thoughts on Easter Sunday

 

 

Today is Easter Sunday, but we are not planning to go to church, and there are also a LOT of Americans who will not be in church today either.

(Norman Rockwell published the picture above on May 16, 1959)

 According to Gallup, 31% of our population never goes to church at all. Not surprisingly, 79% of the atheists and agnostics never go to church, but that is also true of a loosely organized group called “other”. Mormons are the MOST likely to go to church.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx

The next most religious group is Protectants. 30% of them go to church on a weekly basis.         

For Catholics, weekly mass attendance is mandatory, but only 23% of them go to mass every week. 18% of Catholics NEVER go to church. Failure to attend mass is considered to be a mortal sin, but here is where it gets complicated.

What IS a mortal sin?

Catholics are not supposed to receive communion if they are in a state of mortal sin, but it you read the article below, you will realize that very few Catholics should receive communion:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2019/11/so-what-is-mortal-sin.html

Although church attendance in general has declined 12% in the last 20 years, the attendance in Catholics has seen the largest drop-off.

Among religious groups, Catholics show one of the larger drops in attendance, from 45% to 33%, while there are slightly smaller decreases among Orthodox (nine percentage points) and Hindu followers (eight points). There is also a 24-point decline for “other” religious groups, generally those not large enough to report separately as their own group or those that are difficult to categorize based on respondents’ answers.

In contrast to most religious groups, Muslim and Jewish Americans have shown slight increases in religious service attendance over the past two decades.

I should be quick to point out that I am not criticizing people who go to church on Easter, since its message or rebirth should be a comfort to all of us.

Few people, of course, know that Easter is based on a pagan holiday, which is also true of Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/04/do-you-believe-in-easter-bunny.html

I have previously written about artificial intelligence, so this morning I asked AI to paint me a picture of a family going to church on Easter, and this is what I got.

 

 

Obviously, Easter IS a special day, so feel free to celebrate it however you want. After all, He is risen!

 

 

 

The Irish storytelling tradition

 

Ever since I was in grade school, I have always enjoyed telling stories. When I was in 8^th grade, I won a prize in the Hibernian essay contest.

Although many of my relatives have “the gift of gab”, the champion story teller was my uncle Clem. Although he kept busy running his dairy farm, he found plenty of time to put down his thoughts in dozens of notebooks, and the collection in now in the possession of a few of my cousins.

I was wondering this morning exactly WHY the Irish seem to be such good storytellers, and found the article below on line:

https://oldmooresalmanac.com/irish-storytelling-tradition-a-delicate-revival/

Although I will add a few comments at the end I decided to simply copy the story nearly verbatim:

“Storytelling is a unique part of Irish culture and heritage. Rich and vivid tales of Celtic warriors and legendary battles, along with folk tales detailing the lives of ordinary people, were passed on orally for centuries. Although the seanchaí of old no longer entertain the towns and villages of Ireland, the tradition of storytelling is undergoing something of a delicate revival in Ireland.”

 

By Elaine Kavanagh

“A couple of years ago I brought my young son to a story-telling event at our local library. My curiosity about the content of the stories and their appeal to the audience was well rewarded: storyteller Niall de Burca told wonderfully tall tales and, in the spirit of the best entertainers, caught the entire audience in his spell. There were plenty of laughing children and smiling adults. It struck me that perhaps the art of storytelling is not dead. Of course, I was aware of Ireland’s rich storytelling tradition but assumed it had been relegated to the history books.

 

Not so, according to Nuala Hayes from Storytellers of Ireland, a voluntary organization which has been promoting the practice and preservation of oral storytelling since its inception in 2003. In fact, she says, the tradition has been undergoing “a delicate and organic revival” for the past twenty-five years.

Nuala compares the Irish storytelling tradition as it currently stands to “an underground stream that’s still alive and every now and then bubbles up to the surface.”  Interestingly, this revival is not just an Irish phenomenon. Storytelling has been growing again internationally since the end of the twentieth century. Nuala notes that while technology has been a great aid to its growth, this in itself didn’t spark the revival. It began before the advent of the internet.

