Exam Description:The Ethics in America DSST covers what a student would learn during a Junior or Senior level semester Ethics class. Specific areas covered may include theory, historical figures and their views, and modern ethical issues and teachings. Personal Thoughts:The Ethics in America DSST is a favorite for many upper level credit seekers. It's always a good idea to check with your school and confirm it will count as upper level towards your degree.
- America Edition Ethics In Reader Second Source Definition Math
- America Edition Ethics In Reader Second Source Definition Biology
If not, you may want to look at the Ethics Excelsior Exam instead. Most colleges that won't accept the DSST as upper level will accept the ECE instead.Yeah, this one's a pain. The old version was pretty tough, but the new version by all accounts is much more difficult. You'll have to memorize quite a bit of information, and there will be scenario questions that require you to demonstrate that knowledge. The pass rates are still pretty good on the exam though, which tells us this isn't impossible by any means.
Exam breakdown:Make sure you check out the for this exam.Pay attention to the bottom of the fact sheet. It contains some sample questions that closely mimic the type of scenario-based questions you'll see on the actual exam.The Ethics in America DSST is broken down as follows: 56%Ethical Analysis of Issues and Practical Application44%Ethical TraditionsYep, that's it. Expect quite a few scenario based questions on those two areas. Areas of StudyI'm going to list some specific topics that you'll need to study.Though there are different versions of the Ethics in America DSST, you'll most likely see some of the following on your exam:.
Thucydides. Biomedical Ethics. Epictetus. War and Peace. Bentham. Poverty and Equal Opportunity. Rawls.
Aristotle. Utilitarianism.
Kant. Human Rights.
GilliganThis is not a comprehensive list of topics! I highly recommend (as always) signing up for and running through their entire flashcard series as well as seeing the Specific Feedback section for this exam. They've had years to accumulate their information, and it shows. Recommended Free Study Resources. Grab it and download a copy. It's free for now (even though it's also on Amazon for $20 or so.) Covers many of the DSST exams in addition to Ethics in America.
Always a fun source of information. Do a brief run through and skip the truly heavy stuff at the beginning. A great set of flashcards for the Ethics in America DSST. A very nice rundown of the major points of the subject. Thought it may be a bit slow, I'd read this from top to bottom.
There are a few things in here that you'll need to know, and you may as well get this introduction to them if you haven't already seen them. Snazzlefrag created this for the old Ethics in America DSST. That being said, much of the material remains the same.Recommended bargain-priced study resourcesAlways check your library first!
You may be able to find some of these for free. You don't have to buy the officially recommended resources all the time. If you're the type of person that prefers to study from a textbook source however, then please see below.- Out of the two recommended texts on the Official Fact Sheet, I'd go with this one. It's not cheap, so I'd look for the used copies unless you want to make your own notes.- Nine pages of targeted information for this exam.
I can't recommend this enough. I'd start with pages eight or nine and then work your way back. Those will have the most bearing on the new exam.Also if you've subscribed, make sure you go through the as well. They also have flashcards for the old Drug and Alcohol DSST if that's the only version you can take.If you don't know what InstantCert is, then click here for the scoop as well as a discount code:You'll find an InstantCert link for every exam here if that gives you an idea of the amount of information they have available. It's an outstanding resource.Closing ThoughtsI must admit, I did like this exam when I took it.
This probably goes under the category of 'I'm a nerd' but I like chewing on things mentally. My only complaint was that many of the questions were subjective, which should come as no surprise when dealing with this subject. Base your answers off of what the question is asking.
If it's asking for a utilitarian view on the matter, then that's what you need to give them.I really recommend Instantcert for this exam because of the flashcards. The scenario flashcards in particular will help you get an idea of what to expect. Adobe premiere pro cs4 transition plugins free download. Don't underestimate this exam and you'll do fine.Best of luck!
America has a great history that goes all the way back to the first settlers who immigrated to our Northeastern shores in order to live a purified form of lifestyle in their religious activities, family life and governmental procedures. This was a humble beginning for the first Puritans who fought many frigid winters but prevailed for the sake of their vision. On the night before the Mayflower landed, the pilgrims gather together to sign the Mayflower Compact, which was based on Biblical principles. From 1630 – 1640, the Puritans came to America. Their main statement was: “ We all come to parts of America with one and the same and namely to advance the kingdom of Jesus.” Those ideals influenced the notion of the Revolution and beyond 1.Most of the New England Puritans came to America not to establish religious liberty but to practice their own doctrine. During the first century of settlement, religious choice was more confined than England allowed 2.
