[steve-b]

I'm taking the position that a nation of atheists would have been incapable of writing the Declaration or the Constitution, or defending their break with the nation of England, which was ruled by a king who had a divine Right to his position.
They would have infuriated the nations of that place and time, and all men's hands would have been raised against them.

HAHAHAHA!! Yeah, like the abolute monarch Louis XVI "raised his hand" against those radicals who were trying to establish a republic in rebellion against his brother Christian king.

[an amused spectator]

HAHAHAHA!! Yeah, like the abolute monarch Louis XVI "raised his hand" against those radicals who were trying to establish a republic in rebellion against his brother Christian king.

My point is that they WEREN'T atheists. It is, of course, problematic that the Founders were declared against the Divine Right of kings - but on the other hand, English Christianity and French Christianity were not one and the same - there MANY issues between the two faiths.

The long rivalry between the nations probably weighed in the balance - but it still took Benjamin Franklin's thumb on the scales to tip them our way.