The Revival

So, what were the sparks of this revival? According to Nuala, different generations discover storytelling as if for the first time, and she mentions the cultural revival in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century as an example. Nuala feels that storytelling fulfils a basic human need to understand our lives through stories rather than economics or facts. And, she says, perhaps at the birth of the age of technology, people began to feel a need to gather in groups and explore stories once again.

The rebirth of Irish storytelling can be traced back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. One of its pioneers was Liz Weir, an accomplished storyteller and Belfast librarian from Co. Antrim. Influenced by British librarians who had been organizing storytelling events for children during the 1970s, Liz set up a storytelling group in the Linenhall Library in Belfast in 1985.

Despite the sectarian issues in Northern Ireland at the time, the Belfast Yarnspinners brought people from both sides of the community together to tell stories and find a means of connection rather than division. With Liz’s encouragement, many in the group began to share their stories and a new community of storytellers was born.

It was the early 1990s when Nuala first became interested in the storytelling tradition. With a background in theatre, she was working along with other artists at a series of workshops in France. A group of French storytellers in the workshop next door came to her attention because they seemed to be having great craic. Every now and then, Nuala would hear one of them introduce an Irish story. This gave her pause for thought – would there be an audience for storytelling in Dublin?

A New Irish Audience

Nuala and Ellen Cranitch, a flautist and composer who now works for Lyric FM, decided to find out. They booked Mother Redcaps, a Dublin pub known for its traditional music. Four nights of music and stories were organized, to take place in November 1991. Eamon Kelly, John Campbell, Len Graham, Matt Cranitch, Máire Breatnach and Frank Harte were among the many storytellers, singers and musicians who took part.

The event was a very well received. Each night, a packed house chatted during the musical pieces but listened with great interest to the stories. The event’s biggest achievement, according to Nuala, was that it “shook up an audience” for storytelling in Dublin. Scéalta Shamhna, as it became known, grew over a ten-year period into a month-long celebration of storytelling in venues throughout Dublin.

Gradually, yarnspinning groups began to establish themselves around the country – north and south of the border – with the help and encouragement of Liz Weir. Nuala began to explore the old legends and started storytelling herself. She especially liked the less well-known stories, the ones we didn’t learn in school. Nuala thinks we’re very fortunate that the Irish monks recorded a wealth of stories which might otherwise have been lost. This means we have a rich store of stories to draw from. Not only that, we also have a unique tradition because Irish stories tend not to be moralistic, but rather to veer into the subversive with fantastic leaps of imagination.

Storytelling Festivals

In 1994 the first Cape Clear International Storytelling Festival was held, and it has grown slowly and organically into one of the most renowned storytelling festivals in the world. Each year at the end of August, a program of international and homegrown storytellers gather on the island off the coast of West Cork to entertain festival goers. There are also workshops, story swapping sessions, storytelling boat trips and folklore walks.

 

In fact, there are now a wealth of storytelling festivals and events taking place around the country. There’s a good chance you’ll find one close to your corner of Ireland at some point during the year. There’s the Sneem Storytelling Festival in Kerry, the Glens Storytelling Festival in Antrim and the Slieve Bloom storytelling festival in Tipperary to name a few. In Bray, Co Wicklow, the Yarn Storytelling Festival takes place for a week each November. The intention with the Bray festival is to get storytelling out of the arts center and into community. With that in mind, it includes lots of storytelling and musical events at various locations in the town, with all ages catered for.

There are also many one-off events and storytelling groups. You can find details of the festivals, events and local groups on the Storytellers of Ireland’s website. You’ll also find a directory of storytellers available for bookings, as well as interviews and articles related to storytelling. Storytellers of Ireland is not just for storytellers, it is open to anyone interested in the art of telling stories. If you’re interested in storytelling they want to hear from you.

Tell Your Own Story

So it seems clear that the art of storytelling is within our reach once more. I asked Nuala how we can bring it into our lives. Her advice was simple – start telling stories! She suggests that parents tell stories to their children, or that community groups organize dedicated times to share stories orally.

Alternatively, you can look up the Storytellers of Ireland and find a local group near you. You can even listen to storytellers online – the marvelous Eamon Kelly, for instance can be found on YouTube. According to Nuala listening doesn’t have quite the same magic as the real thing. That said, it could be a good starting point.

