The Nation of GodThe United States of America has long been known as a godly country with references to God in phrases such as "We trust in God" and "A nation under God.” Many evangelicals view these clichés as assertions that the United States was founded on Christian ideals. Some historians and scholars also debate that America's founding fathers' underlying reason for originating the notion of separation of church and state in the First Amendment was to prevent their new nation to become the puppet of a church, as was the case with the Anglican Church in England. What many people don't know is that a large majority of the Founders were not practicing Christians, but followed much more free-thinking schools of philosophy. Many liberal ideals of the Enlightenment and free thought were actually the true ideologies of America's founding fathers, not Christianity. Around 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 followers of was deism. Deism is considered a natural religion that does not completely deny the existence of God, but opposes divinity and supernaturalism. Deists believe that their belief in God should only be based on nature and reason. Many Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and James Madison, all considered themselves deists to some extent (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 principal author of the Constitution, James Madison, was a...... middle of paper...... being. The founding of our country has its roots in Enlightenment ideals that emphasized reason over faith. Over the past decade, political and religious institutions have sought to align themselves with governmental powers in order to lend moral authority to governmental affairs. Until these institutions realize and accept the true facts about America's founding, they will be destined to repeat the incessant conflicts on our own shores. Works Cited Haught, James A. 2000 Years of Inbelief. Prometheus Books, 1996. Robertson, Pat. “Restore America to its Jeffersonian ideals.” PatRobertson.com. March 3, 2000. Walker, Jim. “A little-known American document signed by President Adams proclaims that the American government is secular.” America's First Magazine. Summer 1997. October 23, 2005Walker, Jim. “Thomas Jefferson on Christianity and Religion.” NoBeliefs.com. October 30. 2005