Thinking requires both knowledge and effort. If you are mentally lazy, this category of essays most likely will not interest you, so I bid you adieu. For the rest, I respectfully offer these essays on some currently polarizing topics for you to consider when forming your own opinions.

What the world needs now more than ever is reason, not ideological dogma. Thomas Paine’s words, “…these are the times that try men’s souls¹,” apply to today’s world as they did in his and, in my opinion, more so.

Thomas Paine?

Without Paine, we might still be under British rule. After all, he isn’t a Father of the American Revolution for nothing. Although…When some popular cable TV and radio hosts idolize our Founding Fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, et al—Thomas Paine is conspicuously absent. Why?

Because some of his social, religious, and political views conflict with those of the entertainers.

In today’s politics. Paine undoubtedly would be labeled a socialist, communist, and atheist by conservative talk show hosts—if mentioned at all—and the Tea Party Movement. Of course, he was none of these.

Paine believed in one God and believed God created the universe. But Paine considered all established religions inventions of man. Belief in God, the last time I checked, does not make one an atheist. Paine was against slavery, which, of course upset planters and others who profited by free labor. And Paine supported the “absurd” notion of a social security system for the poor and elderly. But I digress.

Reason

Back to the subject of reason. In my opinion, there is so much resentment, intolerance, and conflict in the world because so many rely on someone else to tell them:

• What to think
• What to believe
• Who to like
• Who to hate
• How to behave

Some depend on others for many reasons; sometimes because they lack the information needed to form their own opinions. The scientific information that you will find in the following essays will, I hope, assist you form your own.

The Texas Textbook Massacre

The recent Texas textbook dustup, I believe, was another in a long series of political battles in a never-ending culture war fought by ideologues to control what children learn. The ideologues know that children form their earliest opinions based on what they “learn” in school. How about your children? Want them to be educated or brain-washed? How will you know the difference?

Read and think for yourself!

¹The American Crisis No. 1, Thomas Paine. Phildelphia, Pennsylvania. December 23, 1776