As a loyal reader of the Alligator, I applaud their efforts to feature a columnist with a different viewpoint. However, was Erik Skipper the best they could find?
He could not be more out of touch with today’s society. How do I know that he’s out of touch? Because in all of his other columns he quotes Fox News as the source for his arguments.
I don’t know Skipper personally, but I’m assuming he still thinks Earth is 8,000 years old.
Skipper cries about “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance becoming under assault. He is probably unaware that the term wasn’t put in the pledge until 1954, just as “in God we trust” wasn’t put on dollar bills until 1957.
How the country went on for more than 175 years before that is a mystery.
Perhaps it was the slaves that helped build this country, not God. Just as praying was a part of history, so was slavery. While I’m all in favor of forcing Patric Young to stay here another year, I think it’s a good thing we no longer have slavery, and he’s allowed to enter the NBA draft if he so chooses. Skipper and the rest of the Tea Party needs to wake up and realize that times are changing for the better.
I hate the argument that God leads to more morality.
Just because a person doesn’t believe in God or doesn’t pray in public doesn’t mean they don’t believe in doing the right thing. And if someone wants to worship environmentalism, then let him or her. At least they can say without a doubt that the Earth actually exists.
Skipper says there should be God in schools, but he would probably feel differently if someone did a prayer in Hebrew or Arabic. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him standing alongside the people in my hometown of Tampa who protested when the Council on American-Islamic Relations wanted to speak at a local school. As for classrooms, they won’t discuss scripture because they’re too busy discussing something that matters: science.
Little Erik has the right to believe the second human on planet Earth was created from the first’s rib bone, but in a secular environment where real learning and reasoning is encouraged, we teach something that has substance: evolution.
No one is stopping anyone from worshipping God, just like no one is going to stop Skipper from becoming a crazy Turlington preacher in 20 years.
The great thing about this country is you’re allowed to believe in what you want. People don’t think those people with signs by Turlington are crazy for what they believe in (well, maybe a little bit), but mainly because of the way they try to force it down other people’s throats.
