The United States of America is a secular nation not founded upon the Christian religion

First off, I'd like to clarify something. I think just about everyone would agree that some of the founders were inspired by their religion. That is not what this debate is concerning. There is a difference between drawing inspiration from something and basing your creation on it. What I am claiming, and what I will prove throughout the the debate, is that when they were setting up the new government they had learned from their previous home that their faith should be kept separate from the government they were creating. Some of the founders wanted them intertwined, sure, but after deliberation and voting it was decided that separation of the two was the best option. That a secular government was best for all peoples involved. You can have a government that is based on the ideals of Christianity if you simply believe those ideals are the key to a moral society without making it the official religion. The government they established was neither, I just wanted to establish that the two are not the same. Con needs to show sufficient evidence that the first is true. With that out of the way, on with the show! In accordance with what Con said about considering the level of influence of the founders we quote, I would like to posit that few had more influence than the authors of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Paine. (1) Of these, all but John Adams believed in a secular government. " As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us." "In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty. (sic) He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity." "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent." "They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion" "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." "The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills." "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." "To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is." (2) -Thomas Jefferson "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum." "It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes." "Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true." "There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice." "That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not." "Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities." "My mind is my own church." "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." (3) - Thomas Paine "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries." "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect." "And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." "The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state." "Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government." (4) - James Madison Some of these quotes are about their beliefs, some simply their thoughts on religion, and some are about their opinions on mixing government and religion, but I believe all are applicable. Some are admittedly credited after 1800, but just as Con's Louisiana argument served only as an example of the church's power and authority within the accepted time frame and not as an argument on it's own, so too do the quotes serve only as examples of the founders' opinions. I wanted to present more than quotes this round, but I didn't expect them to take up this much space. I will save the rest for round 4. * I used the Epicurean quote by Jefferson because the Epicurean argument known as the problem of evil is one of the oldest and best known arguments against a god like in Christianity. One that is simultaneously omnipotent and benevolent. (5) The argument itself can be countered fairly easily as the website I referenced does, but that doesn't matter. I'm not arguing for Epicurus, only that Jefferson believed him. !. http://constitution.laws.com... 2. http://www.nobeliefs.com... 3. http://www.brainyquote.com... 4. http://www.brainyquote.com... 5. http://americanvision.org...