Mr. Gilmore, did you realize that the first four long sentences of your last post could be used to explain many a political or social movement? Here, I'll give you an example: "You had a lot of hypocrites rampant in the land at that time. For some reason, not easily discernible to people like you or me, these people, moreover, thought they had a special line to the Creator, allowing them to do just about anything on earth they wanted to do, that is, whatever occured to them, and then because of this special dispensation, they thought it was sure to be morally correct. This to me, certainly, is a great leap of faith. So this listening to a "higher Law" by many of these people allowed..." Allowed what to happen? Allowed the certainty that another race was of a lesser creation & deserved to be enslaved? Allowed the moneyed, land owning elite to drag the country into a war that would scar the social & political landscape 'lo these many years'? Your words could describe the "thought process" of any extremist throughout history, from the Northern Abolitionist to the southern seccessionist, to the islamic jihadist.