Ceremonial Deism

It's hard to know for sure but it seems that most of founding fathers were actually real deists.

Many of them believed in a literal Creator who set a clockwork universe in motion and then stepped out of the way, never to interfere again. Most of them certainly weren't Christians but they probably weren't atheists either.

It's tempting to think that, had they been around a little while later - or had Darwin been around a little earlier - they might have understood how the Creation could exist without a Creator. Despite their radical skepticism, they were unable to leave ideas of God completely behind but we'd like to think that they would have raised a cocked hat and a full glass to the ideas behind Ceremonial Deism.