Nuala’s passion for storytelling is inspiring. I’m left with the impression that the Irish storytelling tradition owes a lot both to herself and the community of people who have kept this underground stream bubbling for the past twenty-five years.

To finish, I ask Nuala about her hopes for the future of storytelling in Ireland. To answer my question, Nuala explains that many storytellers have collected a wealth of documents, videos and other materials. In addition, the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin houses many records relating to the oral tradition. Nuala would love to see the establishment of an all-Ireland center where all these materials can reside. Perhaps it could act as a place where the stories of our past guide our future.”

To the story above, I’ll add a few comments of my own>

The first is that I actually HAVE kissed the blarney stone, which I did on a family trip to the Emerald Isle in 1999.

A few years after that, I was promoted and transferred to Wisconsin. Since I was now a new manager, I thought it would be wise to join a Toastmasters club, and I continued to participate for  nearly 25 years. I competed in LOT of speech contests, and won my share of trophies and awards, and the experience of participating has been beneficial in more ways than I can count.

The next step in the process happened when I sold a Nissan Armada to a young woman in Evanston in 2009. Although she made a living as a parole officer, she also published stories online on her blog:

https://houseonahillorg.blogspot.com/

She added a few stories of mine to her blog, but quickly decided to start a blog of my own, which I did in 2009.Since the first article was published, I have added nearly 700 more, and I actually got a check from Google a few years back.

I’m too old to make a return trip to Ireland, but I try to keep the tradition alive by putting down a few thoughts whenever an idea pops into my head. I’ll send the latest story to a few of my relatives, and I generally post them on Facebook as well.

If he were still alive, I’m pretty sure that uncle Clem would approve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

why being different is a good thing

 

DEI is an abbreviation for “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, and it is not welcomed by today’s conservatives. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill in the spring of 2023 that banned “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives in public colleges.

 

This effort is part of DeSantis' larger work to crack down on what he calls "woke indoctrination" in schools. In the last two years, state education officials have rejected dozens of mathematics and social studies textbooks for students in K-12 schools.

 

Texas has been working on a similar bill banning DEI programs in its own state university system.

 

DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott would be horrified at the educational system in Arizona.

Only one of the high schools in the Tucson school district is more than 50% white. Three of them are more than 80% Hispanic. Catalina high school has a student population that has more than 20 different first languages, and many of them are from Africa.

Our grandson is the ONLY Caucasian in his kindergarten class – and his maternal grandmother was born in Mexico.

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176210007/florida-ron-desantis-dei-ban-diversity

If you went back in time, you will discover that our Founding Fathers were very much in favor of having from different backgrounds living here, which is why our country’s unofficial motto has long been “E pluribus unum”.

E pluribus unum  "Out of many, one (also translated as "One out of many" or "One from many" – is a traditional motto of the United States, appearing on the Great Seal along with Annuit cœptis (Latin for "he approves the undertaking [lit. 'things undertaken']") and Novus ordo seclorum (Latin for "New order of the ages") which appear on the reverse of the Great Seal; its inclusion on the seal was suggested by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere and approved in an act of the Congress of the Confederation in 1782.

The first word of E pluribus unum is actually an abbreviation of the Latin preposition ex, meaning "out of." While its status as national motto was for many years unofficial, E pluribus unum was still considered the de facto motto of the United States from its early history. Eventually, the U.S. Congress passed an act in 1956 (H. J. Resolution 396), adopting "In God We Trust" as the official motto.

That the phrase "E pluribus unum" has thirteen letters makes its use symbolic of the original Thirteen Colonies which rebelled against the rule of the Kingdom of Great Britain and became the first thirteen states, represented today as the thirteen stripes on the American flag.

 

In the 1950’s, the United States was in the middle of a cold war with Russia. America during the McCarthy era of 1950 to 1954 was terrified of all those “Godless commies”, which resulted in the Hollywood black list and many ruined lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum

Since “In God we trust” was on U.S. currency as early as 1864, making the phrase our official motto make sense. The phrase was added to the national anthem in 1954.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/in-god-we-trust

America has long been considered to be a “melting pot”, which is exactly why our country has been successful. Almost from its beginning, though, people of differing backgrounds have not always been welcomed here.

