Religion in the Constitution

Since many people think the US is a nation founded upon religion and its values, I thought it would be interesting to do a bit of research and actually see how much religion explicitly shows up in some of our country's founding documents.  Actually, what I found was a bit surprising.  Interestingly enough, there are no direct mentions of religion or support of a religion in the Constitution.  The only time it comes close to talking about religion is when it bans religious tests in Article 6.  Religion is also regulated in the Bill of Rights with the Establishment Clause (which forbids the government from establishing an official religion) and the Free Exercise Clause (which protects freedom of religion).  It seems as though the founders, when writing the Constitution, did not want to throw support to any one religion and were adamant about having a separation between church and state, which makes sense because they were attempting to create a nation that would have religious freedom.  So, far from backing up any religion, the writers of the Constitution only brought up religion in order to regulate it.  However, this is not the case in the Declaration of Independence.  That document, mentions God several times, most famously in the "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" line.  There, though, God was used as an argument and a justification to declare independence while the Constitution was meant to outline and set up the government.  The two documents were meant for different purposes and therefore utilize God differently.  Or, in the case of the Constitution, not at all.


The Constitution!


The Declaration of Independence!