When people (like, say, those on the Texas School Board) approvingly say
> that the United States is a "Christian Nation," they don't mean that most
> of
> its citizens are Christian or that the particular states are whatever. They
> literally mean that the Government of the United States of America is
> founded on the Christian religion. That's the whole point of teaching
> Aquinas as some sort of proto-liberal philosopher.
>
I am sure that their position is quite silly (although when someone offers, on his opponent's behalf, to demonstrate to me the full extent of the opponent's silliness by paraphrasing the opponent's position, as your have effectively done, I am dubious, to say the least).
My point is that those who point to the First Amendment, or the Treaty of Tripoli, as proof that the United States was founded as a non-Christian nation are engaging in equal (and nearly identical) silliness. As Madison wrote of the Constitution in the Federalist No. 39:
"That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious ..."
"The Government of the United States of America," as named in the Treaty, was a federal (not national) system, with limited and delineated powers. These were further restricted by the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, which explicitly removed religion from the federal (but not state) purview.
In other words, the United States was not founded as a Christian nation, nor as any other sort of nation.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."