Uh ... BB, I guess my earlier posts on this weren't clear. What is now the First Amendment was originally the third. That's the package that the authors of the Bill of Rights sent to Congress. That's what Congress passed and sent to the states. If the whole package had been ratified by the states, as originally drafted and passed by Congress, then what we now know as the First Amendment would be the Third Amendment. There was no grand design to make the (present) First be number one on the list. It was number three (on a list of twelve).
No state knew what the others would do. When the dust settled, the original first and second didn't get ratified. The original third amendment thus became what we now know as the First.
Dear Patrick, with all due and sincere respect, the "scientific method" is not the tool of choice for deliberating and deciding these issues. As long as you stay in that rut, you will continue to miss the entire point of the Framers' exercise.