Your notions are not far from how Deist and Calvinist forged American Secularity in and around 1776/87.

Agreed? Whatever god sleeps with caesar = wrong god.

If Christians are seduced by "Christo-State," then what they'll be in for will be Episco-State vs. Bapto-State in the Thunderdome. Go Tina Turner.

If Muslims are seduced by "Allah-State," then they'd be in for a similar daymare.

I speak as an intentional Christian, an adult convert - twice born, Biblical, sinner, et cetera. Wherever Caesar's money goes, his control soon follows. So let the buyer beware.

Alec Ream

Matt, I am in total agreement with what you say. It seems to me that even those who disagree with the possible meanings of the 1st amendment would wake up and realize that we are no longer a nation of xtians. Acccording to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy group that I proudly support, there are over 2000 religions now represented in the US. Seems to me that just simple common courtesy to those many faiths - and those of us with no faith - should prevail. Don't pray in my schools and I won't THINK in your church.

Religious superstition has been forced down the throat of civilization for hundreds of years. It has caused and will continue to cause civil strife, divisiveness, human misery, atrocities, and murders until the foundations are rended asunder being replaced by common sense, reason, and genuine compassion.The religious right is experiencing its death throes and in the agony of its defeat like the mythological serpent of its fantasy in creation and will in turn lash out biting and destroying as it has for millenia in a blinded emotional holocaust. Any threat to the chimera of it's existance is in danger of retribution from the deluded masses of its constituency.

I think your Gov. Arnold S. signed a bill
requiring history textbooks to identify
its famous subjects as homosexual
when appropriate.

But this doesn't apply to famous skeptics/atheists
in our history.Students might never learn
about the skeptic views of Mark Twain.
Thomas Edison,Andrew Carnegie,Abe Lincoln,
Thomas Jefferson, etc. We should
promote an atheist "Hall of Fame".

How many times did we pray and say God Bless America during the inauguration?

The U.S. Constitution does not guarantee "freedom from religion." If that concept is in there somewhere, our Founding Fathers wrote a document they did not understand.

There is a difference between establishing a religion and recognizing the value of religion. James Madison, often referred to as the Father of the Constitution, said: "We've staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us....to Govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded." (http://churchvstate.blogspot.com/2007/12/even-more-thoughts-from-james-madison.html)

These discussions usually invoke "separation of church and state." That metaphor is from a private letter Jefferson wrote, apparently with no intention of offering a complete guide to the First Amendment. The University of Virginia has collected Jefferson's writings. In the section where Jefferson explains the need for the First Amendment you can find the phrase "freedom of religion" six times, but you will not find the phrase "separation of church and state" even once. (http://churchvstate.blogspot.com/2008/11/thomas-jefferson-meaning-of-bill-of.html)

It's also worthy of note that the same men who wrote the First Amendment also authorized chaplains, commissioned a printing of the Holy Bible (20,000 copies), and allowed and attended Christian worship services in the U.S. Capitol. But during all those actions (and many others found at the links above) they did not declare Christianity was our official religion that everyone had to follow, nor did they prohibit or limit the many other religions that were practicing in the U.S. at the time.