@BetweenKittensandRiots It was founded on theism, however... And you're an atheist. No offence to atheists.

@BetweenKittensandRiots Try saying that in the Bible Belt. They about lost their minds when Obama said, “We are not a Christian nation.”

@JP1119 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2014/03/bible-belt-leads-the-nation-in-consumption-of-gay-porn/

@BetweenKittensandRiots It doesn't matter if the bible belt doesn't like it. It's a FACT. They're entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. America is FACTUALLY not a christian nation. This remains true even if it illicits butthurt.

@JP1119

They had lost their minds long before Obama was ever sworn it, let's be real about it!

@LucyCan It really wasn't. Many founders were Deists, which isn't really theism as we know it - and anyhow, aside from occasional bits of the sort of verbiage that was part and parcel of life at the time, US was basically set up to be secular from the get go.

@QuixoticSoul I don't think you understand the difference. A deist argues for God existing. A theist believes God exists. America's religious freedoms are founded principally on recognizing various forms of theistic thought. Atheistic thought is an afterthought.

@LucyCan Nah, I understand the difference - and you're mischaracterizing it. The principle difference is that classical deism posits a non-involved god, a watchmaker - while theism is "belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures". The level of involvement is the big difference between the two.

Deism is a fairly philosophical position - no bible, no jesus, no ten commandments, etc. It's certainly not atheism - but it's nothing close to religion.

American's religious freedoms are founded on the government not messing around with religion, period.

@QuixoticSoul Active Deism is about constructing supplementary arguments and evidence for God existing. This is in terms of inventing false deductive arguments and false testable evidence- which is different from a theist strictly reliant on inductive arguments and testimonial evidence. It's a matter of their specialization- whether the definition you read mentions this nefarious activity or not.

@LucyCan I never said that America was founded on deism. I said that many of the founding fathers were Deists. Which is why they worded the first amendment so carefully to make sure it preserved from us [i]from[/i] religion as much as anything else.

The standard proof for existence of god used by most Deists is the cosmological argument, which has both inductive and deductive components. But in practice, they were more preoccupied with poking holes in Christianity, and just took it from the prevalent natural theology stuff popular at the time.

@QuixoticSoul haha! Too quick on the draw. I removed that comment before finalizing.