When this new country progressed, it needed leaders to draw out the blueprint of what America would become. As the Revolution grew with every outspoken voice and every bitter thought towards England, the menacing restraining mother country, a few distinguished men found their way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in order to sign a body of laws which developed into the Constitution.
These men hoped to declare to their matriarch across the sea that they were tired of being governed by their laws and ruled by their churches. The signing of the Constitution of the United StatesThere are two different views that many people hold about the Founding Fathers of the United States.
One says, “ America was started as a Christian nation and needs to go back to those roots. The Founding Fathers were predominantly Christian and founded America on those values.” The second opinion is the total opposite.
It states: “ Early America does not deserve to be considered as a Christian nation. There isn’t really a ‘lost age’ that we can ‘return to’.” The definition of Christian here is a society that follows the main teachings of scripture in the Christian bible. I will talk about many of the Founding Fathers and what they have to say. I will also answer the questions: how much Christian action is required to make a society Christian and how much evil can a society display before we disqualify it as being Christian? View Number One: America was founded on Christian principles George Washington and the continental congressThroughout 1774 – 1789, religion was the chief concern of the states.
It was seen in the first meeting of the committee working for American rights, up to the final meeting. During the session of Continental Congress, we find the political assemblies refined with profound appreciation of their religious responsibilities. The founders of the republic invoked God into their civil assemblies, sought guidance for political actions from the religious leaders and recognized concepts of the bible as sound political doctrines.
The proclamations and other state papers of the Continental Congress are so filled with biblical phrases, they almost resemble Old Testament doctrines. Without a doubt, they exhibit a belief in Protestant Christianity and invoke the name of “ God”, “ Almighty God”, “ Nature’s God”, “ God of armies”, “ Lord of hosts”, “ His Goodness”, “ Gods superintending Providence”, “ Creator of all”, “ Holy Ghost”, “ Jesus Christ”, “ God and the Constitution”, and “ free Protestant colonies”. Insistence upon religious decree may be explained by the fact that the government was without definite mandated authority. The only way they could counteract this was to rely on religion. John Peter Mahlenberg, Colonel in the Revolutionary War and the first senator of PennsylvaniaAlmost every Protestant Christian denomination was represented in Congress: The Episcopalians by George Washington, J. Duane and Randolph, Congregationalists by the Adamses, Quakers by Mifflin and Dickinson, Lutherans by Mahlenberg, Baptists by Manning and Ward, Presbyterians by Witherspoon and etc.
Clergy as well as laymen were represented by Zubly, Manning, Mahldenberg and Witherspoon. On July 25, 1778, a motion was made, “ That the sense of the house be taken, whether it is proper that Congress should appoint any person with a pontifical character to any civil office under the US,” (Journals of Congress, volume 11, page 718).
There were commanding influences of clergymen like Manning, Witherspoon and Mahldenberg who were powerful influences in Congress. In so far as Congress was possessed of any delegated authority, it was empowered to deal with the religious matters. Congress depended upon religion for its sanction and there are many facts supporting that idea.
Congress rested heavily upon a religious authority and intended in every way to promote as a basis for an ordered government a dependence on protestant Christianity 3.It has been said that some of the Founding Fathers were deists. This is an assumption that came from many non-Christian historians like Richard B. Morris from his book “ The Seven Who Shaped The United States”. Deism is the belief that God has, like a clock-maker makes a clock, made and wound the universe then abandoned it to its own devices. Deism would say, “ The world is a machine that will keep ticking and ticking.” Deism says God is remote and never works personally with men.
They have no need to pray to God. Deism denies the Trinity and doctrine of original sin – they see man as inherently good.
On the other hand, Christianity says man is a depraved sinner who can gain salvation only through the recognition of Jesus.Two of the Founding Fathers who are believed to be deists are Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Neither description of them fits a deist however. In a plea for public prayer, Franklin said:“ The Father of Lights must illuminate our understanding.
In the hands of Britain. God protects us when our prayers are answered, do we no longer need help? I have lived a long time and I see that God governs the affairs of men. If a sparrow can fall to the ground without His notice, can a nation rise without his aid? Except the Lord build a house, they labor in vain 4.”Here, Franklin was operating from Christian assumptions.Thomas Jefferson also said:“ Can nations and liberties be secure when we remove them from their own firm basis? They weren’t to be violated only with His wrath.
I tremble for my country when I remember God is just. His justice can’t sleep forever. 4”Both Franklin and and Jefferson were influenced by Judaism and Christianity. However they were not deists.
