by Brian Burns

For many years now Evangelicals in America have been positioning themselves inside of Washington D.C., and have twisted the definition of the First Amendment to our Constitution to mean something that it never has. The First Amendment in our Bill of Rights states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Evangelicals take this to mean they have the right to erect religious icons in our government buildings and public spaces, and completely miss the mark when they claim our nation is a “Christian nation”. The fact behind their matter is faith-based, and it has grown to where the ‘wall of separation between church and state’, the true essence of the First Amendment, is being torn down before our eyes by those who have either sworn, or are preparing themselves to swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

The ‘wall of separation’ between church and secular affairs was first introduced to us by a Christian preacher in colonial Massachusetts named Roger Williams. As a Separatist from the Church of England, Williams was steadfast in his faith, but the Puritanical version he practiced was at odds with England’s state-sanctioned Anglican religion, and so he set sail for Boston. After turning down the offer to replace a minister in an “unseparated” church, he accepted one offered by his fellow Puritans in Salem. Salem, however, was under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the Boston authorities stopped Williams from settling there. Instead, he moved on to Plymouth Colony, where he was more than welcomed by the citizens to lead the teachings in their church, as they too were Puritans who held Separatist views akin to those of Williams. Though still under the rule of England, the colonists considered their New World as one that was removed from their native lands, and many wanted it to be regarded as an independent state. They wanted to enact their own laws, and wanted to be able to worship without being scrutinized by the Church of England. In general, they were seeking religious freedom, and Williams preached their sentiments loudly.

Roger Williams was enthusiastic when he saw that the American colonies were booming with religious variations from across Europe. He saw it as somewhat of a refuge for ‘Separatists’ around the world, and was happy to find that it wasn’t only his people seeking freedom from religious persecution. He noticed that people led moral lives regardless of their faith, accepted all good people, and soon after Williams even befriended the local pagan tribes of Native Americans. Williams believed in religious freedom for not only the sect of Puritans that had come to populate Massachusetts, but for all people in general, and he spoke of it during his sermons.

Although Williams soon found that those who desired religious freedom from the Church of England were no more accepting of the notion of religious freedom than that which they fled, for after only two short years he was forced from the church and back to Salem. There he lived as the assistant to the pastor in their church, before taking over his predecessor’s position after the pastor died just a year after. Salem, however, did not take kindly to Williams’ sermons, in which he preached the acceptance of people with opposing beliefs, and was soon after brought up on charges of spreading “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions”. Both the lawmakers and his own Puritanical people thought it would be best if he were excommunicated to England, and so Williams went into exile.

A year later, in 1636, Williams along with some of his followers settled in a section of land southwest of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and called it Providence. Soon after, Williams saw the area flourishing with those who had escaped persecution in the new colonies, and founded the Colony of Rhode Island. It was the first colony that made civil issues a matter of majority rule, but gave acceptance and equality to all religious and non-religious people, and by 1639 Baptists, Quakers, Puritans, Huguenots, and even Jews had established congregations in Providence and its neighboring territories. Scattered amongst them were Atheists who had no gods guiding their morals, but Williams saw that they were ethical people with their own opinions on religious matters, and was happy to treat them as equals. In 1640 Williams wrote in his ‘The Bloudy Tenet of Persecution’, “No man shall be required to worship or maintain a worship against his will.”

In his fervent battle for the ‘freedom of religion’ Williams wrote many treatises on why the cities and towns of the New World needed to be open to what he referred to as varying “opinions” of spirituality. He recognized the morality of individuals who held opposing views on religion, and later in his life would write, “God requirth not an uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil wars. . . . It is the will and command of God that . . . a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Anti-Christian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries.”

As the Puritans in Massachusetts were hanging Quakers, and taxing 100 pounds to each ship carrying Quakers onto shore, Roger Williams was planting the seeds of his vision of a melting-pot of free people. He saw the persecution that takes place when governments have preferred or “official” religions, and the dangers in closed-mindedness toward matters of opinion. He saw the dangers in governments that involve themselves in religious affairs of the populace, and he saw the same dangers in religions that involve themselves in politics. In 1644 Williams wrote, “When they (the Church) have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, etc., and made His Garden a wilderness as it is this day. And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and Paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and all that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the World.” This was the inspiration for what Thomas Jefferson would later call “The wall of separation between church and state.”

