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The reason why a lot of people in the U.S. are intolerate of religion is because this country was founded on greed and racism. Heck, I don't why the white immigrants from England didn't think of reproducing with the Indians when they first came to America. Discuss.

It bothers me when someone says that just as much as it bothers me when someone says America was founded based on Christian principals.

If American were founded on Christian morals, first of all, Christianity would be the state religion, and second, there would be less or no freedom of religion. Keep in mind the Constitution was written AFTER the foundation of this country.

This country was founded on Masonic principals. Almost all (if not actually all) of the Founding Fathers were Freemasons.

Freemasonic values include: the belief that people should pray the way they choose and believe what they choose to believe, that all human life is sacred, and that the wealthy should help the poor.

If you don't believe me, take a look at the back of a one dollar bill... And specifically the pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is the all-seeing eye, one of the most powerful symbols in Masonic tradition. "Annuit Coeptis" is latin and means "God has favoured our undertakings." "Novus Ordo Seclorum" translates to "A new Order of the ages." A New World Order. That's exactly what America is, and what it was meant to be when it was created by the Masons.

Now, as to your claims of America being founded on greed and racism, first, let me explain a bit about Masonry at that time. The Masonic brotherhood was by invite only. (Now you can request to join, but times have changed.) It also happened that it was an elite society and most of the members were upper class. They only invited in people they saw as "worthy" of joining. And they would never allow a slave. Even when members were not prejudice, they wouldn't invite a person of colour because of what the majority of other members would think.

This is different from racism though. A white slave, or even a white middle-class citizen would not be invited either.

Getting away from the Masonic arguments, I feel obliged to say that every culture in the world owned slaves at one time or another. In fact, even black people in Africa owned other black people in Africa at the same time as this was going on in the US. I also feel obliged to say that not all of the Founding Fathers wanted slavery to be allowed in the first place, but ended up agreeing for the sake of unity.

And as far as greed goes, I can see why you'd say that now, but at the founding of this country you couldn't be further from the truth. I personally believe that Capitalism causes greed. However, Capitalism is also a way for poor people to become rich, provided they do everything right. and that is the reason this country was set up as a Capitalistic country. If wasn't to be "greedy", but rather to give ordinary people a chance to move up or down on the scale and not have to rely on others.

Actually the basis this country was founded on was freedom. Quakers were moving here because they were getting their noses slit just for being a Quaker. They moved over here. Why? It was the land of the free, where they wouldn't be persecuted for their religion like they were in Europe.

If you want to get technical about slavery in the US, black people started it all (and possibly racism) for themselves in the first place. Before, over in Europe, a black person for a slave was a sign of tremendous wealth because they were rare to come across. However, black people started to sell captured members from other tribes to the slave boats, and soon it got to the point where they were selling their own tribesmen for money. Eventually, white man decided they could easily just capture the people themselves, it would save the money they were paying these tribes. So really its their own damn fault they were enslaved in the first place. But I digress.

The point is, the country wasn't founded on greed or racism. Those came a bit later when we started having trouble with the Indians.

Just to add on to the things above, I have to say that we had a very good start, but things went downhill from the point where we started persecuting Indians-so, not exactly a very long period. sweatdrop

From my understanding, Holland, since about 1550 had been very tolerant of other religions.

I don't think his views are that extreme, though I do think he is extremely biased.

You've got it all wrong. MOST Muslims AND Arabs. I don't think he would initiate a Holocaust though. Also, a lot of his decisions are made for him. And about 1/3 of America agrees with him. (Radical conservatives, that is.)

No offence is intended to anyone by this post.