God is seen by these as someone to appeal to and to fear. To call them deists is to call Richard Dawkins an Evangelical Christian 4.Now fast-forward to 1892. The US Supreme Court said that historical documents add volume of unofficial declarations that America is a Christian nation. In 1931, Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland re-stated that America was a “Christian people”. In 1952, Justice William O. Douglas affirmed:“ We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”When the Constitution was adopted and the states were ratified, the US population was about 3.5 million.
900,000 were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and 1 million were Calvinists. After the Constitution was drafted, one could not be in a governmental office and not be a Christian. In 1864, Maryland’s Constitution said that a citizen desiring a public office must declare existence and belief in God.
In New Hampshire, senators and representatives had to be protestant. Some states even went as far as putting people in prison for declaring to be an atheist.
Once, Warren Chase, a politician in Wisconsin and California in the mid-1800’s, said:“ An old man was imprisoned for 60 days in Boston for publishing in his paper that he didn’t believe in an orthodox God.”Since the basic formation of the government was Christian, it had to be protected legally. This doesn’t conclude, however, that the majority of America was Christian. The minority remaining non-Christians still lived under the scriptures. So, it can be said that during that day, the majority of the United States was a Christian nation 5.
Jonathan Edwards, one of the most influential movers of the Great AwakeningDuring the mid-eighteenth century, America seemed to be slipping away from its Christian foundations. The Great Awakening and The Enlightenment were both movements that got us back on our feet again. The principal of the Great Awakening and The Enlightenment were rooted in the ideas of a host of European thinkers. The colonial religious rising of the 1730’s and 1740’s, while credited to forces at work on its own soil, was part of an international movement. The Enlightenment was equally sophisticated and part of a climax of factors long at work in English and European Society. Both The Enlightenment and The Great Awakening, favoring religious freedom but for the disestablishment of church and state, promoted humanitarian reform and cooperated in the cause of educational improvement. Both claimed that a providential design was operative in the New World.
The two also relied on experience rather than tradition or authority. Neither were far more hopeful than Calvinism. For each centered on the individual and his ability to make his own way to salvation.
These were just one of the ways that America was continuing to grow into its own country 6. The Reformation’s gospel preaching brought two very important things that were secondary to the central message of the Gospel. The first one was an interest in culture and a true basis for freedom in society and government. In addition, 51% of the votes never became the final source of right and wrong in government. Because the bible’s absolutes were available to judge a society, the average citizen “little man” could at any time stand up on a biblical teaching bases and say the majority was wrong. One could control the domination of majority votes or of one person or group when biblical teaching was practiced 7.Early America believed in church establishment by a state government was right and necessary. The framers of the Constitution wanted to make church and state together.
The Founding Fathers didn’t desire a moral and spiritual separation. A Christian government that turned secular started from church and state separation 1. Increased agitation for the separation of church and state started with the beginning of the Revolutionary War especially in New England and Virginia 9. The separation of church and state is one of the United States’ greatest contributions to modern religion and politics. America put an end to religious wars for herself through the making of the Constitution and for the world abroad through the power of the example that was set.
The significance of this can be grasped when one stops to realize that Christianity was surrendering a privilege that it had held for so long. The separation wasn’t meaning to damage American religion, although some believe so. Historian Charles Baird once said:“ Now none of Mr. Jefferson’s admirers will consider it a slanderous to assert that he was a very bitter enemy to Christianity and we may even assume that he wished to see not only the Episcopalian Church separated from Virginia but the utter overthrow of everything in the shape of a church throughout the country.
It was not through hostility to religion but because of a new phase of religious conviction that the issue rose in America. It resulted from the rivalry of many religious enthusiasts, all who were Christians.” 3The separation of church and state still affects us today. 3ds max vray rapidshare downloader torrent.
One can see its influence in Government decisions in church membership. The government controls the effects of urbanization, residential, mobility, region and proportion of state populations. Religious organizations have extensive activities and are not oriented toward the state. Churches usually have a well-established organizational base with a long history.
However, state expansions do have a negative effect on voluntary religious membership 7. A Godless NationBecause of the separation of church and state and the transition from a republic to a democracy, modern America has lost what it once so dearly possessed and has turned into the liberal, Godless nation.
This was the reason the Puritans left England in the first place. What brought this about? Was it the weakening of individual will or the loss of self-sufficiency? What happened to the uncommon common man we sing about in our creed?