This ‘wall’ – the notion of government affairs being kept out of religion and vice versa, was imperative for the assembling of a free country, as it was imperative to have the freedom to worship as each citizen saw fit. It was never intended to become a nation where only certain sects of Christianity were free to worship. Nor was it ever intended to be a land where only god-fearing people are free to live and practice their beliefs. America never had a state sanctioned religion because this nation was born from those who sought the freedom to worship away from state sanctioned religions, and by those who desired the freedom to not worship any god at all. The very first amendment to our Constitution, this being on the fore-front of the minds of our Founding Fathers, gives everyone the right to live freely in America without having to be burdened by the dogma of a lone religious sect. America is an Atheist nation as much as it is a Jewish nation, as much as it is a Christian nation, and as much as it is a nation of pagans that are our Native American Indians.

A century after Williams’ death, our nation’s Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution of the United States of America, and shortly thereafter the first ten amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. The man responsible for authoring both bills, appropriately known as the ‘Father of the Constitution’ and the ‘Father of the Bill of Rights’, was James Madison, our nation’s fourth president. He was also known as Thomas Jefferson’s protégé, and worked by his side in drafting and passing into law ‘The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom’. In the first section of the document Jefferson expounds on various points including two points influential in Madison’s First Amendment rights. Jefferson wrote, “The coercion of a person to make contributions—especially monetary—to a religion he doesn’t support is tyrannical and creates favoritism among ministers,” and, “Civil rights do not depend on religious beliefs, and what a person thinks is no business of the government.” In the second section Jefferson wrote, “…no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.” Given this history it is without a doubt that Madison had the explicit intention of erecting a wall between church and state in our Bill of Rights that the Founding Fathers signed into law.

Today’s Evangelicals understandably fear their lives being without purpose, and their entire belief system being nullified as gains in evolutionary-science march forth. Many fear the thought of not having an after-life, and the nothingness that life becomes when we as an organism die off. They fear the loneliness that could accompany ‘being without god’, and the autonomy they would be left with. They fear not having the comfort they feel from their spiritual protection, and the safety of the omnipresence watching over them. They see the social-society in America running amok from the civil chastity that comforts them. They see our children becoming more open with their sexuality, and more independent with their thoughts, and they fear its contagiousness. They fear their children growing up being influenced by the hypotheses of scientific experiments because it is killing their notion of gods, and would gladly smother space exploration for the further we reach to the stars the further their heaven fades. And as they grow, and their lives become more orderly, they find safety in believing their god has ultimate control over the situation, and believing it would never let the situation get too far out of hand. But what they fail to see is that humanity is moral by nature, not by bibles and scripture.

As stated earlier, the fact of their matter is faith-based, and faith is an individual viewpoint. The faith one has religiously might be identical to another’s at the apex of the subject, but when broken down into particulars their views could differ greatly. If a Christian and a Hindu were asked if they believe in the presence of an omnipotent being their answers would be identical. However, once the particulars of their individual views of omnipotent beings came into light we would see vast differences, to when we could conclude that they hold opposing beliefs. Even in Christianity alone, where according to the World Christian Encyclopedia there are over 33,000 sects worldwide, this act of breaking the matter down into particulars is what is ultimately responsible for the formation of the multitude of sects. It is the multitude of sects that proves that Christians alone do not have an answer of what their god truly wants, for if they did there would be uniformity, and so they’re left with faith in their beliefs; they are left with their opinions. It is the recognition of religion being solely opinion-based that led to the religious freedom clause in our First Amendment. The Founding Fathers realized that every sect believes they ‘know’ what their god wants, but since they all provide different answers they only ‘know’ what they believe to be true. Nevertheless, the Evangelicals wage their war on the Constitution because it doesn’t mix well with their vision of American culture. They want their religion erected in every government building and in every town square they choose. They believe it is their right.

