On April 19, I read a commentary in the Roanoke Times by Clonnie_Yearout; Yearout (gender unknown) was arguing for Creationism and against "Darwinism". I sent the following in reply. The Times printed at least two letters (by other people) replying to Yearout, but not this one.  



FROM: John B. Hodges

(contact info)

TO: Editor, letters page

I would like this considered for a COMMENTARY or OP-ED.



Greetings-



Clonnie Yearout's commentary ("A Tale of…

I saw an article on Salon.com or perhaps AlterNet, and reading the comments I was moved to comment myself; I assembled the following out of material I already had on my blog, but in the comments I got several compliments on it, so perhaps this is a happy combination of elements. -JBH

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Religion has its benefits and harms. One of the major harms that it does is to teach a false theory of ethics.



Religious…

I once saw a TV movie, probably a BBC production, probably a movie version of a classic novel, a period costume drama set in England in the 1800's. It had several protagonists we were supposed to care about, and lots of soap opera. One protagonist was a man around 30 years of age, a minor relative of a wealthy family who had never been successful himself. Due to a tragedy, the major members of this family had died, and the whole estate was going to be divided among the more distant…

UPGRADING OUR DEMOCRACY



In America we do democracy by dividing the territory into districts, and electing one representative from each district. We elect them by plurality, that is, by whichever candidate gets the most votes, whether or not they get an absolute majority. If there are three candidates, a candidate can win with 40% support, for example.



This is not the only way democracy can be done. Other countries, fully democratic, do it in other ways. The way we do…