This Creed once so vibrantly echoed from every part of our nation. It states:“ Do not choose to be common but uncommon. Seek opportunity not security. Do not wish to be kept a citizen and have the state look after you.
You should take a calculated risk. Dreams result in building.
You may fail once but you will always succeed. Never cower to a master or bend to a threat.”Doctor Ivan Bierly, former head of the Volker Fund stated:“ A new faith arose opposite to our beginnings. A faith in man as man and man’s reason as the determiner of right and wrong. Man has turned from a Christian orientation to an anti-Christian, man orientation and secular leadership. The problem is, which man is right? In traditional process, we say we’re free under God but that has changed. We lost contact with our historical Christian roots.
This becomes our Tower of Babel today 8.”We have reconstructed faith for a reconstructed man.Whittaker Chambers, a leading American in conservatism in the 1950’s once said:“ Forget about spirit and soul, it’s all in the belly what matters. Communism is what happens when man frees himself from God. Economics isn’t the problem of this age, faith is. The Western World crisis exists because it’s indifferent to God.
Religion and freedom are indivisible. Faith in man or in God? That is the challenge.”We have gone backward since the early 1960’s. We have voted for economy instead of centralism or for individualism instead of collectivism. Political party was exchanged for political party, leader exchange for leader and representative for representative. Our immense drift still remains.
The power of the people is passing through the years 8. At one time, America so exuberantly shown as a Christian nation but two hundred years later, we are in a different mood.“ The modern cry is ‘America is dying’. What has happened to my America?”– Barry Goldwater, Arizona Senator 1969-1987In 1876, Gore Vale wrote, “ I should think a year of mourning would be a high salinity for this innocence, our eroding liberties, our vanishing resources, our eroding environment.” He was more right than he knew. Most people realize we live in a post-Christian culture but few realize we live in a post- American culture 1.
Today’s generation is under a curse because of worshiping other gods such as money, movie stars, personal possessions and even themselves. They are a people without a bible and without knowledge.
They worship mortal man.On the contrary, in God’s eyes, we have a great value. He even died for us because of that! Through the eyes of godless people, others have little value and are disposable.
God gave them over to their sinful lusts (Romans 1:24). Nations who have rejected God are left to the insanity of godless men.
Man fell victim to the same temptation of Adam and Eve because we have desired to be like God in determining the differences between good and evil (Genesis 3:5). When man accepts this philosophy that he can determine for himself what good and evil is, he starts believing he is free from God and no longer needs Him. Now man is like God and can work on his own to accomplish his purpose.
As Nietzsche said:“ Dead are all gods; now we despair the superman to live.”This simply means that the Christian religion is suspicious to outsiders because it allows no “superman” in its doctrine but rather 100% dependence on our Creator – remember this is according to the mind of an atheist 8.Exodus 20:5 (NKJV) says:“ you shall not bow down to idols nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,”In Psalm 95:10-11 and Hebrews 3:10-11, the authors point out that those who go astray in their heart without knowing him, God will not let them enter His rest.Also in Psalm 62:4, David talks about hypocrites who blessed with the mouth but curse inside. All these bible verses depict what America has become today and what we have to look forward to in the future if we do not turn back to God.During the last century, evolution took a foothold in schools across America. The Christian’s idea on how we came to being is found in Genesis 1:26-27 where God created man in His own image. The world’s idea says that man is a result of a purposeless and materialistic process that didn’t have him in mind.
To an evolutionist, man wasn’t planned. He is simply a state of matter – a form of life very much like an animal. This new thought process violated many Christian values that were deeply implanted in the American theological tradition.
Creationism is the central idea in Christianity and Judaism. Even though many Christians opposed teaching evolutionism in the schools, the government persisted in inserting it into the educational system. The Christians then gave two proposals. Number one, drop evolution entirely from teaching or number two, give creationism and evolutionism an equal place.
Sadly, this didn’t happen and schools kept on teaching children what they thought was absolute truth 8. Because of the state’s continual pursuit of the young innocent school children, they thought it impetuous to push their way into their minds. Supreme Court Justice Hugo BlackNowadays, one may ask, “ Whose children are these? Are they yours or the states?” The first schools in America were founded and operated by Christians for voluntary effort from local churches.
Now they put Christ at the bottom and only rely on knowledge and learning 8. In 1962, supreme court justice Hugo Black issued an opinion in the Engel Decision, which banded prayer in schools. Even though political outcry was great, it was met with a mixed blessing of vindication and liberty.
