To the Editor:
It sounds like the only people qualified to be politicians better be self-contained and self-sustaining spiritually; or leave their souls at the doorway; or keep their lifestyles to themselves. (Unless they’re progressive liberals.)
Do you really want to really separate Church and State? Then start with the Golden Rule. Throw that out; no polite discourse or civility needed. Why use religious texts that suggest treating others as you would want yourself treated when we have those civilizing influences by pagan Greeks?
What direction the government obtains can only come from citizens that have a sense of direction themselves. When there is no vision among the people, then by default, the strong and ruthless take the reins and call the tune.
Furthermore, how can moral imperatives be implied as the backbone for telling people what they should do, if there is no moral source? If you say that it is within you, then that’s no better odds of getting it “correct” than winning the lottery; because from the same source comes tyrants, serial killers, and your obnoxious neighbor.
The Hebrews have given us our moral categories, the Greeks our philosophical categories, and the Romans our legal categories; but it takes all three in agreement for why we call one thing good, and another evil.
I suggest getting rid of prayer in the public venue is the quickest way to remove one leg of that three-legged stool, and it’s our society that will fall over without it.
It must really grate to hear all the news stories of the tornado damage tied in with people praying, and no doubt in public. I wonder if their editorial pages in what remains of their town’s newspapers will be filled with the sort of enlightened chastisement offered in ours.
Michael Bourland, Newcastle
