>>>Also, just a side point, I can understand your disgruntlement about the “pagan” bit, but “nerd?” I thought that was what made it obviously silly?<<<
If you were trying to be silly, why did you not state so in your reply to my original post, rather than posting an even more bizarre “explaination”.
Anyway, my point is, we read enough Founding Father bashing without having to read it from a fellow freeper, even when the intent is “tongue and cheek”.
First because I was angry with the tone you took; second, being a historian (specifically a historian of ideas) I was compelled to explain the foundations of the original assertion as something more then mere "bashing." After all, most "Founder bashing" is based on some ostensibly legitimate foundation. For example slave owning. Now those who wish to discredit the founders on this are selective in their reading of history; ignoring the difficulty there would have been in outlawing slavery and some of the founders own reservations about the institution, they are quick to accuse the founders of hypocrisy. Wrong tho this assertion is a counter argument that none of the founders ever owned slaves would be equally asinine in its omission.
My point in the explanation was that the Age of Enlightenment was pagan in many ways. That part which wasn't was, due to other influences (mostly Calvinism), almost pseudo-zionistic. A good the example of this latter sentiment would be the original English revolution of 1649, which, though it had strong religious undertones, ultimately led to the more secular revolutions of 1776, 1789, those of Miguel Hidalgo and Bolívar, the 1848 revolutions, and finally the revolution 1917.
The strange combination of these ideas (divinely chosen nation, with secular progressivism) in the period of the Enlightenment resulted in a teleological view of human history and ultimately led to all the "progressivist" elements of our modern world. That the Founders were products of this period means that regardless of their consciously professed creeds, they were operating in what was becoming a post-Christian world. I would even go so far as to say that Christianity itself was in many areas succumbing to this "Spirit of the Age." Indeed the contemporary "paganization" of Christianity is something that even DeTocqueville hinted at in his book On Democracy in America. I could go on for quite sometime about that, but this post is long enough already.