>And you've stated your opinion and I've stated mine. But though you don't have control over my family, you're helping to spread that idea that there's no morality without religion, which I not just find urterly wrong and somewhat insulting (OK, just raising my pressure - it would take much more for me to feel insulted), but I find it actually dangerous if it ever becomes widespread and influences the lawmaking. That's when we'd stop being equal before the laws - which is already happening in some cases. And that's one of the main reasons for my speaking up.

JIH without reading the thread. I just want to reinforce what Dragan is saying. The United States was founded (as much as any other single principle) on the rejection of religion as a basis for government.

Consider the title of the Queen of England:

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of her other Realms and Territories,
Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith
http://www.worldwhoswho.com/public/views/royal_families.html?country=UNITED_KINGDOM

The founders wanted no part of this concept that the right to govern flows from God. Consider the words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

The right to govern flows from the consent of the governed. No religion necessary.

Peter