We have let A RELIGION have full sway in public institutions without any real adversity. It is called Secular Humanism. It is pervasive and it has indeed undermind free thought and spiritual enlightenment in public education. This is why kids today can be suckered into cults, shoot their fellow students/teachers, can't read, have little understanding of how to express themselves without vulgarities, and have little understanding of world history. The glue that held everything together has been thrown away. I believe the environment begins with how well people treat their own bodies. The pervasive misapplication of sex, the abundancy of wasted tatoos/body piercing, and the extreme flaunting of abortion as some right; is secular humanistic hedonism that is throwing darts at the Creator and HIS creation. It has nothing to do with Christian virture. It has everything to do with trying to fix everything at the whim of "divine" human efforts devoid of GOD's blessings. The silly tales you have expressed pale when compared to the Genesis Creation epic; however, they are not far removed from evolutionary beliefs.
Those 'silly tales' are as much a religious belief as Genesis. I dare you to go stand in front of a spiritually convinced First Nations' person and say to their face that
their beliefs are 'silly tales', but
your belief is 'true'. Mind, they'll have heard that from white men before. Given Creationism gets taught in your schools: by what right will you insist only the Christian version gets told?
All the 'modern evils' you mention, some of which are harmless body decorations and a sensuality
you don't approve of, have nothing to do with 'secular humanism'. There are many countries with
far less Christian religiousity than yours where violence is far less and education is much more successful. The flaws in your society cannot be blamed on lack of religion, or on some demon you've invented that grows from atheism or evolution, but are more likely down to the mean-spiritedness of your predominant 'bootstrap' loving culture, where the idea of giving someone government medical care is considered 'bad', and when someone mentions 'social safety net', you immediately think 'welfare queen'.
Your public schools have been progressively dumbed down since
before the 1950s, through lack of spending on education, refusal to even teach American children anything but a flowery fiction about world history that places America as the hero no matter what really happened, a failure to teach geography at all, and more recently pandering to and funding separate schools for religious groups and a vast assembly of frequently under-qualified home-schooling parents.
I can tell you for a
fact, because I attended both, that your big-city, well-appointed, newly-built elementary schools in the 1950s were
already teaching less material in a year than a one-room school in rural Canada, and were already a year behind. I'll be amazed to hear how you blame
that on modern secular humanism.
Your country is the most overtly, religiously, Christian on the planet. No other First World country has leaders who spend as much time courting the favour of Christian groups and leaders. And no other First World country is as violent, or as unwilling to assist its citizens when they need help.
Secular humanism
might actually be the literal, physical salvation of your country, because some of its principles include the notion of helping other people with targeted assistance in education, healthcare, etc., as opposed to pretending that Christian charity will take care of everything, when it has so obviously failed so many.
And, my apologies to those well-educated and globally aware Americans who may feel insulted by this rant, which is addressing generalities, not specifics. I admire you all, the moreso because I know you had to be very pro-active (or lucky) in seeking after knowledge and education.
