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Originally posted by RPKESQ
Please post the evidence that all the Founding Fathers and early setlers were here to have freedom of religion and not freedom from religion. After all, since there were various religions across Europe, they certainly did not have to cross the dangerous Atlantic to be able to proctice the religion of their choice, they only had to go where it was practiced in Europe. A much easier, cheaper and safer solutiuon. If you read the Founding Fathers own diaries, notes, letters and official documents conected to the creation of the USA, you will find they tried to seperate all religions from government. They never as a group tried to tie to two together.
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The early imigrants to North America, and their motivations for coming here, are too well documented to have to go into it here. Many, if not most, were escaping religious persecution as prosecuted by their various homelands; state religions. The Church of England, and the Catholic Church on the continent, were inextricably tied to the politics back home; they were dominated by the various governments. They were seeking escape from government sponsored religion, not from religion in its entirety. They wanted freedom to worship as they chose. They most certainly were not seeking freedom FROM religion, unless it was freedom from state sponsored religion.
And no, various religions accross Europe were not an option either. It was simply not safe to openly practice anything but whatever your particular country had "officially" (in varying degrees) adopted. It would be akin to being openly Christian in Iran today, if not worse. There was really nowhere to go when the entire continent had its various governments interfering with its churches.
That last point brings up an extremely important, but often missunderstood, distinction. They were looking for freedom from governments meddling in church affairs and trying to run their churches. Not the other way around, i.e. churches meddling in governmental affairs. They very much wanted government out of the churches; they most certainly did not want God out of government. So yes, by all means read those diaries, notes and letters. It is quite clear from them that our nation is founded on Christian principles and morals. The "seperation of church and state" was meant to protect the church from the state, not the other way around. That much is equally clear in their writings.