Founding Fathers and Religion

I love the argument that most republicans who support Dubya love him because of his moral principles, namely the fact that he "listens to a higher father", Jesus. It amazes me that these people also believe that religion should be an integral part of our government, and to support this argument they use our founding fathers religious background to support this conclusion. I agree that our founding fathers were religious people, however they clearly believed that religion as a whole when combined with government did a lot more harm than good. This is obvious from the First amendment, providing for the separation of church and state. It amazes me that people somehow ignore this, based upon the fact that the founding fathers were religious and they take the First amendment to mean something else. For these people, I recommend actually looking at what our Founding Fathers had to say in regards to religion. Here are a few of my favorites: Thomas Jefferson-"I have examined all the known superstitions of the World, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature." George Washington-"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause." Thomas Paine- "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of... Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."- Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)