Bible classes in american schools.

I cannot resist giving my opinion every time the issue of religion arises as part of a student's basic knowledge because the first thing I wonder is whether it is okay to allow a government to find its ideological option in the public school, which is that of all, and a text as important to Judeo-Christianity as the Bible from its place of study in synagogues and churches is moved to the school bench.


It does not seem a very democratic action to introduce a determined faith in public schools when they are centers created for knowledge and reasoning. We will have to abandon once and for all the era of superstition and move towards rationality and science because democracy supports freedom of worship, understood as a personal, individual option, and points to a state forced to provide us with the best training as citizens of the world. Religion in school, whether public or private, must be optional and if it is implemented as part of the list of teaching subjects, it should not teach a particular belief and discard others, but expand our cultural horizons by showing us the development of religions.


A believer does not need reason to validate his faith and that will have to be respected because reason has never been enough to refute the existence of God. A Hill-Harris X survey of the United States found that 16 percent of respondents believe that states should require schools to offer history classes, to teach about major religions, not just Christianity and the Bible, and a 17 percent believe they should include atheism in this.


Until last May, according to Gospel Coalition, the Bible classes were legally recognized in seven states of the Union. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says that "Congress may not pass any laws regarding the establishment of religion, nor prohibit the free practice of it." This is what is taken as consecration of the separation of the Church and the State, but it seems to me open to nuances, as those flexible states have shown, that have embraced the very founding root of the nation. History shows us that the first settlers arrived pushed by religious reasons to the coasts of North America.


The trend would be unimportant if President Donald Trump had not tweeted his approval in the promotion of such initiatives, which for the American Union for Civil Liberties and the organization of Americans United for Church Separation- State, transmit a message of religious preference, which would go against the First Amendment. And I believe it because what would be the point of introducing these classes?


They are very simplistic who see in these actions a neutral interest and an aseptic vision, especially because it has been reported that in Kentucky it is proposed to do everything possible to establish close relationships with other Christians, so that they can help each other in difficult times, which It is very close to the closed concept of a sectarian point of view. Others are invited to combat stress with biblical epistles and apply the virtues of the Book of Proverbs to the present, as well as memorize Bible verses, watch religious movies or study dinosaurs from the perspective of the holy book. If it weren't because there was written record, I would laugh and see it as a joke in bad taste.


How to know that the seventy-six books of the Bible are the only writings that should have been included in Scripture? Especially after discoveries such as those of the Qumram or Nag Hammadi. What happens to the apocrypha or the Gnostic gospels? Why should they be excluded? The answer lies in the canonicity word for the measuring stick in Hebrew and Greek languages. But knowing this does not give us more knowledge to answer the previous questions.


Bible, as we know it, was compiled in the third century before our era by 70 wise Jews to contribute to the Alexandria Library a concentrated history of the Jewish people, which we identify as the Old Testament. The work, translated from Aramaic to Hebrew and then into Greek, resulted in the Alexandrian or Seventy (Septuagint) Bible, the basis of the current Christian text. But those originals disappeared in looting and fire and although they were rewritten by battalions of scribes they suffered a doctrinal and voluntary correction by the copyists.

So the bills passed in some American states and those presented without such luck have confessed the inexplicable purpose of focusing "on the historical impact and literary style of the Old and New Testaments, to teach students knowledge of the content biblical ... as prerequisites for understanding contemporary society. " There is no such historical impact nor literary style, there is no real understanding even of Judeo-Christian history, which is not the only one in the world.

All of the above is based on the Blitz Project, launched in 2015 by the Congressional Prayer Caucus, which seeks to "protect the free exercise of traditional Judeo-Christian religious values ​​and beliefs in the public square." Such values ​​and beliefs are protected by the Constitution, another thing is that we want to hammer them in the minds of those who are not so traditional.

Several studies have shown that those children and young people educated solely in the values ​​of the Bible, a book for nothing reliable, remain without alternatives to a modern world, so the controversy on how to fit the teaching of religion or how to focus it on a system Public education leaves us in these cases before a private institution such as the Catholic Church imposing content in the public school, which only benefits her.

Secularity in the school guarantees coexistence, all are welcomed without privileges or discrimination from one another, preserving freedom of conscience and neutrality of the state in the religious question. Religion already has a place in civil society. DO NOT forget that the right space to profess our faith are the places designated for it as churches, synagogues, and other temples, NOT the school, because their purpose is not to instill dogmas or proselytize, whether religious or political, because many of such contents contradict reason, science and human rights themselves, such as the fact that Eva was born no less than from Adam's rib or the magical origin of the universe or in other cases, to say that the ideas of a philosopher are capable of creating a system of government and economic.

The public school must educate in universal humanistic values, in the plurality and respect for the rights of others and in ethical values, alien to sexism and close to the concept of democracy, where comfortable believers and non-believers feel comfortable.

