How can Republicans say they are pro-life? The unborn don’t have Disney characters on their bedroom wall. They haven’t decided what they want to be when they get older. They don’t say good night to their mommy and daddy before going to sleep.
Hypocrites! Why is it you choose a weapon of war over a child’s right to grow up and live their dreams?
Gov. Abbott should be ashamed of himself! He has turned his back on the parents of Uvalde children and other cities in Texas! Power and greed are what drive this man and others like him!
Aniceto Alegria Garcia
Kingsville
Religion
dumped
America has largely dumped religion. Part of that is good, but part is bad.
The part where many or most churches have built their politicized “spiritual” bureaucracies on a foundation of theological sand is the good reason for hauling it to the dump. The “sand,” of course, is Christianity’s terribly faulty interpretation of the scripture, leading inevitably to ignorance, inequality, hypocrisy, and violence throughout much of history.
The part where America has thrown out the baby with the bathwater is the bad outcome of dumping the whole story of religion and focusing on technology and tribal politics instead.
The “good book” itself contains lost secrets that, if found, could be of great help to us today. The kingdom spoken of in the scripture actually points to intelligence, equality, integrity and peacefulness as its goal, in other words, democracy.
History repeats itself in a bad way when a democratic people give up earnest citizenship and spend most of their discretionary time playing with new toys, hating on other folks and partying. That is what democratic Rome did at the end, and that is what democratic Israel did at its end point too, when it slid into captivity in Babylon.
The Bible is not a book about religion. It is a book about social, economic and educational activity under a participatory system of government that acknowledges a humane spirit in heaven. That is the kind of society that Moses and the elders of Israel set up in the beginning. But some 400 years after Moses, the culture had lost touch with its roots and was no longer able to decipher its foundational laws and priorities.
At that critical time, an active student of law and history by the name of Isaiah spoke up. He said that Israel’s current politicians, scholars, wealthy landholders and religious leaders had all fallen into “deep sleep,” such that Moses’ writings had become unintelligible to them. Learned men could not figure them out, and unlearned men could not even read them. Isaiah taught those who were willing to listen and learn what their own ancient “scripture” actually said and meant. Israel was then able to hold on for another century and a half before finally giving up the ghost.
Today is a time when the story of the world’s democracies, like that of ancient Israel, needs to be correctly deciphered and told. Our citizens today, college graduates and high school dropouts alike, know nothing of the 400-year history of our own country, let alone the democratic histories of Israel, Athens, Rome, Holland and England. Time to learn some of that.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
