by Wallace Garneau, America Outloud:
Upon being told that Freedom of Religion precludes America from ever being a Christian state, John Adams shot back: “This is not a Christian nation, sir, and upon that, we agree. This is, however, a nation of Christians, and it is the Christian tradition that guides us.”
This is a profound statement, particularly when paired with the fact that John Adams viewed the central premise of Jesus’ teachings to be ethical rather than religious.
I hear over and over and over again that people can be moral without religion, and this is, of course, true, but it is also true that if morality is but a construct of man, then each of us is free to define our own morality however we wish, which brings us to a much more famous John Adams quote:
