Enjoy Life--please

Without proper punctuation, words can be meaningless. Take these fourteen words as an example: That that is is that that is not is not that it it is. Now punctuate them, and they read: That that is, is that that is not. Is not that it? It is. The significance of fourteen unpunctuated words is not what they say, but what they don’t say. They say nothing because they are not punctuated. Life is that way. Unpunctuated, it is monotonous and meaningless. It takes exclamation points, questions marks, periods, and dashes to make life rich and relevant. Life without punctuation is like a piano with only one note, a phone book with only one number, a thermostat with only one degree, or a highway with only one sign. The question marks of life might perplex us. The commas might try our patience, and periods might stop us against our desires. But without punctuation marks, life for man would be nothing more than a monotonous succession of unbroken days.

A Common Sense Approach to Religious Freedom

Down through centuries and all over world, battle for religious freedom has been a bitter one. The United States has been no exception. Although most of those who founded this country came here seeking religious freedom, it has been a source of contention from beginning and remains so today. There are fanatics on both sides of this issue. On one side, we have those who think their religious freedom is being violated if they are not allowed to force their religion down everyone else's throat. One other side, we have those who believe it's their inalienable right to never be exposed to any element of religious life. Both extremes are wrong. Government should be neither hostile to any religion nor an enforcer of it. Instead, those who possess common sense should be capable of assenting to a happy medium. Contrary to popular belief, phrase, "separation of church and state", cannot be found in U.S. Constitution. That phrase is misleading anyway as many people interpret it as "protection of state from church." Most of our Founding Fathers frequently, and often publicly, expressed their faith in a Creator, so it should be obvious to anyone that they never intended to banish expressions of religious faith from public square. Any separation of church and state that they had in mind was to serve only four major functions: (1) allow people to freely practice religion of their choice (or no religion at all) without interference from state, (2) forbid any religion or denomination from being set up as "state church", (3) prevent state from having church do its bidding, and (4) protect church from being regulated and having its practices dictated to it by state. From these principles, I think we can derive a common sense approach to religious freedom. Our common sense approach should allow for verbal religious expression and for display of religious symbols and materials in public and government venues. Although all religions should have equal access and rights regarding those expressions and displays, majority religion would obviously have a major advantage here. But so be it. No one would be hurt or forced to practice any religion against his or her will. If anyone is offended, that's their problem. No one has a right to not be offended, although many people think they have this right. Being offended once in a while is price one has to pay for living in a free and open society. If someone has a major problem with that, they are free to leave this country any time they wish. Our common sense approach should also allow for limited amounts of prayer and religious teaching in public schools. It should not be focus of any public school, but it should be permitted and based on religion favored by majority of parents in a given school district. The majority of parents could opt for no prayer or religious teaching at all in a given school district, if they so desired. All parents would have option of not having their child (children) participate in or be present for prayer and religious teaching. Although teaching of evolution would still be mandatory, creationism could be taught as part of any religious curriculum.