 

Columnist E.J. Montini posted a column about diversity this morning. I have printed it below in its entirety:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2024/03/18/wendy-rogers-calls-diversity-rot/73013796007/

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Most of us aren’t business analysts, but I’d guess if I were to ask you if a company like, say, Google, was successful, you’d say yes.

And if I was to ask the same thing about Nike or Apple or Dell Technologies or Intel or JP Morgan Chase Bank or TD Bank or General Mills or Home Depot or American Express or Progressive Insurance, you would say yes again.

And you’d be correct.

Now, what if I told you that one of the attributes that makes these companies what they are, one of the things about which they are most proud, was described by Republican Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers as “rot”?

It’s their diversity.

According to Forbes Magazine, the businesses listed above are among the 100 best employers in America for diversity.

Rogers apparently hates the thought of that.

She and fellow Republicans are among those supporting House Concurrent Resolution 2056, an attempt to get Arizona voters to end the pursuit of a diverse workforce within state government.

In a hearing last week, Rogers said in part that an “obsession with diversity” has “created a rot in our military and industry, in education, in aviation … .”

I’d guess that the very successful companies listed above, among many, many others, might disagree.

However, a person could argue that there is a rot in a political party in which one of its elected officials praises a white nationalist, as Rogers has done several times with Nick Fuentes.

Or when that same elected official talks of being honored by the endorsement of a notorious antisemite like Andrew Torba, which Rogers also has done.

Or when that same state senator suggests on right-wing social media that the racist who killed 10 people in a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., might have been part of a federal conspiracy, saying on the site Telegram, “Fed boy summer has started in Buffalo.”

Or when this same election-denying, conspiracy-spreading politician suggested that her political opponents should be hanged.

There are several Arizona companies mentioned in the Forbes list, as well as in a similar list published by Newsweek, which noted Arizona Public Service, Arizona State University, Honor Health and Microchip Technology.

The fact that these businesses are diverse means there are individuals working there of different ages, races, genders, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and ethnicities.

Look around. Look in the mirror.

The “rot” that Rogers vilifies and reviles is … you.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2024/03/18/wendy-rogers-calls-diversity-

 

 

 

As a general rule, states that have a more diverse population are more open-minded about things, which means they also would be considered to be “liberal”. They also are states that are better educated and less religious than other states.

In order, the states that are the most educated are Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, Vermont, and Connecticut. If you view them on the Cook Partisan Viewing Index, you’ll notice that they are all “Blue” states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Partisan_Voting_Index

https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-educated-states/31075

The states that are the least educated (starting from the bottom) are Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama. Not surprisingly, they are all “red” states. They also happen to be the most religious states, which is why Donald Trump did well in those states. In 2016, he captured 81% of the evangelical vote. Even today, there are still people in those states who think that Trump was sent by God.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/29/how-religious-is-your-state/?state=alabama

Although it’s always important to vote, all we can really do to keep our country on track is to diplomatically try to educate the people in our society are less educated. – which is not an easy task. In addition, if you become aware of pending legislation in your state that is trying to limit diversity, let your legislators know that it is not a good idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the one true religion

 

My wife and I were both baptized in the Roman Catholic church. We also got married in the Catholic church, and our children were baptized in the church when they came of age. After we moved to Illinois, both of our children made their first communion at a Catholic church in Naperville, Illinois.

We joined a newcomer’s group after we settled in Aurora, and one of our friends was the Loveless family.

Sharon and Marge hit it  off immediately, and Marge soon invited us to attend her church, an ELCA church named St. James. Their pastor was a dynamic young pastor named K.C. Hendriks, and we DID enjoy his sermons.

Although we continued to go to the local Catholic church (a new parish had started up very close to our new home) we found that the Catholic priest was boring, and we struggled to get our kids to come to church with us.

As a result, we started to go to the ELCA church on a regular basis. Eventually I wound up becoming the council president, even though I was not a Lutheran. Both of our kids made their confirmation at the church.