It comes at these times – the twilight of sectarian power backed by prejudice and fear, when we see the births of historical religious wars, and inquisitions. We see today’s Evangelicals manipulating their way into our nation’s government through what seems to be a large hole in the wall of separation between church and state. They believe we should rewrite the Constitution to “reflect god’s laws”. However, the inspiration of Roger Williams and those who wrote all three of our Charters of Freedom, are the only ‘divine spirits’ which back our nation’s First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

It is difficult for us to imagine the desperation one must experience before taking their own life. Even those who have had someone close to them commit suicide, we often hear them speaking rather dumbfoundedly about the matter, with themselves questioning, and rather clueless to the depth of their loved one’s state of depression. Though we see the numbers of suicides in our own country add up every day, it is still a very foreign matter to us, because most of us simply cannot imagine that life could ever be that bad.

When news of ’suicide bombers’ first became widespread during the Iraq invasion we were astounded. Many Americans couldn’t believe the enemy would sink so low as to use their own lives as weaponry in their attack on western forces. Others couldn’t believe how little they valued their lives. To the rest of us who thought beyond the act of ’suicide bombing’, we realized that having been promised the riches of an afterlife in the realm of Allah the value they placed on their current lives was minimal in comparison. The truth is that none of these female suicide bombers are angrilly strapping bombs to themselves and running into the public-square to blow up unwanted foreigners, as much as they are doing it because they are severely depressed individuals, whose life beyond that of the present is much more promising.

The women in rural areas of Iraq, who have lost their loved ones to either imprisonment or that have been killed find themselves in such deep depression they become easilly preyed upon by the men trying to expel the western forces from their country. Because of their lack of rights in certain regions, they often feel as if they have no hope left in this life, and so are willing to take their own lives to help gain access into their holy afterlife.

Click here to read about the motivations of suicide bombers, and why their lives were already over before ever committing the heinous act.

By Brian A. Burns

It appears James Dobson is telling all Christians that the Old Testament, the book in which his views of our universe’s origin is shown, is nothing more than outdated gibberish that can be tossed aside. He and Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Dobson’s ‘Focus on the Family’, accused Barack Obama of distorting the message of Jesus, as Obama, in a 2006 speech to a Christian group, used references from the Old Testament which Dobson considers no longer apply since the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament trump the old. “I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said. Although, we have to wonder whose view is truly distorted, Obama’s or Dobson’s.

If the Bible is to be taken seriously Christians must view it as “the infallible word of God.” If they consider it as being written by humans, and may be edited at will, then we can easily chalk it up as nothing more than a book of ancient folklore with some moral homilies that fail to rival Aesop’s Fables, and do away with the entire thing. By ignoring certain passages that are stated as originating from their god’s own voice, which in essence is ignoring their god, then one can easily ignore the entire book. Most Christians would agree that they cannot simply ignore their god. After all, Jesus was the human incarnation of their god. To ignore their god would be to ignore Jesus, and I’m sure James Dobson would have a problem with that.

One portion of the Old Testament brought up by Obama in his speech, something the truly faithful must consider, is taken from Leviticus, where the Judeo-Christian god claims that slavery is perfectly acceptable. In Leviticus 25:44 the Judeo-Christian god states, “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.” 25:45 - “You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.” These are the words from James Dobson’s god, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Instead, he wants to do away with it, and seemingly the rest of the Old Testament which is the foundation for the religion he so vehemently defends as being ‘truth’.

It was best said that Christianity is the ‘delicatessen-religion’ because modern Christians tend to ignore the words from their god that they don’t approve of while happily accepting the rest as ‘truth’. And if their god was timeless, as they like to believe, then it would have known that slavery is immoral and an abhorrent injustice to humanity 2000 years ago as it is today. Without the Old Testament there is no New Testament, for without the tales of the coming of a messiah there’s no Jesus the messiah, but only Jesus the human. Without the Old Testament there is no Moses, and without him they are without their Ten Commandments. Without the Old Testament there is no Christian god.

But how can a person be truly devout when their God says one thing but then sends himself down as a human to say the opposite? Is a Christian supposed to follow the words of their god as the spirit, or their god as Jesus? When the god said, “…an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” which was later stricken by Jesus who commanded that his followers turn the other cheek, it told all that their god as a spirit was fallible, and his word ephemeral. The message rings even louder today as all of what was written then comes from a time of socially-third-world cultures, whose ideas of morality pale in comparison to those of modern times. The god as Jesus was a great man, I’m sure. He said that we should treat others in the way we would like others to treat us, but only in a much different Farsi tongue. It’s unfortunate that James Dobson cannot live up to this lesson, as he has influenced thousands to vote for a Republican backed war time and time again.

