A claim that keeps being made by the Christian Right is that America's system of governance is based upon Christianity, and that Christians built America. Both of these claims are false.

A document signed by American government in 1790 stated that America's system of governance was in no way based upon Christian religion. Rather, America's system of governance is based upon the 18th century European Enlightenment philosophy and liberal humanism. Of America's founders, none would be regarded by Christian Right as a true Christian. . Benjamin Franklin was a deist, who believed that God's truths could be found through nature and reason, rejected the idea of the divinity of Jesus, and saw most religious dogma - both Protestant and Catholic - as corrupt. Thomas Jefferson rejected Hell, Trinity and divinity of Jesus, aggressively challenged Biblical teachings, and introduced and fought for the separation of church and state in order to prevent religious tyranny that was the order of the day at the time and that Christian Right is attempting to impose now. James Madison, the writer of the Constitution, saw religion as mentally debilitating and stated that the effect of Christianity was "pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." Thomas Paine was an atheist. To claim American government to be based upon Christianity is a Big Lie.

How did this lie become as big as it did? For lack of adequate challenge. With a thousand and one tele-evangelists spouting the lie and nobody refuting it, the lie became big enough that a lot of people came to believe the lie. And it falls to people now living to undo this damage.

Another claim of the Christian Right - that Christians built America - is also abjectly false. The Chinese built American railroads. Of America's greatest scientists, inventors, doctors, journalists, filmmakers and financiers, a vast proportion have been Jews. The computer industry which was the true engine of 1980s and 1990s prosperity was begun by hippies and put into place by a motley crew of atheists, Hindus and minority religions.

Whereas the industries that are reliably Christian-Republican are industries that are parasitical. One is the Texas Oil, that has for decades lied to the people and lobbied the government to deny reality and to suppress progress in energy sector. Another is the government-subsidized Big Beef that takes land that could be used to feed 2 billion people and uses most of that land to raise cattle feed, so that instead of reaping vast economic benefit from selling thefood abroad - and vast political benefit from giving it away in time of famine - America reaps diabetes, obesity and debt. Also Christian-Republican majorities are found in the trucking industry that wants the government off its back even as it uses the government-built, government-maintained road system daily to do its work. And another reliably Christian-Republican entity is the liar media such as right-wing radio talk shows and Christian Right television that tell people such absurdities as that AIDS is God's way of controlling the homosexual population; that 9-11 happened because God removed his protective umbrella over America; that liberals caused the Bush-era deficits; that global warming is a UN ploy; and that a Satanic conspiracy is running the world.

The people who give credit to Christianity for America have forgotten one thing. Christianity has existed long before United States of America existed, and the bulk of the countries that practiced Christianity were disaster zones for the bulk of the time that they practiced Christianity. In the Middle Ages, when Europe was monolithically Christian, the white man was at the bottom of the world and could not hold his head up to China, India, Baghdad or Timbuktu. United States of America formed during the Enlightenment period, in which European thinkers were either challenging Christianity or rejecting it outright. And these European thinkers - such as Locke, Voltaire, and Montesquieu - provided the actual intellectual basis for America's system of governance; the intellectual basis that was adopted by America's founders in face of severe opposition from both Protestant and Catholic Church.

When faced with the scale of deception on the order that has been practiced by Christian Right, most people turn away in distaste or hide in their personal affairs. But the more aggressive and the more encompassing the deception becomes, the less it becomes possible to do so. Make no mistake about it: The entities claiming these things want your life, and they want the lives of your children, your grandchildren and everyone who comes after. We are dealing with a totalitarian threat to America's future and to that of the rest of the world. And only confronting the lies of the Christian Right, as pervasively and as convincingly as possible, can be adequate response to this totalitarian menace.