The US was NOT founded on christianity

I certainly don't pretend to be any kind of expert on the US constitution, but I've certainly had doubts about the current fundamentalist christian assertion that the US was founded on christianity. My understanding of what the US is all about was an open society that welcomed people of all faiths and didn't want one particular faith to ride rough shot over said society. 

Well it seems I'm right in at least that perception. In fact religion simply isn't in the US consitution, and for very good reason. Although many of the "founding fathers" were christian, there were many different christian sects and they didn't want one particular sect to persecute and oppress others; be they religious or not.

Of course this has a major role in the US discussion today about religion and "persecution". All the maniacs proclaiming from on high that the US was founded on christianity and we must live like that. Persecution doesn't mean others believing what they want. Persecution would be to force others to behave according to what your religion dictates against their will. 

Religion in the original Constitution Religion makes only one direct and obvious appearance in the original Constitution that seems to point to a desire for some degree of religious freedom. That appearance is in Article 6, at the end of the third clause: 

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. 

This statement is simple and straight-forward, and applies to all offices in the entire United States, both state and federal. The clause simply means that no public position can be required to be held by any one of any religious denomination. It would be unconstitutional for there to be a requirement that the President by Lutheran, or even for the mayor of a small town to be Christian. Likewise, it would be unconstitutional for a law to forbid a Jew or Muslim from holding any office in any governmental jurisdiction in the United States. (This having been said, it should be noted that several state constitutions do have a religious test — specifically, they deny office to anyone unwilling to acknowledge God or a Supreme Being.) 

In the debates of the Constitutional Convention, religion did not get a lot of sound bites. It should be noted that without exception, the Framers were Christian or, at the very least, deists (generally, deists believe in a single god who set the universe on its course and then stepped back to watch; some deists believe their deity is the same God of Judeo-Christian tradition, some do not). There were no Jews or Muslims, no Hindus or atheists, and only two Roman Catholics. There were members of more than a half-dozen sects of the Protestant side of Christianity, though. Disagreements about style and method of worship between them were nearly as vast and incongruous as any seen today between, say, Jews and Muslims, such that the Framers wanted to ensure that no one sect could ever seize control of a government and start a theocracy. 

James Madison, when speaking of the method and manner of the election of the members of the Congress, noted that even "Religion itself may become a motive to persecution and oppression," telegraphing his own desire for no religious test for government service. He had been a prime mover in the efforts of some Virginia lawmakers to ensure that no preference be given to any religion in that state, and that a proposed tax to aid religious efforts be defeated. Madison and one of the Pinkney cousins moved, in the waning days of the Convention, that the Congress be permitted the power to establish a university, with the express stipulation that "no preferences or distinctions should be allowed on account of Religion." The motion was turned down on a six to four vote, but it was another illustration of his desire to extend no preference to any religious sect. more