Politics and religion don’t mix — easier said than done. True, there is the separation clause that ostensibly keeps religion — instruction and display — out of schools. The clause also prevents public display of religion on public property. Christmas, however, being the only religious national holiday, gives rise to controversy over religious displays, except for lights and perhaps modest articles of faith. The tradition of a national holiday lends genuineness to the posture that the nation is...
Built into the teaching profession is the saccharine psychology that teachers love children. Perhaps in a vague sense this is true; however, the sentiment of loving children is essentially maternal and a throw back to the one-room-schoolhouse, and should not be perceived as a prerequisite to good teaching — unless the concept is linked to Socrates’ pejorative of “midwife of ideas.” Socrates cared for ideas when they were his but scorned ideas of others that did not measure up to his own. A mat...
I find it intriguing that there are folks who are adamantly for or against capital punishment as though there were some ironclad a priori causation for such views. Those for it, seem always to fall back on the “eye for an eye” rationale; those against resort to taking a life is God’s matter and not one of humankind to sit in judgment. In practice neither is valid; for there are innumerable variables in deciding the appropriate sentence. Nevertheless, what is a priori is that murder is wrong. ...
Atheism, agnosticism, and humanism are not faiths; they are philosophies. They have no right to infringe upon traditional customs regarding the symbolic value of beliefs. Examples: “In God We Trust,” the White House Christmas tree, and Christmas trees across the nation; prayer in Congress, Christmas Day, and all other religions celebrating their faith. However, the Ten Commandments without purging cannot be displayed on public soil or buildings. Purged of its uniquely religious overtones its d...
The word terror was first introduced to the lexicon [“reign of terror”] during the French Revolution, since the beginning of time it was called massacre of mostly innocents — now labeled genocide —and usually in retaliation from other nations or from internal strife. Now only the names have changed, such as IRA, Zionists, al Qaeda, Baathist, PLO, FARC, the left and right in Italy two decades ago. At one time some were considered freedom fighters. To assist in distinguishing guerilla warfar...
Euthanasia defies reality. Some people and sects actually believe that not only is suffering inevitable but it is necessary just as others question that without evil can there really be good or what does health mean if there be no sickness? I suspect a further argument would be thankfulness for brutes like Saddam; for what value would democracy carry without its counterpart? Yet is not a preemptive strike upon such butchery in a sense a denial of euthanasia by putting an end to the suffering...
Can one be against there being a state of Israel and not be anti-Semitic as a separatist in this nation not be anti-religious? The answer is yes, but with explanation. Though many construe atheism and humanism as catalysts for separation of church and state, there are many theists who believe in it too: even though God is immanent in the world does not mean that he governs every nook and cranny of human endeavor. School prayer, for instance, is unconstitutional not because the US is against...
Separation helped inspire the American Revolution; for without it the founding fathers would not dare bend the consensus of a colonist more or less comfortable with the Anglican Church and the many sects derived thereof. So, too, the growing number of Catholics in the colonies were content with the papal bull for the direction their lives would take. Suddenly from the Declaration of Independence there grew a conscience that began to break out of the box. There is no denying that a devout ...
While the current Martian landing and another to follow are in search of signs of life, present and past, astronomers are discovering by the satellite WMAP [microwave probe] that the universe is stranger than fiction in that far from finding signs of life it is baffled by this map indicating only 4% of the universe is made of known stuff, let alone life. Dark matter, 23% of the universe, is still not understood and another 73% consisting of dark energy is totally mysterious other than it act...
Education must be as concerned with directing youth toward a code of ethics suitable to each individual and to the general good as it is with the growth of their intellectual citizenry. It must be concerned with the development of moral values as in the development of his economic and political potential. Educators must disclose their inherent distaste for the world of what too often is and espouse with immeasurable resources the philosophy of what can and ought to be. For education to ha...
Homosexuality seems to depart from nature’s system, but does it really when nature is mocked by a DNA structure of anomalies such as gender mix up as in the case of a transsexual, to the unheard extreme as the most recent in the death of the poor child with two heads? This is not to say that homosexuality is abnormal, although even now it is rare, since throughout history it was accepted more or less. The implicit anomaly simply springs from biology and the impedance of the reproductive proc...
Compromising Self-styled Individuality Though over a long-run pure relaxation would become a bore, the short-lived hours of idleness normally available are appreciated psychologically as a just reward. Were the head of the household at home long enough for the children and dogs underfoot to effect irritability, or were he/she not usually involved in maintenance projects of modern living, vegetating of this sort would be an eternal nightmare or equivalent to eroding perception...
Columnists — bloggers excepted[?] — should exercise sound editorial judgment in composing their thoughts for the public. Far too often columnists express what is good for them is good for the rest by explaining only what is bad about the alternative without ever analyzing what is good about their own. It is dishonest to say that the New Deal was bad for the country because it interfered with private enterprise and intruded on the individual without citing what it was back then that caused priv...
Pervading the country today is a throw-back to the daybreak of time when man's only companionship was a crude weapon to preserve what his animal stimulus forebode was a confused identity. Citizens of these "united" states devolve to primitive foundations by yielding to radical assertions that the enemy is government and welfare. They have lost all sight of their state of grace handed down by the founding father's contract with progeny. They are destructive seces...
There is a fascinating lure about Buddha. A man gifted with health and material splendor from noble birth, nevertheless, grasped the essential tragedy of existence, becoming sensitized to the millions of his countrymen suffering under the power structure of caste. Buddha walked among them, loving them, instructing them, giving them hope and courage—most important, courage. Here he promised them literally nothing but the strength of themselves within: One man on the battlefield conque...