Originally Posted by bkcunningham1

djplong, with the utmost respect, although Thomas Jefferson was considered by many a great statesman, he wasn't the only designer of The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers or other historical documents that went into drafting this country's principals and laws. Why do you reference only Jefferson?
Our founding fathers didn't need to "establish" a religion. They, and their forefathers who came to America already had their own religious beliefs. The Puritans came to keep their freedoms within these religious beliefs from being trampled on by The Church of England. The Pilgrims' course to America brought them because they found it necessary to separate from The Church of England.
They wanted a nation where they could worship, conduct business and teach their children with the help of a Sovereign God, not a Sovereign King.

Read The Declaration of Independence my friend: WHEN in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation....

The members of Congress of the Thirteen States, which included Jefferson, but not he sololy, further address the King of England:

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Jefferson believed in God. It is believed that his beliefs were more toward a Unitarian belief.

How do you think Yale University was started?