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World's "Greatest Nation"?

Teacher In Hot Water For Calling Creationism "Superstitious Nonsense"

Dear Mr. Reyes,

I agree with you whole-heartedly about this incident. Unfortunately, the religious right has planted judges and influenced large numbers of citizens with their tainted rubbish. It gets more difficult every day to find people who were born without the codswallop of organized, conservativeness-to-the-max fundamentalism in their heads.

It seems absurd that we live in what is supposed to be the world's "greatest nation" and have such ignorant, intolerant and extreme views on parade. As far as progressive is concerned, we are low on the ladder of progressiveness itself-how many other powerful nations have put a black person in the leadership top seat, for instance, and how long ago?

It seems, for an example that it was just yesterday that Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, and upon his release became South Africa's president. In the case of women presiding, the U.S. has missed opportunities for many years to give women a fairer and politically worthwhile station. Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Corazon Aquino, Angela Merkel, are but a few names that spring to mind. All of them were judged fairly along the way, and reaching the top post in their respective countries was considered just another event, with no special effort to proclaim them special.

The "old boy" system in the U.S. is fatally flawed, and the speed of change is moving at a snail's pace. Allowing the idiocy of the religious right to influence education, leave out vital data that has shown evolution is logical and sustainable, and leave no stone unturned when it comes to looking directly at the differences between science and religiosity. It's harmful to the future of our country to keep the students from knowing what is real, and what is only assumed, probably incorrectly.

It is time to leave the God of the religious right behind, and move on to greater things. If truth be told, the "God" of the religious right is one I wouldn't want to "own" regardless. A god that wants to kill non-believers, who demands blood of its "enemy," who salaciously requires retribution, who says personal wealth is cool, bring it on-it seems as though this god (as Jesus Christ) is the projection of the true hypocrites on the far right: intolerant, selfish, belligerent, controlling, sadistic-and a true picture of how some people choose to identify themselves.

A truly secular society would require that everyone put as much into their thoughts and deeds as they could, to hold no ties to a world tainted by such intense malevolence. We deserve much better than this metaphysical dead end, and need to find a better place than the world the religious right offers.

I apologize for the length of this Letter to the Editor, I tend to be long-winded when I express my usual outrage at the world of the religious right. There is only so much we all can do with the lifespan we currently have, and allowing these people to take away even one shining moment of achievement and accomplishment is too much. We will best be motivated and pleased to help the millions, even billions, of people in the whole of Planet Earth who have nothing, and no hope of anything different. And the best part will be in offering what we can, without religious motivation at all, only the desire to make our own lives be rich and fulfilling.

Thanks for listening!
Mary Hartery