It's been a number of years since this nation was truly "under God". Many citizens and residents are still "under God", but the nation isn't.
So, though I hate to say this, it wouldn't be a tragedy if they dropped the "under God" phrase from the Pledge.
I don't want that to happen as a result of Newdow's suit, because his suit is a loser. But still, the truth be known . . .
there is a fabulous thread on FR called Shakespeare, The Secret Rebel, about Shakespeare being a Catholic and giving coded messages in his plays and sonnets!!
And the Republic survived?
Thank God! (literally)
I guess banning anyone who makes Biblical references would be the next logical step.
In Japan, they have "morality training" based on various religions, fables, etc. for grades (equivalent) 1-6. Now Japan isn't perfect crimewise (as even a cursory glance of an English translation of their local papers will show you), but in general they do a hell of a lot better job heading off the budding criminal before he commits his wrongs.
We've homeschooled all our kids until this year. We moved and although we didn't know it at the time, landed in an exceptional school district. My son has been wearing his Christian t-shirts to school and nobody has complained. (yet) The school's only requirement is that it not be obscene or profane.
BTTT
That's a no-brainer. Try to comprehend Paradise Lost (and all the other glorious things John Milton wrote), Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, the morality play Everyman, or the Faust legend without the Bible and you are lost. The professor in my Lit class had to give a summary of Christian (Catholic and Protestant) theology in class so that the students (most of whom had no clue) would have a better understanding of the texts we were reading.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
I'm really too tired to say anything that makes, so this is a stream-of-concsiounses comment.
Very good, very good, very very good. It's not freedom FROM religion. It's freedom OF religion.
Anyone who has never read the Bible is at the least culturally deprived. Even atheists can read it as literature and be none the worse for wear. And it might plant a seed...
Is - could - the tide be turning?
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I am not surprised at all. My highschool English teacher Senior year was a devout Catholic and made the class read Dante's Inferno, I was thinking some one would try to sue him. I read it previously however I did love having an in class discussion on it, I still cannot beileve we actually talked about morals and hell and God in school, seems somewhat outlandish.
ping
I went to school in the country '40s, and there was a terrific discipline problem in the classroom. The thugs (older boys) had actually driven the previous teacher out!
Her replacement, a serene lady with her hair pulled back in a gray bun, led us in reciting the 23rd Psalm each morning to begin the day.
Peace descended on that classroom and the problems were a thing of the past.
‘Who is he that is not of woman borne?’
“Nothing is but what is not.”
Conservatives waste too much time on meaningless issues like "under god" and putting the Ten Commandments in courtrooms. Hello, government is getting bigger and nothing is stopping it! I wish the Goldwater wing of the Republican party were still in charge instead of the "socialist lite Hot-Button isuue do-nothings"
Both the Bible and Shakespeare deserve an honored place in America's public schools.
Shakespeare Ping (Let me know if you would like on the ping list)
Catholic Ping
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**But the tide may be turning.**
I think the pendulum is swinging to the right.