What they said!

    Rather than publish all this in FaceBook, where the conversation began, I'll just post the link to this. The issue is one person's insistance that our nstion's founders were all religious and "separation" didn't really mean what it has come to mean. several of these, especially Madison (author of much of the Constitution, leave little doubt that that is precisely what he, at least, meant.  

John Adams

"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."

"Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents."

  

    letter to Thomas Jefferson

The  priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.

Thomas Jefferson:

"Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone." (The lower case "G" is Jefferson's) 

[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, (school?) place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

James Madison:

"Every new & successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance."

"The civil government ... functions with complete success ... by the total separation of the Church from the State."

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U S forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment...?

Benjamin Franklin

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies." -- Benjamin Franklin

George Washington

"I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did."

-- Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, February, 1800,

"Unlike Thomas Jefferson -- and Thomas Paine, for that matter -- Washington never even got around to recording his belief that Christ was even a great ethical teacher. His reticence on the subject was truly remarkable. Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence. But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear anywhere in his many letters to friends and associates throughout his life."

-- Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963)