Dear Lisa, I can't help Matt get a life or anyone else. You have to get a life on your own. Matt's message has dropped off the radar at this point. All I was saying is that it was entirely irrelevant. All you really need to know about religious freedom and church/state separation is in the Constitution. To garner an even better understanding, read Thomas Jefferson's writings that directly relate to the subject. He coined the term "separation of church and state". Too many people will quote someone like John Hancock, George Washington or even Thomas Jefferson speaking of God from the perspective of their own beliefs and try to use that as proof that their own ideas of religious intolerance and superiority of one religion over another have a basis in the birth of our American system. The U.S. constitution is the whole of the law. Read it and understand it. By the way, the word God does not appear once in the Constitution. So, when someone like Rep. Darryl Metcalfe officially states that he will not even recognize a convention of a peaceful Muslim sect in our state because "Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as God", he is not merely practicing his right to free speech or defending America or Christianity, or any other such nonsense. He is stepping out of constitutional bounds. He is trying to assert his personal religious beliefs as all that should be valid. He insulted all Muslims and Jews as well. He was by no means practicing religious freedom but attempting to usurp the rights of other citizens of our state who he supposedly serves. So, getting back to Matt. When he copies an incredibly lengthy section from a history book, in which John Hancock writes about wars and God and Muslim wars overseas in his time, the material he quoted was absolutely irrelevant to anything that is being seriously discussed in this forum. Many folks are too reckless with quotes. Any quotes used should have a direct and relevant bearing to the subject at hand. Matt's quotes didn't. It was a lot of flowery writing. The Constitution gurantees us the right to practice any relgion we choose or to practice no religion at all. Mandatory school prayer of the sort that I was subjected to in my school days is merely an official tax-payer supported entity pushing what its leaders believe is good for everybody. However, it's unconstitutional. I'm free to practice ant relgion I choose. I'm not free, however to insist that schoolchildren or my coworkers should have to say my prayers or practice my belief system. That's the way it should be. Finally, Lisa, I don't claim to possess superior logic. I merely have a strong sense of logic, which is severely lacking among many who post comments on this site and write letters to the Butler Eagle. Opinions are like navels; everybody has one. Logic is something altogether different. Also, Lisa. You throw around a loy of big, fancy words but you should really work on your grammer.