How many Founding Fathers were there total and how many where atheist?

Question

Could you please explain your number and cite a reference for religion? Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I doubt that any of them were atheist, or at least would admit that in public. But they weren't all Christian, and in fact many of the most influential were clearly not Christian, and instead were Deists.

"American deists include John Quincy Adams, Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and (by most accounts) George Washington. Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a treatise that helped to popularize deism throughout America and Europe." [wikipedia link below]

Thomas Jefferson edited a version of the New Testament that removed all claims of miraculous events.

Note that many of the original pilgrims to America from Britain were fleeing religious persecution from the Church of England, which is a Christian Church!

Answer 2

None of them were Atheists because at the time Atheism was a point of view hard to take due to the fact that there was no way to explain the earth and the species. The famous founding fathers were, however, Deists. Deism is the closest you can get to Atheism at the time because it rejects a supernatural god, earthly religions, and intends to base itself on the scientific method. Had Darwin's theory been existent at the time, I would suspect they'd have all been Atheists.

There were shitloads of founding fathers (as my links show), but the most famous are Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

Answer 3

Don't remember the number, but why would all of them signed the document honoring God if they didn't believe?