Yeah, there IS something in the Bible about not swearing oaths! Amusing, isn't it? ;-) But when did people really pay attention to that? Look, we make it all up as we go along...or we just imitate what the previous generation made up as they went along or what we learned in school or saw on TV or something. It's all just "monkey see, monkey do" and hardly anybody really knows why they do anything except eat, sleep, and have sex.

But, hey, a lot of good stuff in those previous posts...'cept for old Riginslinger who is still flailing away in his usual emotional rut, the one that's based on curing all the world's ills through destroying religion. ;-) Gosh, Rig, there would have been such a great spot for you in Pol Pot's Cambodian administration or among Mao's Red Guards...you might've even got to be commander of one of those countryside camps where they were "disposing of the problem", one human being at a time.

Spaw put it beautifully: "The whole problem with identity is that we are all something like 98% alike and refuse to admit it so we focus on the pissant 2% that is different. None of that makes the whole arbitrary bullshit thing any less important but rather adds an undeserved importance to it all."

Exactly. It's unbelievable to me that anybody would even waste any of their time worrying about whether or not Barack Obama swears on a Bible at his inauguration. It doesn't matter. It is inconsequential. And it's his business if he wants to, and it's nobody else's business if he does.

Let's focus on the 98% that's the same about all of us for a change, eh? Wouldn't that be refreshing? Why, we could even probably avoid getting in another war by doing that.