Are your blood vessels popping yet?
I must alert you that you are still clueless about what an atheist actually is. Atheism is an umbrella term, which overlaps the deism of the US fathers. Atheists generally agree with the opening statement of the Declaration if Independence:
"and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them". That is to say, atheists look to the laws of nature, to understand what could be the point of living, and whether there is a God at all, and what to do about it. Christians don't. The declaration does not use the word Christ or Jesus.
I'd be surprised if Franklin was in you company. I don't know who's company you are in, because you never say anything concrete, and the terms of your argument change.
The quote you offered, states that Franklin doesn't terribly believe that Jesus was divine, and the gospel has been corrupted, but he thinks that it's OK for the uneducated masses to believe it, as a form of blunt authority instrument. It doesn't worry him that he is supporting a lie, because it's for the greater good (so he thinks), or coercing people into believing the general precepts of "sound religion".
That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
This afterlife idea is present in Zoroastrianism, Islam, Buddhism, (and just about all religions except the Hebrew religion Christianity came from). Therefore he regards them all as sound as Christianity. He, like Masons, believes that it's popular vote which has decided whether or not there is an afterlife and judgement. Atheists are still looking at what the "God of Nature" could possibly want, and afterlife is not very likely. We side with the Hebrews.
Jefferson also believed that religion had to have an afterlife, or it was useless for compliance to morality.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jeffjews.htmlFranklin said
"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."
Here's Franklin quote for Wayne, who worships Barton.
"The way to see by Faith is to shut the eye of Reason."
"Revealed religion has no weight with me."
Proof that he attempts to use science, reason and nature to ascertain what God could possibly want.
He stated that if religion has any worth, it does not need state endorsement.
When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
If Christianity needs help from the constitution, then it is a bad religion.
Franklin, like Washington, refers to God as Providence, or the Architect, as do Masons. Their idea of religion is (1) cross cultural commonality in the belief in afterlife, (2) the development of moral principles, such as the golden rule, across religions, is a good thing (3) Jesus was a moral philosopher, like Buddha and Muhammad, and not a part of God.
This is plurality, not Christianity. Washington and Franklin espoused cherry-picked Christian principles, not because they are divine, but because philosophically, they agreed with them, and thought them to be the best.
Atheists can acknowledge the superiority of some cherry-picked Christian morals, but also see huge deficiencies, and we wonder why most Christians ignore the morals and the deficiencies. They are the product of thought, trial and error, but not God. The reason for this, is not because we don't think that man could be in contact with God, but because we can't see why God would be interested in morality, since the God of Nature put worms in people's eyeballs, and seems to be interested in something else.
Atheists can get no guidance from "revealed religion" because we agree with Franklin, that it is crap. We can only look to the "God of Nature" and the philosophy of man for guidance. Unfortunately, what the US Fathers didn't understand, is that God of Nature would change a fair bit, after Darwin came along.
You can base a constitution on "Christian principles", and "Buddhist principles", without it being terribly Christian or Buddhist.
What are Christian principles, anyway? It's a Christian principle that we will be resurrected and thrown into a lake of fire, and that Jesus resurrected on the 3rd day. How do you put that into a constitution? Answer: you don't. You cherry-pick some bits morality, common with other religions, and then you say it's based on Christian principles, and that keeps the Christians happy.
Wayne seems to be happy, even though the constitution tells him that his religion is no better than anyone else's.
Meanwhile, sneak some scientific terms into the Declaration, and constitution, that say we will follow science, reason, Nature, equality, liberty and happiness. I think the atheists got some input.