NEW STRATEGIES, NEW NUCLEAR HAZARDS.

The resignation by the United States and Russia to extend their respective responsibilities in the INF Treaty, signed in 1987, redifine a new strategy in the regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in a global world, within a multipolar movement.

The acronym in English for the Treaty of Nuclear Forces of Intermediate Reach, negotiated in the middle of the Cold War by presidents Ronald Reagan and Michail Gorbachev, not only meant the elimination of one type of weapons, but also opened the way for its control. When the key document expires today, an important global security instrument falls, to which the leaders concerned had to study and appreciate more.


Reading the content of the Treaty, that was a milestone in the Blocking process between blocks, we can get an idea of ​​the amount of opportunities lost by both parties to cut much more the nuclear arsenal, in the resolution of regional conflicts and in having ended much earlier with the Cold War.


To propose for the first time a reduction of armaments, instead of marking a roof, led to the destruction of almost 2,700 missiles of short, medium and intermediate range. All ground, nuclear and non-nuclear missiles were eliminated, with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers.


By eliminating missiles essentially based in Europe, the treaty lessened the threat of nuclear war on the continent and cleared the way for the negotiation of tactical and chemical nuclear weapons, as well as that of conventional European forces.

Russia and the United States have certified the death of the treaty last Friday accusing each other of violating it. The White House talks about Moscow's refusal to destroy a 1,700-kilogram, eight-meter-long cruise missile known as Novator 9M729 (SSC-8, according to NATO classification) and that Washington alleges it violates the treaty by exceeding 500 kilometers range.


Russia considered this requirement inadmissible and at a press conference the defense minister claimed that the missile was within the range specified in the treaty because it only had a range of 480 kilometers.


The Kremlin on the other hand has assured that Washington has repeatedly violated the treaty with the placement of interceptive missiles within the framework of the missile shield. Other violations would include the manufacture of drones or drones with weapons and Mark-41 systems to launch medium-range cruise missiles, which the United States wants to deploy in Poland and Romania.
The Russian Defense Minister has said that Moscow is willing to take unprecedented transparency measures, above its obligations in the INF, but its attempts and proposals have been torpedoed in recent months by US negotiators who continue to launch the ultimatum on the Novator He warned that the decision to leave the treaty puts START-3 at risk, which limits the offensive strategic armament and expires in 2021, and whose negotiations remain stagnant.

American diplomacy has placed the emphasis on what President Donald Trump really pursues with his withdrawal from the agreement; "to start a new chapter in search of a new era of arms control" beyond bilateral treaties and that favors the participation of other powers, read, China.


The question would be in this new strategy if the United States has the ability to counteract a coup from China. The answer is No. Nor from Russia.
Two years ago, before the Senate, the former head of the Pacific Command of the United States Armed Forces, Harry Harris said that China has "the largest and most diverse missile force in the world, with an inventory of more than 2000 ballistic missiles and of cruise. " This is a country that is not part of any disarmament treaty.


Russia is the country with the largest reserve of nuclear weapons among these the most powerful bomb, the SS-18 "Satan" heavy intercontinental ballistic missile. Experts estimate that it has 55 of the deadliest weapons, but only five would be necessary to destroy the east coast of the United States in case of confrontation. I just hope that Americans know all this.
Trump contemplates the agreements signed during the Cold War and START-3 as reflections of a non-existent bipolar world, wants a new focus on strategic stability on new principles, as has been his policy since his arrival at the White House, demonstrating substantial progress and No step by step. But a new approach would require a high level of trust that does not exist, neither with Russia nor with China.

"We will give a symmetrical response. Our American partners denounced their participation in the treaty and we will do the same," said President Vladimir Putin, meeting with his foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov, and Defense, Sergei Shoigú.


The Russians denounced that the United States began to prepare the ground to leave the INF two years ago when they began the work of manufacturing short and medium range missiles in one of its military plants in Arizona, managed by the Raythone Foundation.


A satellite image shown at a press conference in Moscow shows the plant where, according to its version, it increased its perimeter by 44% and its staff by 2,000 people.


The United States Congress allocated $ 58 million to Defense in November 2017 clearly intended for the "development of a medium-range land missile," which confirms, according to Moscow, its allegations.


Russia and the US-led West are currently experiencing much greater tensions than in the Cold War and this unstoppable movement seems to have begun when Moscow interfered in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and Crimea was annexed. This had a major escalation after the war in Syria, where rebel groups, supported by the United States and Arab allies, seek to exterminate the government of Damascus, backed by Russia.

Washington warned that on February 2, the INF withdrawal process would begin, which will be completed in six months. From that moment on, it would be free to position missile systems in Europe and Russia would do the same in its bordering territories with the European Union or other geographical areas. One of the two leaders signing the agreement, Gorbachev, has warned that after this will come chaos.