You're very welcome, Kent. You don't get this sort of thing in the other on-line music forums, where they just talk about mandolin strings and such;-)

Anyway, the section establishes the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts--and it does that by moving the primary jurisdiction for most things out of the Supreme Court and into the Federal Courts, thereby reserving the Supreme Court for final appeals, unless Congress specifies that a specific issue can only be heard by the Supreme Court--simple as that.

The First Amendment injunction respecting establishment of religion has tended to be interpreted as a) preventing Congress from attempting to regulate religious practice b) preventing the establishment of a State religion c) preventing the legal supression of religious sects.

The Founding Fathers wanted our government and leaders to act in accordance with laws that were agreed upon by men, as a product of their collective intellects, rather than in accordance with the sort of "Divine Right" that had been so abused by European Monarchs.

So basically, God is not to be mentioned in the law at all, either as the authority that justifies governmental action, or as something to be controlled by governmental action.

A lot of the people who came to this country had been persecuted in Europe because of their religious beliefs, and their numbers included Freethinkers, NeoPlatonists, Deists, Anabaptists, Hugenots, Jews, Catholics, and a bunch of others--they simply wanted the freedom to practice their religion, and they feared governments most, owing to the fact that governments, and their rulers, had tended to massacre them--

Sorry for going on--