God's Nation The United States of America has long been known as a godly country with references to God in phrases such as "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God." Many evangelicals consider these clichéd statements that the United States was founded on Christian ideals. Some historians and scholars also debate whether the reason behind the American Founding Fathers' First Amendment notion of separation of church and state was to prevent their new nation from becoming a puppet of a church, as was the case with the Anglican Church. in England. What many do not know is that the vast majority of the Founders were not practicing Christians, but followed much freer schools of philosophy. Many liberal Enlightenment ideals and free thought were actually the true ideologies of America's founding fathers, not Christianity. At the time of the American Revolution, which occurred near the end of the Enlightenment, many new philosophies questioned or challenged the dogma of the Christian Church. A very common philosophy that many of the Founding Fathers considered themselves to subscribe to was deism. Deism is considered a natural religion that does not entirely deny the existence of God, but opposes divinity and supernaturalism. Deists believe that their belief in God should be based on nature and reason alone. Many of the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and James Madison, all considered themselves deists to some degree (Haught, 77-101). Some members of the religious right have tried for years to dispel this truth with varying degrees of success. One of the Founding Fathers and primary author of the Constitution, James Madison, was a… middle of paper… being. The founding of our country is rooted in Enlightenment ideals that emphasized reason over faith. Political and religious institutions over the past decade have sought to align themselves with government powers to confer moral authority on government affairs. Until these institutions realize and accept the truth of the facts about America's founding, they are destined to repeat the incessant conflict on our shores. Works Cited Haught, James A. 2000 Years of Disbelief. Prometheus Books, 1996. Robertson, Pat. “Bringing America back to its Jeffersonian ideals.” PatRobertson.com. March 3, 2000.Walker, Jim. “A little-known U.S. document signed by President Adams proclaims that the American government is secular.” America's first review. Summer 1997. October 23, 2005 Walker, Jim. "Thomas Jefferson on Christianity and Religion". NoBeliefs.com. October 30th. 2005