A 300-year-old American tradition was uprooted and thrown away. The door to God in American education was being closed. This was the reflection of an empty, godless nation 1.The nineteenth century was the beginning of a corrupt United States.
As America continued its downward spiral, the snowball effect seemed more evident during the 1960’s. At this period in our history, screaming young girls went to their knees at Beatles concerts as if in prayer. John Lennon, their guitarist, and later an outspoken voice in the liberal community said in 1966:“ Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that. I’m right and I will be proven right. We are more popular than Jesus right now.
I don’t know which will go first, Rock n’ Roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright but His disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”This illusion, according to Lennon, was what so many had labored under. It came crushing down with this one comment from one of the Beatles. Who would have ever thought it would come to this 1?The Christian message is not only faith-based, it’s absolute. It should be understood that Christianity cannot tolerate another religion.
The religion of humanity has been warring against Christianity and has been successful so far. The bible says we are free from sin (II Corinthians 3:17, John 8:36 and Galatians 5:1). Christians trust in God to meet their promises. A slave, however, looks to their master for security. True freedom in God is lost by the intervention of the government 1.There is a certain pagan view that was brought up in America. It was not the intolerance of those who put God first that shared the change but an excessive tolerance for pagans. Pagans look at human reason as their “Holy Grail”.
Their view of man’s values rests in his contribution to the state. They slammed the door on the Christian idea and open the gate for paganism by mocking God – they have virtually paved the road for Caesar. Americans let go of a faith in God and accepted this belief in a powerful State instead, as in ancient Rome.
Our idea of God should determine the form of civil, political, religious and social foundation. Some believe that if Christ were on the earth now, He would be a socialist, which is not true. Socialism is a form of paganism that makes the state an idol and puts it in the form of God. This violates the first commandment which says, “You should have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3) 8.When presidents swear into office, they place their hand on the bible and swear to support the Constitution of the United States.
Many presidents made this oath on the word that they know nothing about. Those who isolate religion from government, business and school are attempting to destroy Christianity. By trying to make America free from religion, instead of freedom of religion, they tried to destroy a nation. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian expatriate Christian, believed the West was a spire of freedom. However, he grew unsavory in his views. He said that as reality declines, freedom declines.“ Genuinely human freedom is inner freedom given to us by God. Freedom to decide on our own acts, as well as moral responsibility for them.”Inner freedom is denied by the government, which takes away a man’s responsibility for his actions by saying all he does wrong is caused by his environment.
Democracy requires total brotherhood which eliminates fatherhood. As we move further into a democratic belief, the disappearance of God the Father will be apparent 1.It seems that America is in a lot of trouble today. How are we going to go back to where we started with our Founding Fathers? If we are to rebuild a nation, we must strengthen our homes first. Christ’s commandments to the homes are: husbands love your wives, wives be obedient to your husbands and children obey your parents. Parents raise your children with Christian discipline and instruction (Ephesians 5:25-28, 6:1-4). Like father, like mother, like son, like daughter.
If more Christian husbands and wives would stand out, fathers and mothers would rise up. We will have more Christian sons and daughters, thus resulting in a modern Christian America 8. View Number Two: America was not founded on Christian principlesThe second view I am covering is that America’s Founding Fathers were not, in fact, Samuel Rutherford, 1600-1661Christians and did not find our nation completely on those principles.
The beginning of this argument starts with Rutherford’s work and his tradition that was embodied and had influence on the US Constitution. “The Lex Rex” (Law is King) was written by Samuel Rutherford, a Scottish commissioner at the Westminster assembly in London.
Paul Robert painted for the Supreme Court what was laid down in the writing of this book. Included in it was a concept of freedom without chaos or a government law rather than the arbitrary decisions of men. Using the bible as the final authority was the basis for Rutherford’s writing.
Witherspoon and LockeRutherford’s work was arbitrated through two sources. John Witherspoon, the first, was the president of the College of New Jersey and a member of the Continental Congress. In addition, he was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.
Witherspoon followed Rutherford’s “Lex Rex” writing and brought its principles into the Constitution. John Locke was the second courier of the Lex Rex.
He secularized Presbyterian tradition and drew heavily from it. In the Constitution, he stressed inalienable rights and the right of Revolution, his biblical basis for these writings.
Without a background, the whole system would have no foundation. Because of that, Locke’s work was a contradiction. His other writings (“Essay Concerning Human Understanding” in 1690) leaves no place for natural rights. Empiricism rests everything on experience and natural rights are innate to man’s nature are not based on experience at all. Locke didn’t have Rutherford’s Christian base.
