Answering a Fool According to His Folly

“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24).

Where does religion belong? According to one who wrote a letter to the editor (published on September 26, 2013 in the Orlando Sentinel), religion belongs “in churches, mosques, and synagogues,” by which he means that it should be confined to buildings. Obviously, that approach is not working with Muslim terrorists, but it is unrealistic for anyone else, either. The writer of that letter was Walter Kelly—not to be confused with the cartoonist, Walter Kelly, Jr. (1913-1973), who entertained Americans for years with his Pogo comic strip.

There is nothing humorous about the Walter Kelly who lives in Casselberry, who is tired of people blaming the decline of America on the lack of emphasis in society on God. He writes:

When I look at the religions of the world, I see Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews, who are all God-licensed to slaughter the other and they do (A14).

One can only wonder what he is looking at, but Christians are not licensed by God in the New Testaments to slaughter anyone. Even a cursory reading of it would make that point clear, but then it is evident that reading the Scriptures is not Kelly’s strong suit.

He then goes on to allege that putting “gods” in schools would not benefit children in any way; for that reason they need to be kept within buildings. He adds that warring religions are like “schoolchildren arguing over whose imaginary friend is greater.” His grade school conversations must have been interesting; did all the students have an imaginary “friend”? That would be extraordinary, if true.

Kelly’s editorial closes with a brief comment about keeping religion out of government, also. It may be that the paper edited out his reasons since it has no supporting elements to it and serves as an odd conclusion.

It was tempting to respond to each one of his main points by pointing out how false they were and how much they contradicted reality, but the newspaper would probably not be interested in publishing the facts on these matters. So, the approach taken was to follow Solomon’s advice: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes” (Pr. 26:5). Thus, the following rebuttal was sent to the Orlando Sentinel the next day after Kelly’s letter was published. The newspaper sent confirmation that they had received it the same day, but to date they have not published it, which is strange. Why did they print his letter if they did not expect responses? At any rate, the approach is to expose absurdity by being absurd.

Walter Kelly of Casselberry is right. The fact that respect for God in America is at an all-time low has nothing to do with society’s increasing problems. It’s only religious people who slaughter others in the name of God. At least Hitler was trying to create a super-race, and Stalin did his purges in the name of godless Communism, which is a much better rationale.

Yes, keep gods out of the schools. Any fool can see how much better they are these days since prayer and Bible study were removed fifty years ago. They’ve been replaced by metal detectors and security police, which is far more practical. Why would, “Love your neighbor,” or the Golden Rule help anyone? It’s far better to keep religion bottled up in a building where nobody can see the light or be affected by the salt.

Religion certainly has no place in government; give me a ruthless dictator any day of the week, who has no scruples and disregards the fallacy of the importance of human life. Let’s create a country that ranks with third-world nations—one we can be proud of.