The Leaders In not so many years these two birds will be graduating from high school. They will have learned less than their parents did by the time they reached the same grade level. This is happening because our American system of tax supported public schools is quietly slipping away. There are many reasons for the decline. Just to mention a few, our public schools are the victims of:

• continual tinkering,
• political correctness,
• affirmative action,
• unwise federal and state regulations,
• and a changing society.

Compared to 50 years ago there are lower requirements for matriculation. The schools have been "dumbed down". We are told that compared to the rest of the world, American students have been falling behind for many years.

Meanwhile, America is changing from a producer to a consumer.

The age of industrialization is over and we are now on the cusp of something different. A person can't help but notice that certain businesses are disappearing. Companies that MAKE things lead the parade out of town.

• Machinists are replaced with robots,
• engineers are no longer in demand,
• shoe makers are gone, and
• most clothing is sewn off shore.

This list is growing as you read this. We need to be concerned about what this change is doing to our country. We should also be concerned about the impact on our public schools.

The work environment continues to reduce the demands of industry for graduates prepared for the manufacturing sector. One thing follows another. The decline of these jobs has been caused, at least in part, by competition from underdeveloped countries. Step back and look around. Be aware that entire industries are no longer making things in America. They are in China, India, Brazil or Malaysia, etc. The iron and steel business left many years ago, and the consumer electronics industry more recently. Now, just a few days ago it was announced that both of our remaining car manufacturers, Ford and General Motors, are near bankruptcy. Will the automobile industry be next?

The young men in the picture above will be entering high school with the handicap of a less than competitive education. They will not well prepared for more advanced work. When they do graduate from high school, they and many others will enter colleges and universities without the prerequisite knowledge needed to learn more. Even today the largest classes at our colleges and universities are remedial classes. They are intended to teach subjects that should have been mastered in high school. This fact alone makes it clear that our public school systems are not working very well.

So the transition from high school to colleges and universities is less than perfect.

American colleges and universities are not doing so well either. They are graduating students prepared for jobs that are no longer in demand. Our two young students are expected to have a vocational destination in mind as they progress through school. They are going to need a job someday and must learn the drill for their coming vocation. If manufacturing has gone off-shore they must prepare for something else.

Schools must re-direct their curriculum accordingly.

We already sell enough pizza and hot dogs to one another. We import, distribute and sell all kinds of products manufactured off-shore, and we hire a lot of lawyers. There are a limited number of service jobs available, and there are a number of unemployed workers on the street. The courts are jammed and the jails are full. Medicines are made only for the rich. Greed is becoming more important than integrity. Smart graduates are heading for government jobs where outstanding retirement and benefit programs are guaranteed. Starting a new business requires inflating a financial house of cards. The complaints go on and on. America is on the road to socialism and we know that, ultimately, socialism does not work. Our capitalistic system with it's requirment for individual responsibility is a much superior economic system. However, socialism is coming if we do not reverse direction and return to more freedom and less government. We need to let the free market do it's thing, and educate our young people that there really is no free lunch. The government can't employ everybody, and if it did it couldn't collect enough taxes to pay everybody's salary. It just won't work. Freedom, inventiveness, competitive markets, self reliance, ambition and hard work are still the way to resist socialism. The competitive excellence of our educational systems must provide our society the means to improve.

Let's give these two birds in the picture a fighting chance.

One skeptic to another?

Good Morning Friend. I am looking for skeptic who might help me complete my religious education. From childhood I was exposed to Christian thoughts. When I reached college age I discovered some of these were quite complicated. I then attempted to read the Bible but bogged down with the irrelevant stuff.

There were tales of huge families, strange events, bloody wars and hard-to-believe miracles. Some were interesting and some not. I began to question what was fiction and what was fact and found reasons to doubt much of what I had been taught. I accepted the concept of God but rejected a lot of the mythology that surrounds Christianity.

.....As the story goes, in the beginning there was God. He designed and created the entire universe. To accept this requires logic, not the "leap of faith" that evangelists like to talk about. It's easy to understand that what a person sees would not exist if it was not created. Thousands of years ago they understood this idea, but couldn't leave it alone. They were compelled to explain it. Time passed and the explanations became more and more elaborate. The original thoughts were (accidentally) modified as they were passed down from parents to children. Scholars, teachers and prophets added their opinions along the way.

.....Several ideas of nature's origin were well established before Jesus arrived. As a young man he preached his version, and asked people to turn from animism, idols or other gods and worship his one God. Jesus made a significant impact on what was then a very small part of the world. He never travelled far - but his preaching was persuasive and far reaching. He entrusted his followers to carry his words to the limits of the world.

.....The known world at that time was the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Most of it was governed by the Romans who resented the rising influence of Jesus and believed he and his movement were a potential threat. Finally they arrested, judged and killed him.

.....By that time Jesus was known as the "Christ", and his followers as "Christians". From the moment he died on the cross until the present time, religious scholars have been interpreting and trying to explaining his teachings. Before and after he died, scribes recorded what was the known history. It was translated and passed from one generation to another, often translated from one language to another. Fictions and facts were made written documents. Despite the uneven scholarship many of the original documents can still be read today. The Dead Sea Scrolls for example.

.....Christians and Jews collected these stories, histories, legends, and mysteries, and from them all they produced the Holy Bible. There is evidence that many many people influenced biblical information before it was assembled. The Holy Bible includes all of this and, despite the circuitous gathering of the biblical components, a large number of Christians believe it to be the actual words of God. I am not in that number.

.....My skepticism has led me to think that the religious scholars who assembled the first bible interpreted the words AS IF they were SPOKEN by God.

.....Once I got that settled in my mind, I found it easy to accept the Bible as an interpreted record of history, logic, reasoning, philosophy, morals, ethics and so forth - and the written authority for the Christian religion. The Holy Bible has come to us from antiquity and it's pages offer comfort to troubled minds. I believe the Bible conveys what God MAY have said or intended - but perhaps not the exact, literal, words.

.....Miracles are difficult for me to accept.

• Did Moses ACTUALLY come down the mountain with stone tablets etched with the "Ten Commandments"? It's makes a great story but it probably didn't happen. I suspect a craftsman chiseled the Ten Commandments at the direction of one or more prophets, and gave them to Moses.

• JESUS may have actually died on the cross, but did he actually come back to life and rise to heaven? I think not. All experience tells us that death is final, and the physical body once dead can not move by itself. In my rationalization I believe the essence or soul of Jesus may have ascended to heaven, but not the body.

• CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY tells us that every human being has a soul. It is sometimes described as the spirit of man, and it seems to be unprovable. Yet, I accept that every person has a deeply religious component (spirit), but still wonder if the idea was first conceived by a theologian to describe the superiority or the mystery of mankind? This is an unresolved question with me.

• DIVIDING THE FISH. My favorite Sunday School story. Did Jesus actually divide one small fish into enough pieces to feed the multitude? If he did it would have been a miracle. The Holy Bible is full of miracles and I question every one. In the case of the fish, I suspect that the story is a parable used to teach a Christian lesson, and no miracle at all.

• Did JESUS actually heal people that had incurable disabilities or illnesses? The Bible tells us that Jesus could cure blindness, for example, by simply laying his hands on the person. Granted, modern medicine has learned that attitude and desire can have an effect on physical ailments and infirmities. However, it is not our experience that the laying of hands on a person can cure blindness, or repair a crippled body, or make a person who has lost a limb whole again.

These questions can go on forever but I am going to end this blog right here. My skepticism is stated, and despite all of these conflicts, I believe in Jesus Christ, God, and the Holy Bible. But obviously, I am not yet ready to accept ALL of the Christian theology.

END