He secularized Christian teaching of Rutherford and implemented it into the Constitution 5. Constitutional Convention, Independence Hall, Philadelphia 1787The Constitution failed to mention God.
The representatives to the Philadelphia Convention used part of the Articles of the Constitution but excluded any passage that made a referral to God. This choice wasn’t a mistake. When disagreement became excessive in June of 1787, Ben Franklin moved to invite a few clergymen to lead them in prayer each day but Hamilton objected on grounds of realpolitik. The Constitution was nothing but an eighteenth-century secular text. The members weren’t in any sense a very orthodox group of men.
The only outspoken Christian in the group was Richard Bassed of Delaware. He was a Methodist who supported the exertion of Francis Asbury and other missionaries. However, he mentioned nothing of his faith during the Convention. Another Christian might have been Rodger Sherman. He supported the advocacy of New Lights in Connecticut, which was more political than religious.
Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin and JeffersonAnother stereotype applied to the Constitution is not correct in literal sense. At least the minority of the Founding Fathers, unlike the enthusiastic optimistic French, believed in original sin and its implications for government and politics. None of the fathers accepted the Calvinist Creed however. Washington, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, James Wilson and Grouveneur Morris gave no sign of the Calvinist belief. These men didn’t think man was corrupted, only that man is highly corrupti ble and then surrendered to that corruption which has destroyed every republic in the past. The typical Founding Father insisted that his motives were pure, unbiased and patriotic.
Although the government was fearful of corruption and any alliance with Christian values, they drew more directly from civic humanist sources. Jefferson and Adams were willing to elevate human reason above divine revelation whenever a conflict arose. Even though Madison, the one behind many of the concepts in the Declaration of Independence and one of the first presidents, thought of going into ministry as a college graduate, he seemed more comfortable with nature’s supreme being rather than God’s revelation. He looked at history for political guidance, not to the bible.
James Madison, 1751-1836At the Philadelphia Convention, many politicians refuse to invoke God or His divine intervention in human problems. They then devised a Constitution that, in other words, became “ a machine that would go on by itself”. Separation of powers kept Congress, the president and the courts watching each other closely. Madison wanted to create a political system that would make leaders who could pursue in a common good. However, he only left little to the chance of providence. Instead, he put his confidence in the Constitution as a whole 2.Our Founding Fathers met the classification of secular humanists. They started the process that ruined the republic and turned it into a democracy.
They expanded the content of American pluralism. The secular value became so prominent in the overall revolutionary achievement that, just as much as the Puritan vision of the earlier age, they emerged as an essential part of the American experience. Defenders of the Puritan tradition were reforming its original emphasis on religious and civil liberty into a new bureaucracy that valued civil over religious liberty. Secular apologists for the republic usually learned to admire Rodger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, George Fox and William Penn.
Even though there were genuine similarities, the underlying motivations between 16 th century radicals and 18 th century revolutionaries were different. Williams and the Quakers favored a sharp separation of church and state because they were convinced that in any formal union, the state would always corrupt the church.
Jefferson and Madison also favored this same unyielding separation but for the opposite reason. Potential was still quite strong between secular leaders and defenders of orthodoxy in the area of the Revolution and early republic. Sometimes, clerical criticism of a new godlessness became hysterical 2.Thomas Jefferson was another very influential figure in early United States history. His humanist viewpoints struck to the very core of the Constitution and later the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson wasn’t a philosopher. He was a farmer, lawyer, scientist, diplomat, architect, statesmen and the third president of the United States. Because he wasn’t a very good speaker, he only spoke in public a few times. He did write a lot of letters (25,000 in all!) that covered many different topics literally from A to Z. Call him one of the first American bloggers! Jefferson believed in the post-revolutionary America. This young country seemed to him as a “great experiment”.
He told Judge John Tyler (who would become the 10 th president):“ We trust that in the end, man can be governed by reason, not on Christianity.”He began thinking about the American government by identifying the problems and other governments. In general, his scholarly mind, the same every educated 18 th century man possessed, included a belief in the premise or “Self-evident truths” about the nature of God. He was a student of John Locke and the Scottish Common Sense philosophy that said man was “ a rational animalwith an innate sense of justiceand possessed of a moral sense, or conscious,” which was “ as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing or hearing.” With these ideas, Thomas Jefferson laced a fabric of our government out of the fine-spun threads of experience, observation and philosophy. He hoped that this government could accomplish all the purposes in which a wise and kindly Creator had planned for mankind 4.Jefferson and Madison, along with George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and almost all of the Founding Fathers claimed to be Christians. But this was only a statement which none of them actually practiced.