So it appears that Barack Obama has it more accurately than James Dobson. In light of Obama’s question which sparked Dobson’s gas, “Which sect’s version of Christianity should be taught in our schools?” it is best answered with ‘none’. With over 33,000 different sects of Christians across the globe it is apparent that there are many unknowingly confused people. If the religion had any merit there would not be so many divisions. There would be uniformity because people would understand the expectations of their god. If it had a god backing it, it would have come down centuries ago to straighten things out for his followers. It would’ve told them exactly what portion of its words they could ignore, and what they needed to follow. While it was here, I’m sure it would’ve stopped the Inquisitions, the Crusades, Hernando Cortez, Adolph Hitler (yes, he too was a Christian), and made a special visit to send George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to the gallows. While it was here it would’ve turned the tides of compassionless behavior, and rooted it deeply into those who speak out in its name, and crushed those who beat them down. I’m sure most Christians in Darfur and along the Sahel are wondering where their god is right now. I would suggest asking James Dobson, but it appears as if he has distorted the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.

By Brian A. Burns

John Freshwater’s heinous act of branding a cross on the arm of his middle-school student in Mount Vernon, Ohio should not be very shocking to us. Though it brought much media attention, as “shock stories” tend to do, the thought of an uncompassionate Christian willfully harming others seems to be all too common these days. From the child molestation problems in the Catholic church, to the war in Iraq - brought to you by the likes of the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and all of those “holier than thou” that continue supporting the slaughtering of innocent civilians by voting for their favorite Republican war-monger. Those who consider themselves “compassionate Christians” are often the most violent offenders of human rights. They enact laws against the freedom to choose how we want to live, and die. They uphold the law that forces a person to suffer a tortuous death until their affliction consumes them, without having the option of shutting off the device and being left to die in peace. With that said, we can take the news of John Freshwater as just another drop in the bucket. Although, from the very same occurrance in Mount Vernon, Ohio, we were given the gift of insight to the true intentions of those who fear science - those who simply write off our entire universe as an “intelligent design”.

It was during the heat of the Mount Vernon moment; when the vans congregated and the reporters and their crews raced like rats to the cheese. The cheese they came across was the friend of the ’science teacher’, Dave Daubenmire. Daubenmire was intelligent enough to understand that it was wrong for Freshwater to burn a cross on to his student’s arm. But he muttered his support for the other heinous act Freshwater was committing - teaching his science class that the Judeo-Christian God is the reason for our universe, and that science cannot be trusted. Daubenmire told us all what ID supporters have been trying to tell us all along, “I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district.” In fact, Freshwater was doing just that - using his job as a science teacher to teach against science.

The reason so many citizens, religious and non-religious, are up in arms against teaching Intelligent Design in the science classes of our public schools is due to the fact that there is no science in the belief of gods. The study of omnipotent beings would fall under the social studies category where it is already taught as mythology. The study of Intelligent Design could be taught as “Flash, and it was there!” and it would be the shortest and most hollow of all courses, but with great reading from the origins of fiction. Of course, many religious folks would be offended at their views of their universe being cast aside as mythology, but so too are the scientists who devote their lives to their work which is then mangled and fed to our children as being false simply because some of us don’t want to believe in the facts of science.

John Freshwater was being paid with our tax dollars to teach our children the updated information coming from our community of scientists and researchers. He was not being paid to teach “the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district”. Classes in values are being taught at the local church, mosque, synagogue, and temple - or better yet, values are taught at home. And it is most important to note that in the case of Evangelical Christians there are quite a few ‘values’ that are being completely overlooked. Two of which are Honesty and Integrity.

There is no honesty behind teaching children that the Earth is 10,000 years old, that carbon dating is inaccurate, and the factual information coming from evolutionists is false. And there certainly is no integrity behind stealing the information and tagging it with “God was here.” The more evolutionists learn by way of testing the more Christians steal by way of fear and prejudice. They take all that is given and sum it up with two words - intelligent design, and sadly enough, they’re the only side in the battle who feel the need to place finality on the beliefs of our origins. Evolutionists aren’t telling the public that there isn’t a god as much they are telling us what their observations and experiments prove. If their findings further negate the presence of a god then it should only be seen as a byproduct of the hypothesis as opposed to it being the intentions behind the experiment. Evolutionists aren’t looking to disprove gods, but only to discover where everything ultimately came from.

