Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?

My grandparents had to flee Northern Ireland after death threats
because of conflicts between Christian Catholics and Christian Protestants. She
was Protestant, and he was Catholic. When I became of age, I volunteered and
joined the Army, and I served as an 11B Infantryman. Most of my time in the
field was in squad or platoon size operations. When there were conflicts
between the South Vietnamese Buddhists and Christian, we would have discussions
about what we were fighting for. It always came back to the “Bill of Rights”.
To me the most important was “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”.

What else did our Founding Fathers have to say about religion?

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.”
- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787):

“All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish,
Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to
terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” Thomas
Paine, The Age of Reason;

“Religion and government will both exist in greater purity,
the less they are mixed together”, James Madison.

“Lighthouses are more helpful than Churches”, Benjamin Franklin.

Our Founding Fathers never intended for the United States to be
a religious nation.