On the most delicate questions of faith, doctrines and morals, they demanded to think for themselves instead of consulting with God. However, they didn’t try to impose their conclusions on others by force 2.Thomas Jefferson, among others, picked up on a secularized form by tying into classical examples.
Not all of the Founding Fathers were Christians. Actually some of them were deists. Since many are confused with the word Christian, I will give a brief description of it. Christian essentially means “little Christ’s”. The word Christian can be used in two ways.
First of all, it Christian is an individual who has come to God by the work of Christ. The second description is the most important and is very true.
It states that it is possible for a person to live within the circle of that which Christian understanding brings forth, even though they themselves are not Christians. In other words they profess to be Christians but essentially do not follow Christ.This is true in many areas. Many words of the Constitution were not Christian based in the first sense even though they built the basis of the Reformation directly through the Lex Rex or indirectly through Locke 5. The founders took Protestant private judgment one step beyond earlier periods and used it to evaluate the possibility of scripture. Most of them rarely used the word God or Christ.
They utterly discarded miracles despite being backed up by scripture. Jefferson said to his nephew once:“ One should read the bible like any other book, accepting what is edifying and rejecting what is extreme.”He said the virgin birth was impossible and Jesus Christ must have been “a bastard”. He told John Adams:“ The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as His father in the womb of a virgin will be classified as a fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter 2.”The destruction of Christian values took the government out of the business of proclaiming and defending fundamental values.
The struggle among these systems was really violent. The government could not kill non-jeering preachers like the officials of revolutionary France did. The office holding class of the United States was probably no more religious than Britain or France 2. Pennington, 1871-1929For a while, the image of the Founding Fathers has been a conservative one. The entire movement to create a strong government is usually described as a reaction against the fanatical Revolution.
Mainly, this conservative, anti-democratic picture of the father’s is not an easy one to challenge. The men who drafted the Constitution and directed its sanction were tough-minded and realistic. Few, if any, of them would have qualified as very good Democrats. Historians like Charles A. Beard, Vernon Penington and Marrill Jensen insist that the patrons of the Constitution were traditionalists. The major difficulty with their argument is not that it is wrong but the description is appropriate for men who opposed the Constitution or the Anti-Federalists.George Clinton and Patrick Henry, deeply hostile to the Constitution, weren’t willing to trust the integrity of the people that they were concerned with piety or property. To ascent to the Father’s as conservatives may tell us something about the 18 th century mind and even more about our minds.
It does tell us a little about the objectives, purposes and intentions of the men. It tends to twist the differences between Federalists and Anti-Federalists 2. Thomas Paine, 1737-1809In the later eighteenth Century, Deism made its way on the American shores. Thomas Paine was one of the first and most influential deist in America. Paine was the son of a clock-maker and was born in England.
After an uneasy early life, he came to America in 1774 and became a citizen, one of the leading Revolutionary zealots and a declared Deist. His appeal for a rational Christianity, seen in his book “The Age of Reason”, is the classical statement of American deism:“ I believe in God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist of doing justice, loving mercy and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”Deism teaches us, without a possibility of being cheated, one seems all that is necessary or proper to be known.
America Edition Ethics In Reader Second Source Definition Math
Creation is the bible of the deist. They then go to the actual bible as a second source of their truth. All other bibles and testaments are to him fraudulence. The belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed with the strange fable of a Christian creed and with the wild adventures related in the bible and the dimness and course irrationality of the testament, that the mind of man is bewildered as if in fog. When a man hears all this nonsense preached, he confronts the God of the creation with the “imaginary” God of the Christians and lives as if there were none at all.
America Edition Ethics In Reader Second Source Definition Biology
Of all systems of religion invented, man is more derogatory to the Almighty than Christianity 4.Another concept came in to early American history. It was called “Classical liberalism”. It contrasted with many older values and grew out of John Locke’s philosophy. It’s main spokesmen were: David Hume, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who were all atheists.
Liberalism transformed the Christian sin of greed into civic virtue. Many Founding Fathers were deists rather than unbelievers but many clergymen feared their challenge to Protestantism. Thomas Paine’s admirers posed new challenges that mocked a civic humanist commitment to an unconcerned patriotism. Civic humanism went further in it’s concentration of worldly activities. It said:“ The fullest life is that of the citizen who must always be willing to sacrifice self-interest for the common good.”Civic humanists couldn’t achieve humility essential to an orthodox experience 2.
