When considering the constitution you have to take it in context. In the present day religion is put up as the enemy, a vile insidious force trying by every means possible to infiltrate out government, so obviously the founding fathers meant the first ammendment to be freedom FROM religion, at all costs, right?
Wrong.
When the first ammendment was written it was to address the very reason many of them had fled europe to come to america at that time, religious oppression. The inquisition was not so far removed that people had forgotten what it meant. Most every european nation had a national religion and if you did not adhere to that religion you were not allowed to practice religion at all, and if you did the punishment was often death. Good luck especially being muslim as the "heathens" were regularly put to death just because they were viewed as, well, heathens.
So the first ammendment was written to clarify what it meant to have inalienable rights. In other words to help remove ambiguity that one sentence may cause, after all inalienable rights could have different meanings to different people. And they wanted to ensure that the very oppression that spurred the founding of our nation was not duplicated here. So that line, which reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In this case "establishment" refers to creating a state-sponsored religion, where everyone is required to be a part of said religion. The government is prohibited from establishing a state-religion by official decree. The next section is pretty clear, the government is also required to allow anyone to practice any religion they choose to practice within the other laws of the country.
There is nothing in there about "separation of church and state". That is a modern interpretation to justify upholding the "freedom from religion" that is the mantra of today. As it is the job of the supreme court to interpret and enforce the constitution, then their rulings regarding this part of the first ammendment on modern issues has helped qualify this interpretation in the present day.
I for one do not believe the founding fathers intended that we cut all religion of any kind and any and all references to religion out of any kind of public discourse that involves in any way edifices, agents, employees, lawns, roadsides, etc. that might in some way be construed as to possibly hint at the goverment maybe allowing that discourse without immediately and totally squashing it, Hitler-style. I do not think they intended freedom FROM religion.
But no one can say for certain what the founding fathers intended since we can only read what they wrote and hope to understand it as they did. All we can do is to follow the precedents set by the supreme court and, if you don't like their rulings on the matter, vote for candidates who could help initiate a change. If enough people agree, then those candidates will be elected and the make-up of the supreme court may change and the new court may interpret the ammendement differently. That is the beauty of living in a democratic republic, we the people have a voice.
I just hope that our voice actually holds as much or more weight than the voices of the special interest groups. Sadly, all too often, money talks louder than votes. And loud minorities talk louder than silent majorities.
