I’m getting a little tired of conservatives calling America a “Christian” nation.  There is nothing Christian about it.  Our nation’s government was not founded by Christians, nor was it founded upon Christian principles.  And although the organized church has long held hands with the government, there is precious little in the practice of the organized Christian church that resembles the teachings of Jesus. Thomas Jefferson said in his autobiography concerning the preamble of the constitution, “Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author...

One of the things that drive people crazy about religions in general, and about Christianity in particular, is this perverse need many followers have to suffer. For some reason, these fanatics have equated a letting go of the world with the need to wear barbed wire underwear. In Ireland, every year, thousands of people walk up the craggy slope of a mountain called Croke Patrick in bare feet, in order to suffer. For hundreds of years, monks and nuns, and penitent pilgrims have worn hair shirts and flagellated themselves in order to suffer agony in the idea that somehow all this pain and suffering...

I once had a girl friend, many years before I met my wife, Becky, and I loved her very much. We had, I thought, a good relationship. So I felt as though I had been hit with a sledgehammer in the chest when she confessed to me that she had cheated on me while she was away at school. I didn’t know how to respond. I was angry, sure, and I felt betrayed, but mostly, I felt unloved. She felt terribly guilty. She wept bitterly. She apologized again and again. She had knew that what she had done was inexcusable and didn’t offer any. She told me she couldn’t see how she could continue...

There is an old saying that we all know. You are what you eat. I never understood that statement, not really, until I had some health and nutrition classes in college. And even then it didn’t really hit me. It wasn’t until I started working out a lot that I came to understand that the food we eat is literally what makes our bodies. Our bodies renew themselves on the average of every seven years. In fact, certain tissues renew faster, and others a little slower. But the average is every seven years. That means that the you that exists now is not the same you that existed seven years...

I like to think of myself as a scientific sort of guy. I find science fascinating, especially physics and astronomy. And I like to think I have a passing understanding in most of the sciences, and well I should have, since I have to teach science to a bunch of children year after year, (over 600 of them in the 25 years I’ve been teaching, I reckon). But I will confess one thing. I don’t begin to understand television. I understand electricity. Electrons moving make perfect sense to me. I have no problem with that. But then, when I think of taking a picture, moving or otherwise,...

People ask me how to find God. I say turn left at Pat Robertson. Seriously, there are scores of people out there looking for something. There are the followers of Scientology. Others look for God in drugs, or in organized religions, which are not so different sometimes. Karl Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people. A hundred and fifty years later, opium (or other substances) is the religion of the people. The certain thing is that people feel empty. And everyone is trying to fill that emptiness with something. Some people use alcohol. Others use children. Others use their jobs....

It is, of course, Mother’s Day. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it in some way. This is a particularly difficult day for my wife, Becky who lost her Mom in 2006. It was four years ago on the 4th. We cannot exist without mothers. The fact is, we wouldn’t exist without mothers. I said this once before, mothers are the image of God on earth. Mother’s have the amazing ability to give life. And, having given life, look upon their children, their creations if you will, with a love that transcends all understanding. This is not to put down fathers in any way....

It must have been very difficult for those guys who were following Jesus around listening to his teachings. Most of the time they had no idea what he was talking about. He basically told them that everything they knew was wrong, and it seemed impossible for them to think outside the box into which their minds had been placed. They grew up in a world where God was an all-powerful being who punished the wicked and rewarded the righteous right here on earth. If you were doing well, it was because God favored you. If you did badly, it was because God was punishing you. Good people prospered...

Back a few years ago, a news story appeared regarding a lawsuit between Phillip Busch and the tele-evangelist Pat Robertson. Mr. Busch asserts that Pat Robertson used his image in the promotion of his protein shake without his permission. Busch had contacted Robertson’s show and informed them that he had lost 200 pounds using the protein shake. CBN used his before and after pictures some twenty times on the air to promote the shake. Busch claims he was not informed his images would be used and was not compensated by Robertson for their use. So Busch filed suit. According to Busch,...

I have to say that as a teacher, it is from time to time really frustrating when your students don’t get it. I mean, you go over something and you explain everything, and you try to make things clear, and most of the students get it, but there’s always some who just don’t get it. So you try to explain things yet another way. You draw pictures. You do whatever you have to do, and sometimes you just exhaust your mind, and they still don’t get it. This is particularly true when you try to teach ten-year-olds about fractions and how to add them. Kids have a hard time...