"One can study religion and the religions of the world without promoting one or any."

That's a popular thing to say but it's never been proven. The ability to teach about belief systems without promoting any one belief or several belief systems depends entirely on the attitudes of the teachers, principals, school boards, and state school superintendents, and the dominant religious cultures of the areas in which the schools area located. The difference in outcomes in teaching religions of the world in the Seattle School District, a school district in rural Mississippi, a school district in Utah, and a school district in Brooklyn would probably demonstrate the problems in attempting to be even-handed.

"Imagine a president today saying [what Lincoln said about the Civil War]. What would happen?"

If it was George Bush, he'd be accused by the left of being totally schizophrenic or perhaps even sociopathic. "The bible-thumping alchie has come totally unhinged!" If it was Barack Obama, he'd be accused by the right of being against American exceptionalism and perhaps even treasonously betraying the armed forces. But I put this current state of affairs mostly in the laps of the Moral Majority shock troops who burst onto the political scene in the 1980s. They wrestled the Republican party away from the business people, advocates of personal responsibility and limited government, and "Constitution-believing" quasi-libertarians. They remade it (with varying degrees of success) into a religious party, and forced dogmatic litmus tests on people who ran for public office, as if it made any difference whether your County Auditor was "pro choice" or "right to life."

This analysis doesn't let the liberals off the hook. No group in history loves employing ad hominem attacks as a substitute for intellectual debate quite like the American Left. Given a cartoonish foe, all pretense of civility could be abandoned by the left, and so now we've reached the state where the opposing sides reflexively reject any concern over what is the proper role for government in a free society. All they seem to care about is staking out a position diametrically opposed to that of their opponents. There's no room for a Daniel Patrick Moynihan or a Gerald Ford in todays's Democratic or Republican parties. They couldn't win the primaries. (Maybe the old smoke-filled caucus room was a better way of choosing candidates after all.)

The degradation in quality amongst the members of the press as followed a parallel downward path. Along the way we've traded Dick Cavett and William F Buckley for Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity.

Like the apocryphal County Auditor I mentioned above, I once ran for an office in Pierce County (Charter Review Commissioner). I received a phone call from a very earnest sounding woman who asked me, after several other questions, "What's your position on abortion?" My answer: "What difference does it make? The County Charter has no authority on the subject of abortion." After an initial moment of surprise, she accepted my answer. It's truly a shame that government has become so pervasive in our society that that question, "What difference does it make?" can't be a raised more often in political debate.

Intellectuals are always trying to create things that dont exist, except in their own minds. I guess it's just a fear of not really being in control of everything.

Near as I can tell, the Universe has no sides. It's not a Windows program.

An amusing take on this is Ken Kesey's essay "The Demon Box" which is part of a published collection of essays under that title. Look outside the box.

As we all know, the Union ultimately won the Civil War. I think that the outcome might better be attributed to the superior manpower and industrial base of the North rather than God's favor.

What about our contentious political issues? I hestitate to say that God has an opinion (which is suspiciously similar to my own) on various issues, fearing that it would be an anthropomorphism. Yet the Bible quite clearly speaks to moral issues. Even if we are unsure whether the Bible is the divine word, we have the text of our own conscience.

Regardless of one's theology, we ultimately have to rely on our own judgment, imperfect though it may be. Where God fits into all this is not at all clear to me.

"Numerous commentators have condemned 'different than' in spite of its use since the 17th century by many of the best-known names in English literature. It is nevertheless standard and is even recommended in many handbooks when followed by a clause, because insisting on 'from' in such instances often produces clumsy or wordy formulations. 'Different from,' the generally safe choice, is more common especially when it is followed by a noun or pronoun." (Merriam-Webster)

The Monotheistic Conundrum.

If god doesn't care, god is passive and does no good to those who follow in this regard. If god does care, he is on the side of whoever is doing the preaching. No one preaches, "we hope god is on our side, and if he's on their side, we hope he goes easy on us."

It's conclusive logic that "god" is in the words of the preacher, and not real. Besides all the science, the thought experiment alone is enough to insulate that if there is a higher power or intelligent creator, that power or creator is neither low enough to the ground to care, nor intelligent enough to get us out of problems that seem to require intervention.

There is no such thing as a god, just as there is no Zeus or Polytheism. It's just the same thing as people following a crowd, or peeing when there's running water. It's hard-wired. We need to recognize that it's just an emotion that we channel, and no longer give credence to those who bend this reaction we all have in their favor.

If we were talking about money, they're Bernie Madoff. If it's religion, it's Joel O'Steen. Society, you're a funny one...

Dear Pepper,

The Bible speaks often of the morals put forth by those who *wrote* the Bible. If one is to believe ancient script, God only wrote the Reader's Digest version of the 15...... oops, dropped one.... 10 Commandments. Otherwise, the rest is all about the morals of the named and unnamed authors.

"Third, many churches, instead of challenging Culture War polarities, only mirror them."

This could be the understatement of the century (OK, it's still early). As we surely all know, churches have largely created the fires of polarity and throw gasoline on the flames whenever they show signs of dying down.

One needs to distinguish between churches and God. Churches are human institutions with all of the fallibility that the term implies. They claim a monopoly on interpreting God because that's their path to power and wealth. This doesn't mean that churches can't sometimes do good things, but it's a hit-or-miss proposition. In contemporary America, most churches do less good than an average Rotary Club.

God, on the other hand, is by nature unknowable by the worldly mind and works through individual seekers rather than institutions. God is on the side of the humble, the devoted and the compassionate, wherever they may be found. If such a great soul happens to work through a church or other institution, the institution may receive some secondary benefit. But God is resolutely indifferent to institutions as such. In the Gospels Jesus's relationship to the temples and priests demonstrated this.

Jeez, and all along I thought religions had the answers. At least that's what they advertise.

Buster G.

I realize this entire thing was framed within a religious paradigm, but I feel compelled to ask the question without god. What if there is no god and mankind is, at its foundation, on its own? Does humanity need to choose sides? Or, does it merely feel compelled to do so? Sometimes I feel that religious values are merely a front for one's (or a group's, or a culture's) perspectives or inclinations, which may not be all that pure. (That said, I applaud the discussion and the effort to instill critical thinking ability in these children.)

drumcat: there are 613 commandments in the Torah (Old Testament); the modern Christian world extracted the ten from Sinai, but they are just the tip of iceberg and the easy ones. Some are much tougher, e.g., #308 "Not to punish anyone who has committed an offense under duress (Deut. 22:26). How do we decide what is duress? Hmmm, not so easy, I think, but still a commandment.

debbalee: what if both propositions are true: God exists AND humans are on their own? That religious values are a "front" for a group's values could just mean that one group's values (though flawed) are better than another group's values (I'm thinking of, say, the Quakers in relation to the Nazis, the KKK, al Qaida here). Don't forget that your position also represents a group's values: modern, post-Enlightenment, individualism, which is just a group's theory about what should be valued. I agree the discussion is good.

I am late in reading this article but first we must agree there is a god, or God. If there is not than the question is moot and I think that is the situation. So when we become civilized someday we must figure out a real reason to be good. I rather like being good with out a god in my life. I do on to others as I would have them do to me and know there no heaven.