small number of people wanting to organize a church or denomination outside the strictures of the Church of England and/or the Catholic Church. By the time we get to their grandchildren being old and the Revolution was approaching, and having no central authority for religion was proving to be a critical aspect of success of the towns and cities that were cropping up everywhere. As long as you were willing to work and do business, people learned to mostly ignore your religious oddities. Not entirely, but enough that it wasn't particularly critical requirement for your engagement with society. There were loads and loads of churches, sects, and denominations by the time of the Revolution. And after the first attempt at a unified post-revolution nation failed, a stronger more centralized Constitution was drawn up. Problem was, the Constitution listed a lot of things a government COULD do but not things that it couldn't -- and so before state legislatures would agree to ratify it, they demanded a number of concessions of things that the government could *not* do in addition to all the things this new government *could* do. One of those concessions was: no religion will be backed by the government over any other. By this time people had started to realize that (a) you could live in a society with many religions co-mingling, and (b) distractions over legal pettiness about religion is bad for business. = Further, some of the founders later wrote explicitly both in personal documents and government papers that the US as they founded it was *not* formed out of a Christian conception. This had to be mentioned because (a) some nations they were interacting with were Muslim and concerned about this, and (b) even at that time there were Christian faith leaders trumpeting on about how God had created this Christian utopia in North America. In other words, the "Christian nation" rhetoric has a long history that dates back to the founding -- and it is as erroneous now as it was then

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Simple_Map_1852@reddit

Because that's all the knew growing up.

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xX_Dres_Aftermath_Xx@reddit

Because, putting aside the freedom of religion thing, America has been dominated by Christians/Christianity since it's earliest days, and with their significant presence has also come significant influence on our culture. Even though the Christian religion may not be as popular and powerful as it once was, you can't deny it's been a major factor in shaping American culture in the past. TLDR: (1) American history largely dominated by Christianity (2) Christianity has had major influence on American culture

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plumeria_in_america@reddit

Very short answer :They were "escaping religious persecution" because the British weren't pious enough. They were super orthodox Christians who moved to the US to live 'pure' lives that emphasized moral and religious devotion in all things. Hence, Puritanism.

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TehMispelelelelr@reddit

To add on to what's already being said, immigration from heavily religious areas cannot be stressed enough. The US has historically had very high immigration rates from countries known to be very Christian/Catholic ([I'm thinking specifically of Ireland in earlier American History and Mexico in more modern](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/how-the-origins-of-americas-immigrants-have-changed-since-1850/)) and though these groups have been historically discriminated against by Protestants, they still fall under Christian (To most individuals, though I am quite sure there are some who would even contest that mark)

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astrologicaldreams@reddit

united states of americaers 😭

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GooseneckRoad@reddit

Most of the colonizers were Christian, the US has had a Christian majority for most of its history, and current-day Christian nationalists *want* the US to be a "Christian country", even though that isn't the trajectory of American religiosity.

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SysError404@reddit

It is a result of decades of indoctrination meant to combat the 1950s Red Scare. That is when Christianity was forced into Americana. The American Motto was changed from E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, One) to "In God We Trust." Then they tacked "Under-God" into the Pledge that many children are forced to recite every morning in public schools. Then you couple that with the wide spread American flavored Christianity with it's mega Churches and multi-millionaire preachers screaming into peoples faces and televisions. 70 years later, delusional people are going to maintain delusional Ideas.

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TonkaHeroDreamCake@reddit

Because our culture is heavily influenced by Christianity

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letsplaydrben@reddit

I’m not sure how many people believe that. Among those who do, there is wide disagreement on what it means to be a Christian country.

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candlestick_maker76@reddit

The people who were escaping religious persecution were not against religious persecution - they just didn't want to be the *targets* of it. They were perfectly fine with persecuting others. But that was in the colonies - not the USA (which didn't exist yet). So, it depends on when you think the "original" values of the country were set. Were they set at colonization, or were they set when the USA became a nation?

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mikhailguy@reddit

Throughout our history, there have been a bunch of Christian revival movements that were extremely popular. Also, the big, early Christian group that came to America, the Puritans, were particularly hardcore and influential in our national character. The waves of Catholic immigrants from Europe and more recently..Latin America..factors into this stuff. A lot of Carribbean immigrants are also very Christian. But yes..it's stupid and ahistorical that a lot of "patriotic" people believe that we're a Christian nation.

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blazedancer1997@reddit

They equate popular majority religion with the national identity. It's untrue, but that's where it comes from. And the people who preach this to them likely just set aside the whole separation of church and state thing because it doesn't fit the message they're putting out.

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dnext@reddit

The Founders enshrined in the Constitution that there was no establishment of religion, and freedom of conscience to worship as you wish. And then went further and enshrined it in a treaty that was unanimously ratified by the Senate that the US was 'in no sense founded on the Christian religion.' But a lot of people in the evangelical churches lie to their congregations, and lots of those people are amazingly ignorant.

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annang@reddit

Propaganda

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yabbobay@reddit

The religious freedom the Puritans were seeking was for themselves, not for others! It really depends on region.[Bible Belt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/BibleBelt.png/250px-BibleBelt.png) is more likely to think that than the rest

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