The lesson to be drawn from this would seem to be that it's good to believe in religion but you can't believe in it too much. We want to be able to say things like "America is a Christian nation," or "one nation under God," or whatever, but if you really act like God is in fact (a) in existence, (b) all-knowing and (c) all-powerful, then ooops, you've crossed some kind of line. Like you're a witness in a court case and the bailiff hands you a Bible, and the judge says, "put your hand on the Bible, Bubba, and swear to tell the truth, so help you God." You do that, you're OK. You open that book and show the man where J.C. says, "Swear not at all" and everybody thinks you're a loony-toon. Oh, and we've separated church and state, but by all means let's ask the chaplain to give an invocation so we can open this session of Congress, from which the church has been separated.

I think Luther Blisset would agree that this is all double-think.

It's not that the parents didn't learn. It's that they weren't taught.

CC