Why is atheism the privileged philosophy worthy of taxpayer support? Why must Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish schools pay their own way, but atheist schools are supported by billions of taxpayer dollars? Are they better than the denominational schools? Have they achieved a record of excellence which is the envy of the world? The truth is that the atheist schools not only produce 30-percent academic failure but are also responsible for the moral chaos that now plagues America’s youth.
How did atheism become the privileged educational philosophy in America, the only philosophy to become the exclusive recipient of federal, state, and local taxpayer support? In a nation founded on biblical religion, in which virtually every elected President has taken an oath with his hand on the Bible, one would expect that the privileged educational philosophy would be based on our traditional Judeo-Christian religious heritage.
Atheists have a right to have their own schools. But why should they be supported by taxpayers when schools operated by religious and philosophical groups are not eligible for taxpayer support? Experience has demonstrated that schools run by religious denominations produce better-behaved students. The Ten Commandments can be read and studied in the Christian and Jewish schools but are forbidden in the atheist schools. Indeed, the atheist schools have become quite intolerant of any activities related to religion. Bible reading is forbidden. Some schools have banned the singing of Christmas carols during the Christmas season.
Why do we accept the intolerance of the atheist schools when they violate the Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech? Why do conservative parents and legislators tolerate such intolerance?
The atheist schools are the recipients of the greatest national river of taxpayer cash flow, second only to national defense. They are supported by the federal Department of Education and the departments of education of the 50 states. And they want state legislatures to mandate compulsory attendance in their schools at as early an age as possible.
But why is the philosophy of atheism given such special recognition by our government when we know that our nation’s Founding Fathers attributed the successful achievement of liberty and independence to the providential hand of God? Our Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In other words, God is the source of our rights and our freedoms — not the government. George Washington, in his inaugural address, delivered in New York City on April 30, 1789, made it clear that without God’s help there would never have been a victorious United States. In asking for God’s blessing, he said:
[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. … No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency . … These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.
George Washington, as virtually every President since, took his oath with his hand on the Bible. Yet that book is now forbidden in the atheist schools that are supported by our government. How ridiculous can things get?
The takeover of the public schools by the atheists was so gradual and unrelenting, that many Americans have no idea how it all took place. They sense that there is something wrong when the God who created America is not permitted in its government schools. It doesn’t make sense because we know that belief in the God of the Bible is at the very foundation of our nation’s being. How could judges, who ruled on these cases, not be aware of this foundation? The idea that the Ten Commandments, which are the very basis of our legal system, cannot be exhibited on public grounds boggles the mind.
The movement to de-Christianize America goes back to the last days of the 19th century, when a group of Protestant academics, who no longer believed in the religion of their fathers, placed their faith in science, psychology, evolution, and socialism. They conspired to take over the public education system in order to change America from a constitutional republic into a socialist democracy. They were determined to prove that they were right and the Bible was wrong. But the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence would be shocked to discover that in 2012, the Christian religion had been expelled from the nation’s public school system.
Of the signers, most were Congregationalists, Presbyterians, or Episcopalians. They were all believers in divine providence. Indeed, the Declaration ends with these words: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Those who have conspired to change America from its reliance on divine Providence to its reliance on socialist academics and psychologists, are traitors to the cause of American independence. They have openly declared their allegiance to the idea of world government.
In the Humanist Manifesto I, published in 1933, with such eminent signers as John Dewey, Robert Morse Lovett, and R. Lester Mondale, we read:
Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process. … Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. … Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. … Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world. … A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. … Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.
The Manifesto not only reveals the humanists’ beliefs in anti-God socialism, but also declares war against established religions, insisting that they be changed “in order to function effectively in the modern world.” Forty years later, the humanists issued Humanist Manifesto II, in which they said:
As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith. Salvationism, based on mere affirmation, still appears as harmful, diverting people with false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means of survival.
The Manifesto then insists that human beings are quite capable of solving their problems without any help from God. Traditional faiths stand in the way of progressives. No need for the Ten Commandments. They wrote:
We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological sanction. … Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses. … The controlled use of scientific methods … must be extended further in the solution of human problems. … In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. … Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire.
The Manifesto also advocates “participatory democracy,” decentralized decision-making. “People are more important than decalogues” (aka the Ten Commandments). The signers of the Manifesto also believed in universal education as a right and deplored “sexism.” They stated:
We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. … The planet earth must be considered a single ecosystem. Ecological damage, resource depletion, and excessive population growth must be checked by international concord.
In other words, the Manifestos cover just about everything that is now being taught in the atheist public schools, where their ideology reigns supreme and is totally funded by the taxpayers of America. Manifesto II was signed by Isaac Asimov, Theodore Brameld, Francis Crick, Edd Doerr, Alan F. Guttmacher, Sidney Hook, Corliss Lamont, Lester Mondale, B.F. Skinner, James Farmer, Betty Friedan, and many others, most of them academics.
In 2004, one of the signers, Antony Flew, gave up his atheism and accepted the existence of God. He had been a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that until empirical evidence of God came to light, he found no reason to believe in a Supreme Being. But in keeping with his commitment to go where the evidence led, he finally admitted that a creator God does exist. He later wrote a book, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed his Mind. Naturally, it is not recommended reading in the atheist schools.
In late 2006, Flew joined 11 other academics in urging the British government to teach Intelligent Design in the state schools. In 2007, in an interview with Benjamin Wiker, a Catholic critic of Darwinism, Flew said again that his deism was the result of his “growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe” and “my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself — which is far more complex than the physical Universe — can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.”
(To be continued)