Somewhere along the line, K.C. Hendriks had an affair, which ended his marriage, and his association with the church. He was replaced by Roger Timm, who was a nice guy, but a little boring. In a fairly short time, he was transferred to a parish in Oak Park that had an older congregation.

He was replaced by Rob Douglas, who is a great guy. We both liked cigars, and had more than a couple of beers together. That was the parish that we attended until I moved to China, and Sharon and Kelly moved to Chicago.

After we moved to Arizona, we attended a few masses at the Catholic church in Flagstaff. Eventually, we were referred to a Baptist church (Mountain View) that was led by a dynamic pastor named Michael, who has since moved on.

Sharon and I both worked for the Flagstaff United School District. She was a teacher’s aide, and I was a substitute teacher. After spending all week working with kids, the though of traveling back into town for a one-hour service became a burden, and we stopped going to church altogether.

After we moved to Tucson in the fall of 2015, we made no effort at all of find a new church community.

The message below was posted on Messenger a few days ago:

“It takes a great deal of arrogance to live in the United States with over 200 different sects of Christianity, all with their own unique theology, yet insist that only your sect has the moral authority to speak, not only for all Christians, but for all the people in our country as well”

Tommy and Dick Smothers addressed this issue a VERY long time ago:

AllReligions | The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (youtube.com)

After I joined Toastmasters in the early 1980’s, I learned that you always need to be careful when discussing religion and politics – especially with people that you do not know well. As a result, I am NOT going to criticize anyone’s religious beliefs. At the same time, I am not going to tolerate anyone who criticizes MY religious beliefs – or lack thereof.

I am of the opinion that going to church that going to church every week does not make you a better person, and it is also true that not going to church at all does not make you a bad person.

 

After we moved to Evanston, Illinois, I discovered that there were roughly 100 places of worship in town – so I decided to visit as many of them as I could.

https://dailynorthwestern.com/2023/05/24/city/happy-birthday-evanston/how-evanston-became-the-city-of-churches/#:~:text=Evanston%20is%20home%20to%20about%20100%20places%20of,a%20steeple%20is%20usually%20visible%20in%20the%20skyline.

 

Since I worked on Friday nights, I was unable to attend either a mosque or a synagogue, but I DID manage to visit about 65 churches before I ran out of energy.

Most were OK, a few were reminiscent of a cult, and a few of them I liked well enough that I made some return trips.

We are drifting closer and closer to Christian nationalism in our country, and that is a dangerous thing.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/08/christian-nationalism.html

Religion is one of the topics that I have written about on my blog, and I have done it a lot. Like many people, our friends and relatives range from Catholics who attend the mass every week to a few people who have become atheists.

My mother-in-law was a very strict Catholic, and she would not let her daughter (my wife) go to a church that was not Catholic. For that reason, I thought you might like to hear from some “fallen away” Catholics:

 

 

The first response I got was from a couple that we have known for more than 50 years. I’ll refer to them as librarian 1 and librarian 2.

He was brought up in the Lutheran faith, and she was raised in the Catholic faith. After the military transferred overseas in the early 1970’s, they met a couple who practiced the Baha’i faith, and it was not long before they both converted to that faith.

Here are her comments:

“” As members of the Baha'i Faith, we recognize all religions as true and do not impose our beliefs on anyone.  We are happy to share the principles of the Baha'i Faith with anyone who is interested.  But we do that in the spirit of creating meaningful discussions, not in an attempt to proselytize.

 I think having a spiritual life is essential.  To me that means having a set of principles which guide your choices and actions and being of service wherever and whenever you can be.”  

 Editor’s note:

 Here are the principles of the Baha’i’ faith:

 https://bahai.com/principles.html

 • The oneness of mankind.

• Universal peace upheld by a world government.

• Independent investigation of truth.

• The common foundation of all religions.

• The essential harmony of science and religion.

• Equality of men and women.

• Elimination of prejudice of all kinds.

• Universal compulsory education.

• A spiritual solution to the economic problem.

• A universal auxiliary language.

 

The link above goes into more detail on each of these principles.

 

The first Baha’i’ temple in the world was built in Wilmette, Illinois, and it was dedicated in 1953.

