When the American Founding Fathers placed their new nation "Under God," What kind of God did they mean?

Question

The distant, uncaring God of the Agnostics or the Provident, involved God of Revealed Monotheism? Give proofs.

Answer 1

You have already implied an answer - - but the Founding Fathers & Mothers, such as they can be said to have a "unity" were Deistic in theology but also seeking a consensus among the greater public who did tend Protestant and traditional affirmers of a God to pray and worship toward. . .When you read the Declaration of Independence in its drafts you see that there was a sense by the revising committee that "rights of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness" should be couched in "the divine" (i.e. God's granting). . .earlier Jefferson had been speaking about a more distant god ("Nature's god"). . .there is much more ambivalence and ambiguity as far as a Theology or Consensus "Doctrine" of God/Providence than your question presupposes.  Good luck in sorting out whether it's a matter of only one option that "wins" over the other extreme option!

Answer 2

They DIDN'T... the motto "Under God" and "In God we Trust" didn't come along for a couple of hundred years.  The founding fathers were mostly agnostics or athiests and did their best to keep AmeriKa from becoming a combination of Church and State because of their experiences in Europe.

The founding fathers would be surprised and disgusted with the way that George Bush and the neo-cons have made AmeriKa into the world's largest FASCIST GOVERNMENT... and if you don't believe that... then LOOK UP "FASCIST" in the dictionary of your choice...

Answer 3

While "Under God" as in "One nation under God" belongs to the 1950s, the founding fathers did appeal to God in the Declaration of Independence, using terms such as "nature's God", "Creator", "Supreme Judge" and "Divine Providence".

The phrases referred, in general terms, to the Christian God, although Thomas Jefferson, a deist, would have a different view of God than the Rev. Roger Sherman.

There is a danger in applying our current culture to cultures two or three centuries or more back in history. The United States, at the time of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution had a population of around 3.5 million people. The country was far more homogeneous in the 1770s than it is today and most adhered to a Christian philosophy.  

Answer 4

All well and good, but the american God is proclaimed all over it`s face.

IN GOD WE TRUST.

This God is losing strength every day, and has less and less power over the rest of the world. The new God became plastic and it`s backers used usuary in it`s greed and stole the power from the HOLY DOLLAR. This dollar proclaims in this we trust.

Answer 5

If you look at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution you will find that the first answer you got to your question was very much wrong with the exception of the "one nation under god" thing.

Not all of the founding fathers were religious zealots, in fact none were that I know of.   George Washington DID INSIST on taking the oath with the Bible (from the Masonic hall down the road) and he DID insist on adding the noun God into the oath.

The god they believed in was, for them, the Christian god.  That's the only god a Christian can believe in.  They did, however allow for the realization that others had different gods simply by the fact that they didn't make a state religion.

As for the comment on George Bush, I never heard of him forcing his religion on others as the ATHEISTS have constantly tried to force ATHEISM on the masses.   They have brought it into schools, not as a neutral "don't ask don't tell", but as an attack.  Children have been suspended for even bringing Bibles into a school to read during free periods.

I am not a Christian,... I don't even like their gods... but I am a citizen of the United States, and AM a religious person.   The Atheists, and not the Christians are the problem, and the ones trying to indoctrinate children and force their beliefs on others.

Answer 6

The Founding Fathers believed in the separation of church and state.  They also believed that the government gets it's power from the people which it governs, (popular sovereignty).  Though many of our Founding Fathers were considered "deists" they all had interesting thoughts about religion.   Please read good information below.

Answer 7

The Protestant God with no ties to Judaism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy or Islam. He was the God who thought like they thought and was described only in the KJV. The rest of us brought our God with us and found out we weren't as welcomed to proclaim his divinity in our terms. Rather than broaden the concept of God, the Supreme Court decided to erase him from the face of America. Our forefathers would have been perplexed by that logic.

Answer 8

"Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1956. This Pledge debuted in an 1892 magazine and did not have that phrase in it. George Washington forbid Christianity or God to be mentioned in the Constitution, and he and John Adams agreed with the Treaty of Tripoli that said the USA's government was not founded in any way upon Christianity. A motion to mention Jesus in the Declaration of Independence was rejected by the majority who signed it. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and Paine were Deists, not agnostics or Christians. The Creator mentioned in some documents is the Deist Creator, not God of English Christianity, Allah of Islam, Brahma of Hinduism, etc.