Collectively, the founding fathers religious views were defined very broadly. Some were, in fact, deists or even atheists and many were more conventional believers as well but they were able to come together to lay out the plan for this great country.
Now we have so-called conservatives hearkening back to the founding fathers and quibbling about religious trivia. The founding fathers, I believe, would be laughing in your faces.
Where in the founding documents and discourse do we find this sort of useless banter? Perhaps it exists, but it appears to me that these wise men knew that they had bigger fish to fry.
Name one founding father that was an atheist. Franklin and Jefferson were about the only deists.
Where in the founding documents and discourse do we find this sort of useless banter?"
Oh really now? You obviously know nothing about early American history and the Founders' opinions regarding the role of religion in public life. Try these on for starters:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams
"Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government." - George Washington
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." - Patrick Henry
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net." - John Adams
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." - George Washington
So..... You were saying?