Currently featured at harpers.org is a an aptly humble assessment of religion in The United States, by a scholar and genuine Christian named Bill McKibben, titled "The Christian Paradox". Were it within my control, this would be required reading for all high school students, everyone desiring to vote, anyone seeking a driver's license, or a marriage license, all new parents, pretty much everybody. It is a reflection that all who like to wear their "faith" on their sleeves, for purposes that bear no relation to the Gospels, ought to read daily. You know who you are and I fear for you, though less than I fear the spiritual ruin you cause by your ways.

Like McKibben, I was raised in a small town and attended Sunday School and church, 48 out of 52 Sundays, I'd guess. Since graduating from college 24 years ago, I have probably made it to under 48 worship services. That is about to change, for reasons I am unable to explain. I think I have found an Episcopal Parish that follows the admonitions of Jesus having to do with loving one's neighbors, and shows no sign of having time for the Babbbitish and self-centered faith mixture that prevails in our "religious" culture.

I've said enough because my aim here is to recommend this article, not polemic. Mr. McKibben has loved his neighbors, alll of us, by reminding us of the central role that Commandment played in the acts of Jesus. I am trying to so my small part by passing his thoughts along.

After decades, I find that I still retain the skill that I developed in elementary school of being able say the entire pledge in under 5 seconds on a single breath. Needless to say, not much thought went into that incantation.

The notion of asking children, who are much too young to make any kind of legal binding contract, to make a "pledge" is somewhat ridiculous, and tends to undermine the meaning of the pledge. I think that the pledge should be introduced (without the divisive "under God" amendment) at a later age, when young people are old enough to understand its meaning and significance.

Trust me, WASPs wouldn't have considered these groups "white" in the 19th and early 20th centuries!

"Sarcasm"...look it up...

This would be comic--like Chekhov on the old Star Trek series insisting that the Russians invented everything--if it were not so pathetic. Legal systems and legal precedent have a long, documented history predating the 10 Commandments. Do you seriously imagine that the Egyptian empire had no notion of laws before the Jewish Exodus?

Certainly, the fathers of our country were not so ignorant of history when they wrote the Constitution, which laid out our legal system without a single mention of God, much less the 10 Commandments.

Russians and Italians and Irish are non-white? The hate is screwing up your brain.

From the Boston Herald... The Pledge of Allegiance was shot down by a federal judge in California yesterday, potentially setting...

More generally, all imposed religion is bad religion.

As immigration anxiety reached a crescendo in the 1920s, the pledge was amended to include "flag of the United States of America" to ensure that all of those non-white, non-Protestant immigrants were actually and truly pledging allegiance to the ONE TRUE FLAG, and not secretly thinking of the flag of their homeland when reciting the pledge.