Babu Ranganathan, a Christian writer from Bob Jones University, is one of the people so angry at the hypotheses of scientific experimentation that he’s gone to war against reality and factual information, only to retain the selfish belief that his god can be the only answer. He took the belief that life on Mars might’ve originated there after being blasted into outer space from Earth being impacted by comets, and turned that to mean that the Judeo-Christian god is responsible. An obvious question would be, “Why wouldn’t God just form life on Mars, as opposed to relying on blasting it there from Earth?” But the science behind the belief was never intended to prove a god’s existence or inexistence. It was only noted from Kenneth Nealson of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, “We think there’s about 7 million tons of Earth soil sitting on Mars.” This news was sweet-music to Mr. Ranganathan, as now he had a biblical answer for the day scientists possibly announce the discovery of Martian microbes.

The textbook for Biological studies at Bob Jones University is titled Biology for Christian Schools. It is truly not a resource on biological studies for the simple fact that on the first page it is quoted, “If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.” It also states, “Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible.” Instead the book is only a guide on how to turn a blind eye to progressive mentality, and factual information.

So the next time you hear one of our politicians wondering why there’s an absence of scientifically minded indivduals graduating from our nation’s high schools, you can blame those who openly steal the subject and drape it in vestments. As the 9/11 hijackers snuck into our flight-schools to learn how to use our jets against us, so too the John Freshwaters and Babu Ranganathans have invaded the realm of science only to hijack facts and wage war against the education of our children.

It wasn’t a very good week for religion. First we were introduced to pseudo-science teachers who brand their students with crucifixes, and now we have proof of the existence of the ’selfish’ gene. Initially introduced to us in 1976 by the famed biologist and author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, the idea of a ’selfish’ gene was one in which our genes carry an independent drive to survive and carry on into future generations.

In a study involving the reproductive behavior of honey bees, University of Western Ontario biology professor Graham Thompson, with help from the University of Sydney’s Peter Oxley, has discovered the location in which a genome harbors the ’selfish’ gene. As somewhat of an extension to the Honey Bee Genome Project of 2006, Thompson noticed the ’selfish’ behavior of the worker bee’s genetics as all of the females are sterile. This led him to the discovery which has been considered a key element in the process of evolution.

This new stamp of evolutionary proof not only adds to the resoundings of Charles Darwin’s works, but as Thompson says, “…provides a validation for a huge body of socio-biology.”

By Brian A. Burns

As long as there are recipients of large quantities of tax dollars there will always be proponents of failed ideas. After taking over a billion dollars, those who refuse to accept the fact that they have little control over the sexual activities of their teenage sons and daughters continue taking our money under the guise of “government assistance”, to wage their war against reality - the belief that abstinence is the only message to send our children. In trying to frighten teens into remaining celibate, the falsified information they spread is in direct contrast to the factual information received through a true form of sexual education, and not only does it fail to reduce the frequency in which our teens are engaging in sexual activities, but it makes them less likely to use contraceptives while doing so.

Through a congressional investigation in 2004 it was discovered that the groups who insist on the effectiveness of abstinence were reporting as scientific fact that a pregnancy occurs once in every seven times a couple uses a condom, when medical evidence shows that condoms are 98% effective. They have lied saying that condoms do not help in preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and have grossly distorted fact by claiming that contraceptives fail to prevent HIV 31% of the time. One group went so far as to state that HIV could be passed through sweat and tears. They have also lied about the risks of abortion, stating 5% to 10% of women who receive abortions will become sterile, and some have proclaimed that a 43-day-old fetus is a “thinking person”.

In all, the government gives away nearly $170 million per year to groups who seemingly believe that biology is the study of a god’s claymation project. But why would members of religious organizations willingly break one of their commandments and lie to our teenage population? They do this because they have to, for if they presented the evidence as they receive it they know their audience would abandon them completely, and with nearly $600,000 going to each of these organizations annually, they aren’t so willing to give up the hefty chunk of change they’ve grown to rely on.

