I think I have seen the silliest argument ever in the comments on a particular blog. I will not link to it, as the poster has been beaten up enough that he has even disabled comments, but the debate there is informative.

The owner of the blog is obvious a very devout Christian. He has written on several general topics from a Christian perspective and has a generally conservative Christian outlook. The one area in which he gets himself into trouble is history. While rightly deploring the revisionism of modern historians, he goes a bit overboard in finding Christian underpinnings for our society. (Don't get upset yet, read on.)

On the other hand, he appears to have attracted a few of those militant atheists who haunt Townhall and attack anyone who mentions Christianity and Thomas Jefferson in the same breath. They have badgered him quite mercilessly, picking apart not only his errors , but also those places where he is correct. Nor is their arrogance all that justified, as they have made some egregious errors of their own, such as claiming the first amendment creates a separation between church and state, or original applied to state as well as federal governments*.

The silliest part of this whole argument was a dispute I have also seen among supposedly intelligent people, people who should know better, the debate about whether the founders were Christian, and what that means.

This is simply a meaningless debate, and one no one should ever indulge. That even historians, who should know better, indulge in such debates is a bit embarrassing.

First, "the founders" did not believe anything, or they believed a lot of things, some of them contradictory. As they were a group of men, they held a variety of beliefs. Doubtless some were deists, some conventional Christians, some held other beliefs. Some saw America as fulfilling G-d's will, some saw it in secular terms, and others saw it in their own way. "The founders" did not hold a single belief, as any group, they held a wide array of beliefs.

Second, even taking just a single founder does not resolve this question. As with any human, the individual founders grew and changed with time, and their beliefs changed with them. It would be foolish to think Jefferson sprang from the womb, like Athena from Zeus' head, fully formed and with the Declaration of Independence already in draft form floating around in his mind. His thoughts changed over time as do all men's.

Finally, even if we limit ourselves to one member and one date, say Jefferson in 1776, we are still on shaky ground. We may have some writings from that time, but they rarely cover every possible view. So we have to rely on earlier and even later writings, which may not accurately reflect what he believed then. And, of course, there is always the possibility, more likely when dealing with politicians than others, that his public statements do not accurately reflect his real beliefs. Even journals are not entirely reliable, as many public figures know their journals will not remain private forever, and write them, to a degree, with an eye to posterity's opinion.

All of this should just be common sense. I think I learned this in freshman history, if not earlier. Yet we still hear supposedly educated adults arguing about whether the founders were Christian or deist, whether the United States was supposed to be a Christian or secular state, and other topics which will simply never be resolved.

Let me save everyone the effort. There will never be an answer.

Of course, some will now take my words and use it to argue against original intent, and, to a degree, they are right. It is worthless to look for original intent in the supposed beliefs of the founders. But that does not destroy the entire argument for strict construction. While we may never know why Jay or Hamilton wanted a specific line included or excluded, we don't need to know that. As far as understanding the Constitution is concerned, we have the Constitution itself, written in quite plain language. Yes, in some places there are a few items that are a bit less than clear, but those are rarely where the strict constructionist butt heads with the "living document" crowd. If we really need to clarify a point, the Federalist provides more than enough explication. To argue that uncertainty over the intent of the founders justifies finding emanations of penumbras is just absurd. We do not need absolute certainty over motives behind words in order to read those words with their obvious meaning**.

We may not ever know what any founder really thought, but we can certainly interpret the Constitution to mean what it pretty clearly states.

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* In case any stop by who believe as they do, none of the articles in the Bill of Right applied to the states initially. The first ten amendments to the Constitution only applied tot he federal government until the 14th amendment was read as applying those protections with regard to state laws as well. Regarding the "separation of church and state", the first amendment's establishment clause was intended to do only that, prevent the establishment of a "Church of the United States" akin to the Church of England, run by the state and with membership required of all office holders.

** Yes, there are a few areas where we may need to refer to the common meaning of words at the time of writing, as is the case with the unfortunate "militia" subordinate clause. Then again, the fact that we did not see a federal gun control law of 1790 suggests that they had something else in mind when writing that amendment. I know it is not proof, but does common sense have no place in this debate?