Alright, now I've got a little time.Now I have to clirafy my statements. When I said that the American government was not founded on Christian values, I was mistaken. Certainly, the founders did practice what they called Christian values, but what those values were and how they came to practice them is not only very different from much (not all) of modern Christianity, but in opposition to fundamentalist Christianity.The hallmark of any fundamentalism is to take as complete authority the most traditional interpretations. In Christianity's case this is a literal interpretation of the Bible complete with supernatural occurrences. This usually coincides with complete trust in religious authorities. Thus their values are either taken on authority from a priest/pastor/reverend/etc. or from revelation through the Bible. Fundamentalist usual reject any deviation from these values.To contrast, the founders approached religion with reason and rationality. Many, including Jefferson, were Deists. This is not to say that they were not Christians (but as we will see soon, many fundamentalists will say they don't qualify as true Christians). Deism is, in fact, not entirely incompatible with Christianity. They believed that all religious truths, including values, can be derived through the use of logic and observation. As you may remember from your American history courses, the authors of the Declaration of Independence were heavily influenced by John Locke. He argued, logically, that all humans have the same unalienable rights. These rights coincided closely with many traditional Christian values. But noticed that they agreed with Christian values not because the Bible says they should, but because their own reason lead them, like Jesus, to accept those values. Also, these values taught them to reject the authority of the British monarchy.Look up information about Jefferson's Bible. Thomas Jefferson attempted to write a version of the New Testament the excluded all supernatural phenomena. Thus no miracles and more importantly, no resurrection (this last point is why many modern Christians would claim that he cannot be Christian) because those pieces do not stand to reason. What he had left was an account of the life of Jesus and his moral teachings. These constituted the Christian values that influenced the formation of the American government. He believed that the supernatural parts of the Bible were added by religious authority so that they can enhance their authority by claiming only they can understand these miraculous' happenings. Thus, like me, Jefferson would have been disgusted by a symbol of freedom (the Statue of Liberty) that is apparent to the reason and a symbol of supernatural happenings (the empty cross implying a miraculous resurrection) and revealed authority (the Ten Commandments).Clearly they did base their new government on ALL Christian values. This is most obvious in the freedom of religion. Our government will accept any religion (in theory) where as the Bible states clearly that no one shall place any other god before Him. Also, the traditional methods of Christian punishment were rejected by the founders. There was to be no legal public stoning for heresy, for example. Jefferson went so far as to denounce the Old Testament as too violent.Based on this more complete explanation, please allow me to restate: America's government was not founded on fundamentalist Christian values. It was founded on Christian values that coincide with values that any person can arrive at through the use of their reason. The government was formed at the height of the age of reason and at a time when authority of all types was being question, distrusted, and rejected. This is in complete opposition to the fundamentalist movement that trusts religious authority and believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible even when such an interpretation defies reason.