As best I can remember it, the comment came as part of a discussion about the media frenzy immediately following the capture of the two suspected snipers in the Washington, D.C. area. It had troubled some of the participants in the discussion that before these suspects had even gotten charged, before these presumed innocent until proven guilty people had even had a jury trial, there was this zeal on the part of every talk show to get the trial in the place where the death penalty was most severe. Then someone asked this question, "Is America's confidence in the death penalty a result of our moral rectitude or from a disappearance of any belief in an afterlife?" Maybe we would not feel the need to be so quick to impose mortal punishment if we were confident in God's ability to deal with an …