It was this infatuation with the forbidden pleasures of pagan Roman philosophers that led to our structure of government and its iconography. When such philosophers were speaking of "God" it certainly wasn't that as defined in Torah, but varied from atheism to a confused sort of pantheism. Many of their references to "God" were out of reticence to attack Christianity directly in of fear of reprisal. Many of their parallel references to morality were, instead, cleverly built upon the Roman idea of manly virtue, leaving the listener to believe that they were talking specifically about Christian virtue. That ambiguity has led to a huge number of what are effectively 'God and Country' misquotes.
The best source I can recommend on this history is Peter Gay's massive (1,300pp), readable, and thoroughly documented two-part essay: The Enlightenment: (1) The Rise of Modern Paganism and (2) The Science of Freedom.
The "scientific naturist" thinking common to today's (covertly Satanic) "Green Religion" was founded in the poetic philosophy of Lucretius, who was very influential over Cicero and thence the Founders (although Lucretius was widely read and commended enthusiastically among them at that time).
It was this infatuation with the forbidden pleasures of pagan Roman philosophers that led to our structure of government and its iconography. When such philosophers were speaking of "God" it certainly wasn't that as defined in Torah, but varied from atheism to a confused sort of pantheism. Many of their references to "God" were out of reticence to attack Christianity directly in of fear of reprisal. Many of their parallel references to morality were, instead, cleverly built upon the Roman idea of manly virtue, leaving the listener to believe that they were talking specifically about Christian virtue. That ambiguity has led to a huge number of what are effectively 'God and Country' misquotes.
Preach it, brother! The "enlightenment" is/was/shall ever be nothing but sheer unadulterated poison, and unfortunately many of our nation's founders were infected with it.
There is a very common fault on the Right to (as it were) "deify" the founders of a country. While more ancient nations have primal blood-and-soil mythologies, Americans have only the eighteenth century the the likes of Thomas Jefferson. The "nature's 'gxd'" Thomas Jefferson invoked in the Declaration of Independence is not the Biblical G-d but the "gxd" of deism--the notion that a "gxd" of some sort created the world but then did nothing more, which meant all revealed religions were frauds (deism was popular because prior to Darwin outright atheism didn't quite make any sense). If the eighteenth century deists had had something like "natural selection" to work with they would have been atheists--period.
By making our rights come from "nature's 'gxd'" rather than from the Biblical G-d Jefferson was laying the groundwork for the atheistic concept of "rights" that was to come after Comte and Darwin. Thus the poison was in our system from the very beginning.
It is only natural and laudable to applaud our founders and acknowledge their greatness. But they weren't perfect, and it is not wrong or unpatriotic to point out the flaws in their philosophy.
(Methinks you are also a reader of Rabbi Antelman? He's goes a little far out sometimes, but he's certainly interesting!)