Religious freedom. The freedom to start a country with Christian laws and eventually displace the native people. Some states are just now, a couple hundred years later, removing old religious-based laws from their books (and it was a long time coming, speaking for the people). The same men who ran our country employed African slaves and "bulldozed" all the Native Americans into a corner of the country.
Where to begin.
Our laws are based upon English Common Law, not specifically Christian laws; the exception is Louisiana whose laws are based upon French Common Law.
Our Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantees the free exercise of Religion and forbids the implementation of something along the lines of the Anglican Church (official state religion). It does not speak to stomping out religion.
The basis of Civil Rights comes from Religion.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/06/b87308.html
Faith in many instances has been the fuel that has fed the passionate flame in the fight for freedom. Our American history is replete with examples of people of faith, who have in a defiant manner, broken the vessels of traditional and sacred values in order to serve up revolutionary social change.
It is quite likely that in the background, if not the forefront, of every effort in the quest for justice, there have been people of faith providing support and leadership. In the founding of our nation, we see clear evidence that freedom of religion was interrelated to the desire for independence from Great Britain. The root of independence is respect for others. Therefore, it is quite consistent for those who value their freedom of faith to value freedom in broader areas of life. Those who simply value their freedom of faith with a narrow application and limited view towards others may not fully appreciate the roots of their own faith.
The church was not only the meeting place for the movement in the South, it also was the center of the movement in that it served as the symbol of the movement. That is to say that the church represented the freedom that the movement participants sought. It was a facility in the community beyond the control of the white power structure. It was a place where people could express themselves without reprisal. It was a place where people could speak the truth, where they could sing and even shout. The church was also served as the community bulletin board.
The practice of Slavery, and initially indentured servitude, was a Secular thing - see the East India Tea Company and others.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~colonialamerica/coloniallife.html
The first shipment of tobacco from VA to England was sent by John Rolf in 1613. As demands for workers on the tobacco plantations increased more people sold themselves into temporary bondage to pay for passage to America. Bound to serve from 3-7 years they were often auctioned off to the highest bidder. Indentured servants had few rights and runaways were treated harshly. By 1625 40 percent of the people in Virginia, excluding Indians, were indentured servants.
The United States started out as (and still is) an experiment in Democracy. Though we may have done some really bad things along the way, we've hopefully been making progress - to the point a black man has a very real chance of being elected president (and one has served as Secy. of State and a black woman, too).
You may want to look at your own state, where all those nifty Spanish Missions are landmarks. The Spaniards came to the New World for reasons other than religious freedom - GOLD! They massacred every Native American they came in contact with in that pursuit, from Mexico (Aztecs) to the Caribbean.
Return of the Raider said:
The Puritan northeastern US executed people for religious reasons. All they had to do was propagate a rumor that a citizen was practicing a religion that was not Puritan Christianity. Go read about the Salem, MA witch trials. That is our good ol USA, in its young years.
I know all about the bad things done in the name of religion by people. You might have mentioned the Spanish Inquisition, too, or the Crusades, or the burning of the Library of Alexandria (twice), or (no wait, you wouldn't) the feeding of Christians to the Lions at the old Roman Colosseum.
I am not at all a religious person, though I would say I'm an agnostic (vs. being an atheist). I would believe in God if he appeared in a burning bush before me (without the assist of drugs) and spoke to me.
That said, I do recognize the good and bad in Religion, and there is good.
I also recognize that Secular Humanism IS a Religion in its own right, and for all the good I think we both see in it, I know I see the bad in it as I do with any Religion.
Unlike the Spaniards, we lived in relative peace with the Native Americans from the late 1400s through the late 1800s. The Indians taught us how to grow corn and how to trap. The Indians showed us passages through the Rockies to get to the West Coast. We gave them the horse.
It wasn't in the name of Religion that we ultimately went on a genocidal warpath against the Indians, it was in the name of a Secular concept known as Manifest Destiny. The Reservations the Indians were forced to was in the name of Law and commerce and titles to lands.
In the name of Secular Humanism, we built a public education system and made laws to force every child to go to one. In the process, we destroyed most (and nearly all, in some cases) of the culture, religion, and language of Native peoples.
In the name of Secular Humanism, we overthrew governments throughout our hemisphere so our own versions of the East India Tea Company could exploit the resources of those nations (see United Fruit Company, Saddam, too).