While it’s true that the only way to fully guarantee a person never gets pregnant is to never have sex, these groups fail to admit that our teenagers are having sex and will continue to have sex, and just as the “Just Say No” message failed to stop people from taking drugs, the message of “Abstinence Only” seems to be as equally ignorant to the problem.

The fact that our children pass through puberty at or around the age of 12 is biologically meaningful, and with it comes message we’re so apt to ignore. Their bodies are proceeding through the physical changes that are the first signs of adulthood. As they move through this transformation so too are they passing through one that is psychological. Mentally, though unbeknownst to them, they are becoming aware of themselves, and are beginning to enter a stage where they feel more self-governance. For many, the ambitions that parents have always deemed as important, like academics, pale in comparison to the importance they place upon their social lives. Consequently, the effort they put into the activities where their parents still hold high expectations lessen in favor to their sociality which moves up in priority. They feel the urges that accompany their passing through puberty, and their interest in sexuality becomes real. They aren’t paying heed to the warnings from their parents, or teachers, or coaches, or even their spiritual advisors who are telling them, “Just say no!” Instead, they are listening to their urges, and they are experimenting with their new found curiosities.

There was a time in history when children were made responsible at a failry young age. They were given chores in and around the household, and some were even performing the role of “servant” by the age of seven. It was not uncommon for boys to begin life on their own at the age of 16, and with “women” being betrothed to them by the age of 12. Girls passed into “womanhood” when they experienced their menarche, and by that time were well accustomed to all of the duties necessary in maintaining a household. Contrary to what one might assume, most of these women did not start bearing children until the age of 16. The decisions they made in dealing with their sexuality were far more responsible than those of many of our children. In this day in age we tend to focus more on academics than we do on trying to ready our children for life beyond school. They are far less responsible than the children were then, and the age in which we feel they’re prepared to start life on their own is much older. This, however, does not mean that their bodies aren’t carrying the same sexual urges at the age of 12 and 13. Indeed they are.

When it comes to “growing up” America is one of the only countries that restricts the process so vehemently. While America has the highest rate of teen pregnancy of the westernized countries, we too are among those with the highest age level in consent laws, with our average at 16 and edging toward 17. The age of consent is 14 in both Germany and Italy, and their teen pregnancy rates are one-quarter and one-seventh that of ours respectively. And in Japan where the age of consent is 13 the percentage is even less, being around one-eighth.

Now I don’t mean to imply that we should let our kids run rampant having sex at the age of 13 and 14, but am only trying to prove a point that in nations where they don’t make taboo what we American adults may consider “vice”, they have less of a problem in all areas. Where we restrict even our war veterans under the age of 21 from being able to buy a beer in a bar so too do we have a high rate of alcoholism, whereas the countries that have no drinking age have far less an issue with the disease. We can see that in countries that don’t try keeping their biological urges locked behind parental denial and fear, their struggles with teenage pregnancy and STD’s are easy compared to our own.

Instead of plugging our ears, slamming our eyes shut, and yelling to drown away the “evil word” that is truth, we need to first come to terms with the reality that teenagers will have sex, whether we like it or not. Then we might be able to teach our children how to be responsible with their actions at a much younger age, as opposed to dumping them into “adulthood” on the final day of their senior year in high school. Truly, the only words needing to be drowned away are “More money, please,” coming from the abstinence crowd, as that money would be far better spent on comprehensive sex education programs for our teens. One that starts with saying, “Just say ‘no’, but since many of you won’t listen and will have sex anyway, this is what you need to know, and here are some tools to help.”

It’s no wonder our children are lacking in their science studies these days. When one in six high school biology teachers believe in mythology over evolution I’d imagine it’s difficult to learn a subject so based in reality. Many of us would hope that religion could be taught in religious institutions, and that our children could get an education in science while attending high school science classes.

The National Academy of Sciences believe the study of evolution to be the “central concept of biology”, yet the teachers willingly overlook this since they tend to believe a god created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. So, if the story of God has to be taught in a public school environment, maybe it would be best to teach it a carpentry class.

Click here to read why G.B. Shaw’s quote in “Maxims for Revolutionists”, “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches,” is ringing louder in the public high schools of America today than it possibly ever has.