>On the bright side the church's numbers are diminishing quickly - people now days are just too smart to be fooled by such lunatics - which is another reason the church has no choice but to attempt to isolate it flock from the rest of the world (the real world) and try political maneuvers to prevent our teachers from teaching the children.
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>While I am not a particularly religious person, I happen to have a very dear friend who is extremely intelligent and also happens to be a devout Catholic. She seems to take a great deal of comfort from her faith. While I do not share her faith, I do not feel the need to denigrate her for it, nor does she feel the need to proselytize.
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>WRT "our teachers from teaching the children" - if you are speaking about public schools, this is a joke. There is more indoctrination that education going on in these institutions.

I agree about the indoctrination but there are other issues, too.

The obsession with sports at the high school and college levels has led to corruption at just about every level.
Just look at what goes on with the college BCS and now the NCAA.
There are hundreds of millions of dollars involved and the corruption is so pervasive at every level that no one notices it.
The high schools are the breeding grounds for the players, so the corruption feeds back into them.
Here in Hamilton, NJ, we have decaying school buildings and inadequately funded academic programs and here's what a councilman was quoted as saying about night games for high school football in today's local paper:

“That’s an outstanding idea,” Councilman Ed Gore said today when told of the proposal. “Not having home night football games is probably the biggest disadvantage our schools have. The only time the kids get to play at night is during away games.”

the biggest disadvantage our schools have??? no night football?????????