Most of the founding fathers were deists and not necessarily Christians. They spoke of Providence, not Jesus. There is no mention of “Christianity” in any founding documents to my knowledge. The point I want to make is we are not to judge our fellow man in spiritual matters. Our beliefs are as different as night and day yet we are subject to the ONE creator. Hitchens was an honorable man as far as I know and he contributed to society unlike a lot of people - especially as we read today about those terrorists who chopped off a woman’s breast as she fed her baby in her house and to whom I wish eternal fire and damnation upon. We have to get off this “religion” thing and live together in peace and harmony as Jesus preached. Everyone forgets that Christianity is NOT a religion.
You are wrong in your basic assumption. Only two or three people were “deists”—the vast majority were profound Christians and some were even clergymen. The leaders —men like Benjamin Rush and Wright and John Adams were profoundly influenced by Thomas Reid’s philosophy and Witherspoon. Look and understand their philosophy and Theology. They highly influenced the Revolution and our Founding Documents.
Christianity was the paradigm of ALL the Founders—and responsible for the Age of Reason. Middle East could NEVER have an “Age of Reason” because Christianity is the most rational religion (D’Souza’s book, Why Christianity is so Great.). John Locke’s theories on —the laws of nature and Nature’s God was highly influenced by St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae and the laws of nature.
You have been reading Marxist revisionism-—Howard Zinn’s cr*p. Marx = The Big Lie and is all about misinformation so they can control reality—the truth.
No society can live without a moral code—(Friedrich Nietzsche) and the best moral code—that which elevated women and gave slaves freedom and gives dignity and worth to ALL human beings—even in the womb—is Christianity. That ==all history has proven—led to the most successful and free civil societies in the history of the world.
As Nietzsche predicted—(stalin, hitler, mao, pol pot, mussolini, etc.) when you “kill God” you kill off morality—there CAN BE NO MORALITY if their is NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH—God. ALL our Founding Fathers KNEW THIS AS FACT! There were no atheists. Otherwise, hitler becomes god and there is NO Supra Positive Law which is why Nuremberg Laws were “null and void”—they were just arbitrary man-made laws that deny God—where inalienable Natural Rights come from. No God=there is no right and wrong. Even Nietzsche could see the Stalin’s when the arrogant Postmodernists destroyed Christianity in Europe in the late 18th century. It started in Frankfurt Germany where the Postmoderns collected—which including the twisted, convoluted, irrational philosophy of the atheist Marx.
http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html