Leuba, 1868-1946In the beginning and end of the 19 th century, there was a rise of science in America. This was no new idea to the thriving American culture. Many of the early Founding Fathers, as I have mentioned, have held this view that nature, reason, common sense and logic were more important than the Creator of the universe and thought. It started to be taught in our schools as more important than religion. Because of that, there was a conflict between the two. Scientists assumed to have thought enough about science to have its insinuation enough to have had their religious views to. The first study about this was by James Leuba’s “Examination of Religious Beliefs of Scientists” (1913 – 1914 edition of “American man of Science”), study that showed scientists tended to believe in God or immorality less than other professionals.
A more recent study showed graduate students were more non-religious than the general public. The reason why there was conflict between religious and science was that all the beliefs in the bible, resurrection from the dead, parting of the Red Sea, etc, weren’t proven in science and reason.
To the “learned” scientist, Christianity was based on faith while science was based on facts 7.Another factor that was grafted into America was the shift from a republic to a democracy. Republic and democracy had come into a common use in the early American colonies well before the founding period. This was a time when governments were being classified all over the world. Looking back on America’s past, one can hardly avoid concluding that the word republic had to be used in order to get ahead with talk about what kind of government they were setting up. As a republic, a republican government rose to extrusion in the conversation of the words democracy and democratic.
This was a character of many European influences that have existed long before the US. The republican government was always associated with cleaning up malpractice, atrocity and social disaster.
When the concept of democracy was introduced, it took a while to clean it up. It started out as a bad word in America because Europe featured a democratic government that the Puritans came to America to get away from 9.The shift from one republic to a democracy happened under Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930’s under the New Deal, which lasted for 100 days. Socialism sunk deep into America at this time. Roosevelt promised three things: first, a reduction in government expenditures, second, to have the federal budget annually balanced and finally a sound currency. This brought about revolution in the state (democracy) in form of law.
After this, 14.6% of America was still unemployed; farms were uncultivated and factories were shut down. This was proof that democracy didn’t work 8. ConclusionNow that we have looked at the two opposing views, I will render my observation of this entire subject. The first view did have many good points.
It expounded on the fact that the early Founders were religious men. However, it failed to mention whether or not they actually professed to be Christians. I do agree with the fact that America has grown extremely corrupt since the founding period. The first view gave many strong convicting points in that area.
The second view is more convincing as far as to say, “The Founding Fathers were not Christian and did not find America on those principles.” The discussion about the Lex Rex and the way it was implemented into the Constitution along with many secular values was very realistic. There was not, however, much reference that “there was no lost Golden Age we can return to”.
I do believe that the founding period cannot be considered as a “lost Golden Age” because of the many supporting facts give in the above paragraphs.The main question about this paper that may arise in some minds is, “What does it take for a nation to be considered a Christian nation?” I believe this rests heavily upon how the nation was founded and where the nation is now. As far as America goes, we were not founded on widely-held Christian principles and we are tremendously far from being considered a Christian nation now. In my opinion, America was not founded on Christian ethics but rather established on a philosophical, humanistic value system. We are far from being a Christian country and the only way to mend that back together would be practically impossible. It is seen throughout worldwide history that every idea, vision, movement and nation starts out with humble beginnings but always becomes corrupt due to human nature and original Sin. Man’s attempt to be just and righteous always fails. However, Jesus’ very nature illuminates everything good and pure.
Every kingdom on earth will eventually crumble and fall, regardless of its foundation. But God’s kingdom in heaven will prevail forever because He, who is just and righteous, reigns on high.
The only thing we, as Christians, can do is to endure until the end and profess Jesus Christ as the risen Savior who will one day come back for all Christians!Works Cited. John W. The Separation Illusion. Milford, MI: Mott Media; 1977. Mark A.
Religion and American Politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.; 1990. Edward Frank Humphrey, Ph.D.
Nationalism and Religion in America. New York, NY: Russell and Russell; 1965. Quint Albertson Cantor. Main Problems in American History. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press; 1968. Francis Schaeffer. How Should We Live Then?
Wheaton, IL: Crossuoy Books; 1976. William Warren Sweet. The Story of Religion in America. New York, NY: Harper and Bros.; 1950. Robert Wuthrow.
The Struggle for the American Soul. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; 1990. Rus Walton. One Nation Under God.
Washington D.C.: Century Publishers; 1975. Graham George J., Jr., Graham Scarlet G. Founding Principles of American Government. Bloomington, IL: 1976.