 There are only nine Bahá’í houses of worship in the world.

All nine temples share certain design features, including domes and gardens. Each temple is nine-sided because Bahá’ís consider the number nine—the highest single number—a symbol of oneness, comprehensiveness and unity. In Wilmette, the temple includes nine entrances and nine verses above the doors and the alcoves. Of all the temples, the Wilmette house of worship is the oldest. It has been named a National Historic Landmark, one of the Seven Wonders of Illinois and is visited by 250,000 people a year. Aside from being called the “Temple of Light and Unity,” the 1100-seat Wilmette building is known as the “Mother Temple of the West” by Bahá’ís around the world. Today, it remains the only Bahá’í temple in the U.S.

 

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 One of our relatives eventually gravitated toward the Unitarian faith.

https://neighborhooduu.org/

Unitarianism  is a Nontrinitarian branch of Christianity. Unitarian Christians affirm the unitary nature of God as the singular and unique creator of the universe, believe that Jesus Christ was inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is the savior of humankind but he is not equal to God himself.

Unitarianism was established in order to restore "primitive Christianity before later corruptions set in" Likewise, Unitarian Christians generally reject the doctrine of original sin. The churchmanship of Unitarianism may include liberal denominations or Unitarian Christian denominations that are more conservative, with the latter being known as biblical Unitarians.

The birth of the Unitarian faith is proximate to the Radical Reformation, beginning almost simultaneously among the Protestant Polish Brethren in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the Principality of Transylvania in the mid-16th century. The first Unitarian Christian denomination known to have emerged during that time was the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, founded by the Unitarian preacher and theologian Ferenc Dávid (c. 1520–1579).

Among its adherents were a significant number of Italians who took refuge in Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, and Transylvania in order to escape from the religious persecution perpetrated against them by the Roman Catholic and Magisterial Protestant churches.

 In the 17th century, significant repression in Poland led many Unitarians to flee or be killed for their faith. From the 16th to 18th centuries, Unitarians in Britain often faced significant political persecution, including John Biddle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Theophilus Lindsey. In England, the first Unitarian Church was established in 1774 on Essex Street, London, where today's British Unitarian headquarters is still located.

As is typical of dissenters and nonconformists, Unitarianism does not constitute one single Christian denomination; rather, it refers to a collection of both existing and extinct Christian groups (whether historically related to each other or not) that share a common theological concept of the unitary nature of God.

Unitarian Christian communities and churches have developed in Central Europe (mostly Romania and Hungary), Ireland, India, Jamaica, Japan, Canada, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In British America, different schools of Unitarian theology first spread in the New England Colonies and subsequently in the Mid-Atlantic States. The first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in North America was by King's Chapel in Boston, from where James Freeman began teaching Unitarian doctrine in 1784 and was appointed rector. Later in 1785, he created a revised Unitarian Book of Common Prayer based on Lindsey's work.

 

Like the Baha’i faith, Unitarians are respectful of other religions. As example of that is the fact that the Unitarian church in Evanston hosts an inter-denominational service every year, which I attended in 2010:

 

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-with-enemy.html

 

 

70% of the people in America consider themselves to be Christian – but America is NOT a Christian nation. That fact was stated in the 1^st amendment to the Constitution.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/

The fastest growing group in America are the folks who are not affiliated with any religion, a group that includes atheists, agnostics, and “none”.

Muslims make up less than 1% of our population, but they (like Jewish people) are most likely for face religious prosecution. For what it’s worth, I am one of the few Caucasians that has actually read the Koran, which is more similar to the Bible than you might think.

The link below will allow you to read my thoughts on the book:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/08/what-vietnam-can-teach-us-about-koran.html

The main reason that freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitution is that the Founding Fathers were aware of the centuries of religious wars in Europe, and were also familiar with religious discrimination in America. One example is the Quakers:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-quakers-died.html

30% of the American population believe that the Bible is literally true.

The links below explain why that makes no sense at all:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2013/04/noahs-ark-and-othe-rfairy-tales.html

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2010/09/bible-told-me-so.html

In summary, if you are looking to find the one true religion, you’ll eventually come to the same conclusion that I did.

There isn’t one.