Somehow I don't really care what any of the founding fathers had to say on this or any subject. Or rather, I only care about it as interesting historical anecdotes that don't have anything to do with how we run our country. I do care about the part of Constitution that says that Congress shall make no law establishing a religion. When our government puts overtly religious scriptural quotes on the walls of our official buildings, it is de facto establishing a religion. The fact that Congress has not disallowed this is the same as Congress ordering it.

And really folks, get your religions away from me, you sanctimonious bullies. What part of not establishing a religion don't you understand? What part of forcing your beliefs down the rest of our throats seems like a good idea to you? How do you make this seem appropriate to yourselves? Do you have no sense of ethics at all? Do you think that I'm goint to suddenly become a Christian because of seeing the 10 Commandments on the courthouse wall? Is your faith really so weak that you have to parade it in front of non-believers in order for you to feel secure? And don't give me that crap about our laws being based on the Bible. They are more surely based on ancient Athens and the Magna Carta. They are more surely based on 18th century French philosophers. This is supposed to be the land of the free, and as soon as you start forcing your religion on me from our courthose walls, I feel less free. You, on the other hand, have to torture logic and common sense to the breaking point to claim to feel less free because of not being allowed to force you beliefs on others.

On a more pragmatic side, do you really think I'm not going to appeal any judgement against me made in that courthouse on the grounds of religious discrimination? I'm pretty sure I could get the fact that I'm not a Christian into the official trial record if I really wanted to.

Sorry for the rant. This is a topic that seems important and the conversation here has been going off onto tangents.

John Peekstok