Posted on 12/06/2001 2:50:38 PM PST by Dr. Octagon
Christmas is a fantastic holiday. It celebrates not only the life of the Messiah, but more particularly the story of His birth, in all its miraculous splendor. Christ was born on a particularly clear night, under the glow of new starlight:
"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night."
"And the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…"
"The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you tidings of great joy that will be for all the people."
"For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."
"You shall find the babe in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger…"
I first heard these words in kindergarten. They are paraphrased from The Bible itself, but I heard them as a five-year-old by way of The Charlie Brown Christmas Special. The basic theme of the special, a simply-drawn 25 minute cartoon, is that Christmas is a matter of faith and fellowship. Therein, beyond the tinsel and the toys, lies the spirit of the baby in the manger, who for thousands of years has blessed the world with his tiny hands.
The irony is that my kindergarten was in a public school. Two decades ago, the slow creep of militant atheists was less advanced than now, and some public schools were left untouched. So my teachers, plying their trade in an obscure small-town school district, were free to follow the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and actually permit the free exercise of religion within their taxpayer-funded walls.
God Bless them for that.
Christianity and Judaism were accorded equal respect, and had other religions been practiced by students/parents, the same would have gone for them. It was a very fair and balanced situation, to borrow a phrase from the Fox News Channel.
My how things have changed.
These days, our nation´s official motto, "God Bless America", is labeled ‘divisive´. "One nation under God" is stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance, in the rare cases that the pledge is actually still said.
Teachers are told that any personal symbols of their faith, such as a Cross or a Star of David, must be hidden, obscured from view. Does State control of religious symbols evoke memories of any particular era?
I sincerely doubt that in 2001, when football players are told not to pray before games, a simple showing of The Charlie Brown Christmas Special, with its openly religious bent, would survive an ACLU challenge.
Do the morally relativistic and proactively atheistic opponents of all things Judeo-Christian truly fear Linus´ forty-second speech, reprised above?
Apparently so.
Is that as ridiculous as it seems?
Absolutely.
And enough is enough: it´s time for a change.
It´s time to recognize that parents are the true guardians of their own children, not the State.
It´s also time to diversify the school system. Every public school should, in effect, be a charter school, with local control over its curriculum, policies, and methods. Add to that parental control over which school their child attends, and presto, you have competition. The schools which are the most effective will draw the most business, and have the most student-dollars with which to pay teachers, buy supplies, and fund expansion. It´s your basic market-driven scenario, and is ultimately the salvation of the public schools.
I would recommend this be done with the following formula: take the entire K-12 Education Department budget, and divide it up on a per-student basis. Extend that per-student amount to parents via a tax credit, with the sole proviso that it go to each child´s education at a public, charter, or private school. No restrictions on the type of school, or the religious or secular nature thereof. Even as we need to trust parents to decide how to raise their own children, we need also to trust parents to decide how to educate their own children.
Some actually would seek out schools that focused on political correctness, and low standards, and enforced atheism. Not many, perhaps, but some.
Most would seek out schools which permitted free exercise of religion, and had high standards, good discipline, and caring-yet-structured teachers.
That latter model would do wonders for our nation.
And moreover, given his participation in a school-based Christmas play and penchant for quoting the Bible, I venture that Linus would agree.
There is a quote I wish I could find. It is from the 1950's, and says something like, "If God is no longer welcome in the schools, violence, immorality, and low standards will take His place".
Sage words. Atheism + feminism + centralization = the current situation.
Ain't (hey! I'm from the South, I can say ain't) it the truth!?!?!? The same "nice" people/groups that fought to remove any mention of God from the classroom are the same monsters that went on to fight for "diversity", "inclusion", "whole language" and "fuzzy math".
So insofar as schools try to teach theories backed by evidence, parents can "unconfuse" their children by saying "Of course there's no evidence for _our_ view. That's why it's so good that we believe it."
No, the 'evidence' of evolutionists is sometimes faked (The Piltdown Man is just one of many fakes we know of), thin or simply doesn't exist and even when it's solid, the constant discoveries being made often wipe out prior theories. On and on it goes.
Frankly, I don't care how old the earth is or whatever lived a zillion years ago if earth existed then.
These have no bearing on anyone's salvation but are a distraction from the bible's real value as the Word of God and the path to salvation.
What Christian parents should tell their children confused by evolution taught in public schools and the creationism taught in Sunday Schools is that the atheists choose not to believe in God, Christ, the bible or anything beyond themselves. It's called 'Humanism'. Since they dismiss God and the bible, they have to find another explanation for why they are here and how they got here. Science helps them do that and they use it to justify what they choose to believe and get all excited when some scientific discovery appears to dispute with scripture in some way, or at least if it appears that way - until the next discovery.
They should also tell their children that Evolution is sacred to the scientific community and all new discoveries must fit that evolutionary template or they will be rejected by the scientific community that hand out awards, grants and department chairs in universities.
They should tell their children that the evidence evolutionists present, accurate or not, makes them feel smart, superior and secure in their non-beliefs. The bible that Christians live by (God's Word) and the evidence of a creator clearly obvious in the world around us, observable without benefit of advanced scientific degrees, show us that God is smarter and far superior to mans puny knowledge and He is in control, which helps make Christians secure in their beliefs. Works for me.
Has there ever been a school in this country that forces students to say, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of G-d?"
By your definition, that would be enforced Christianity. I know of no case on record.
Current legal thought is that if the tenets of a religious belief are stated in such a way that school sanction can be inferred, that will pressure a child since the school is seen as an authority figure. Call it pressure or coercion - it is a type of force. Thus, the ACLU put a stop to the government enforcing Christianity. Whether you agree with that thinking or not, that's how our law is currently crafted.
Under that interpretation, atheism is, indeed, enforced.
Shalom.
So it seems that the opposite of "I aim" would be "I aim not"
Aim +not = ain't.
Good theory?
Isn't it sick? As I was writing it down, I was thinking, "What parent in his right mind would deliberately choose such a school for their child?" Yet this describes 90% of our schools today.
Sheeple of the world, wake up!
EXCELLENT theory!! I like it and will have to file it away for future reference. Thank you kind sir.
That thing has a name.
And the name is Evil.
Of course, these days, it also goes by "totalitarianism, feminism, secular humanism, atheism, illumanati, objectivism, victim-pathology, et al."
BTW: Since JFK used 'ain't' at least once...I figure that we lowly Citizens can, too...
Isn't this the voucher system that conservatives have been pushing for?
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