I hadn’t checked back here so you may not get this reponse.  I’m not sure, without going back to that website, what exactly is written (and I’m sorry, but I’m don’t have the time at the moment to respond completely).

Your question, though, is the perennial question.  I think it was pretty clear, based on the motivations to include the First Amend. that the people did not want the gov’t deciding which religion was the state-sanctioned one, because that was one of the main reasons, aside from English imperialism, people came here — to be free of state-sanctioned religion.  People went to prison in jolly old England for thinking/saying/doing things that weren’t in accordance with the King’s religion.  So, that was the primary impetus.    

The Christianity part of the question isn’t documented in any of our charter documents, but is instead a result of the founders’ religious beliefs.  The founders were not all Christians, but most of them believed in God or Divine Providence — the existence of God who, through God, gives us our rights versus a king or any man.  My arguments here, in hindsight, are not as clear as they should have been. 

The way in which many people today define deism would not be recognizable to those of the colonial/revolutionary era. 

Sorry, Creeper, to answer this better, I’d really have to take a while.  This is a terrific conversation –

Thanks!

The author loses me, though, with this:

The actions of neither man support the long predominant notion that the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment requires a separation of Christianity from our civil government and law.

Note that the specific reference is a defense of “Christianity”.  It is, by inference, actually an argument in favor of in inclusion of Christian principles in our government. 

Notwithstanding Jefferson’s reference to various Christian denominations, the argument is a blanket endorsement of those who believe in Jesus Christ.

Well, I don’t believe in Jesus Christ, except possibly as a prophet.  And I’m uncomfortable as hell with the idea that Christian ideals should be the basis for our government, just as I do not believe Muslim ideals should be the basis for another government.

The author floats the argument that the “wall of separation” is to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with expressions of religion.  I would submit to you that this is only half the equation.  It must also limit the power of religion to interfere with government. 

So long as I keep hearing people say “This is a Christian country”, it will be clear that Jefferson’s words have been sadly misinterpreted.

Thanks for saving me from myself.  Such arrogance.  Not that you would care, but any respect I had for your opinions just flew out the window. You’ve managed to stoop to the level of “others” in one swoop. 

And reference to the study about opinion changing all you intellectuals missed is downpage.  It explains why you will NEVER change your opinion and neither will I.  Funny how when something is printed that backs up my ignorant opinion, no one bothers to comment.  Even the self-annointed harasser.  

 BTW, no where did I say the founders of this country were ALL deists.  And really, in the grand scheme of things, does it matter what you and think about the deism or not-deism of our founders?  Maybe it’s a matter of professional pride for you, but not for me.

Here’s something of the study about changing opinions that I mentioned and I think it explains a lot of what we read here:
(I’m amazed that all the intellectuals on this site don’t know about this.)

From studies at the University of Michigan:
It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”
These findings open a long-running argument about the political ignorance of American citizens to broader questions about the interplay between the nature of human intelligence and our democratic ideals. Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on ourbeliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote.”
More at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

Jefferson’s proudest accomplishment was his founding of the U of VA and the insurance of the continuation of his belief in “Freedom of Religion.”
 
On the faces of the Obelisk the following inscription, & not a word more
Here was buried 
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independance
of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom
& Father of the University of Virginia.Have a good day.

Donjo:  You didn’t, by any chance, vote for barry, did you?  Object lesson #1.

I don’t know which studies you are referring to, Donjo, but I think you should examine your own entrenchment on this subject and its subsequent outcome, plus the fact that you are not interested in the facts (“Facts are stubborn things” ~ J. Adams), but rather in your own insistence that the people who framed our charter were all secular humanists or “deists”.  I put quotes around that word because there were two famous deists included in our founding:  Jefferson and Franklin.  However, the definition of deism at the time was vastly different than how it is used today — just as much of the church doctrine of the other founders has changed greatly in some instances since the mid-17th c. 

I’ve made my arguments based on factual information and have been careful to underscore my own opinions, while you on the other hand have declared your opinions as fact while also admitting you don’t care about those pesky facts.  So now who’s playing the Oracle?

donjo was the star subject of these studies!