Comment 16 by reckoner :

This is typically my weakest area of argument. Some Christians I argue with are able to spit out a bunch of random facts and statements made by founding fathers and such, which support their argument, and I seem to be unable to match them in verbal debate. Very frustrating.

I guess I need to read a good book on this. Any suggestions? Who was that one guy that spoke at a lot of the AAI conventions about this matters? - didn't he have a good book on this?

Don't know about the convention but a nice short book with great quotes is Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right by Robin Morgan

Its a short book that is essentially quotes from US presidents and other intellectuals about God and religion plus intros to each chapter that provide context for the quotes. Its a great one to have handy.

As for the quotes from the right keep in mind that they aren't above inventing quotes. I've seen several "quotes" that when you actually track them down turn out to be either completely made up or out of context. Having said that don't forget that the Founders were also men of their time. Saying things like "with the help of God" etc. were just standard boilerplate that got inserted into many speeches and documents as a matter of course. When you look at the writings especially of Madison, Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin its clear they weren't Christians. Its not even something that any serious scholar who studies the founders would debate.