I think examining the founder for Deism is pretty interesting. I do think that some kind of underlying morality for the nation was an goal for the founders, and they attempted to code an ethics and morality into the constitution. I don't think that most of the founders were Deists, or that most colleges, schools or history texts teach that they were. I'm sure there are many "Christian" groups that want peoples money and will say stuff like that to sell books and garner donations. I also think that there isn't a lot of serious talk about the founders faith in most schools or colleges.

A good case could be made for Jefferson being a Deist but I think that the opposite case holds at least as much merit. The man wrote expansively on many things, including religion, and probably had as many doctrinal conflicts as the bible. Jefferson knew his Greek philosophy, not merely in the Catholic way. I know that Jefferson read Aristotle with an open mind, and feel pretty sure that he didn't look at the bible was the literal truth, but I'm just as sure that Jefferson believed in something, maybe not in Jesus, but something.

In that the founders were decidedly protestant, pursuing their own personal understanding of god, not blindly accepting the dogma pushed on them by the Catholic church, or any church which didn't suit their understanding and temperament, I believe the door was open for some to swerve over to the not accepting the bible as literal truth camp. For some this is enough to make a person a Deists. You don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the sins for our salvation? Well then you aren't a Christian, even if you hold essentially the same values, a belief in a higher power, and go to church every Sunday, you are just a dammed Deists. If a founder held Deist mind frame, he was probably smart enough to keep it to himself. I feel pretty sure that there were a tiny handful of doubters among the founder just like there are in pews every Sunday.

Not so much different today. The congress is mostly Christian, Jews are present in greater proportion then the population at large as are Mormons, there are even a few Buddhists. The one group that is way under represented is people unaffiliated with a faith. 16% of Americans don't have a religious affiliation and 0% of congress has no religious affiliation. You want to get elected? Then find a god and hug em tight. Not that you really need to believe or maybe if you do, you don't have to act like you do beyond the photo op. If you think that George Bush or Barack Obama are Christians then I hope you think it's in that I have sinned and am going to continue to sin and hope you will let me in when I repent later on kinda way. You can't throw gigantic wars killing piles of innocents, or even non-innocents and call yourself a Christian, at least that is what I think. There is a great deal of evidence on both sides as to whether you can be a Christian and a soldier, but as someone who approaches the whole thing from a protestant point of view, I have made up my own mind that it's not ok from the teachings of Jesus standpoint. I think that the founders aversion of foreign entanglements was motivated in part by their belief in the Gospels ( the way of peace), and that there was no reason for a bunch of hard working protestants, protected by a giant ocean, to do much more than tend their farms and defend their right to work hard and worship in peace.

I have always found the treaty singed at the end of the 1st Tripoli war a pretty curious document. It was unanimously passed by the 5th congress and singed by John Adams. Pretty straight forward document except for Article 11

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

This is proof positive in some peoples eyes that the founders didn't found America as a Christian nation, I don't really think that is the case. There is more then enough other Cristian sentiment bandied about in the early years of the Republic to counter this one document. I do think that it shows that the founder wanted to relate to the rest of the world in a legal, honest manner, fortified by goodwill for all people and not guided by a particular religious strain (as in one particular Christianity but instead in a reverence and love for all men and their creations to be pursued by each man in his own way, of which cultural protestantism was the only meal on the menu). Well unless you were a Woman, a Black, a Catholic, an Indianor Poor, but hey that is another day and another argument about the "Cristian" roots of America

I have to say that I don't accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, nor do I pretend to know the mind of god or if there is a god. I think I live my life with a Protestant ethic, work hard, try to love my neighbor, be known by my good works, have compassion for the poor and unfortunate and judge not in the moral ethical sense (intellectual judgement I don't mind) while securing the safety of my community, home and workplace but I know I also fail to live up to those ethics all the time. It is a peculiar type of arrogance to pretend to understand the will of god. Any time that type of dogmatism is presented to me I just shake my head, and wonder who people think they are to understand that which we have no way to understand. It is important to try and understand what would make a person hold the beliefs they do, it adds context to ones understanding of others, of history and of possible futures, and in that I think that examining the founders for Deism is a probably a worthwhile endeavor that if honestly done can only add to our understanding of where we as a nation came from, who we are and possibly where we are going.