and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

I happened upon an interesting post on the densities of religions in the United States today, here at the Regions of Mind blog. It's not entirely comprehensive but has quite a few maps (source of maps is Valparaiso University's American Ethnic Geography course page which has not only religious but language, culture, and socio-economic maps as well). Bottom line? I like maps.

Onwards and upwards! This first map is interesting to me, being from Maine, in that Maine (besides the County) and perhaps West Virginia seem to be the least religious states in the entire east. Oregon is pretty paltry too. Not surprisinly, the midwest loves them some church!

"religiousness"
Also, it would seem the big chunk of religiousity in south-east Florida corresponds to the heaviest concentration of Jews in the entire country except, perhaps, New York City.

jewish population by %
Another surprise - Texas isn't the worst case of death by gov'ment, at least not in so much as the number they plan to ax. Albama and Nevada have the highest number of death row inmates per capita in the country.

# of death row inmates per capita
Strangely, Maine's mid-section sticks out as a slight sore-thumb when considering the divorce rate.

% of divorced adults
Okay, so that's enough for the maps for a moment. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm an atheist and therefore am slightly bent against the religious masses - especially in this day and age of religious reinessance in which honest hard working people are choosing to believe in the alchemism of church creationism over scientific process. Whatever. What really scares me, though, is not so much this specific issue but the larger picture, a failing of the logical process, as if we're removing our limbs only to re-attach our fins and climb back into the oceans. Like reverse, um.. creationism.

Anyhow, I recently read an article from Harper's by the same John Taylor Gatto who I wrote about much much earlier - an ex-New York City teacher who worked in public schools for 30 years. He wrote a book called "The Underground History of American Education" which is available completely free online (follow link). I've only read bits and pieces and you may think him a bit of a radical but nevertheless he raises important points. I have always questioned the educational process in our culture, a quisicality which was most likely fostered by my own father (also a servant of the public schools) who often questioned our society's apptitude for treating professors as second-class citizens. This might sound ludicris but true academics, those of the higher education, are in fact less revered than successful businessmen, celebrities, and politicians. How many famous professors do you know?

Anyhow, the Harper's piece, How public education cripples our kids, and why, touches on an old H.L. Mencken quote which sums up Gatto's issues with our educational system:

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not
to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.

At this point you may be asking what any of this has to do with religion but it has everything to do with religion. Religion is in some ways, perhaps, the oldest form of institutionalized learning. What exactly is it's purpose?

Call me crazy but I believe you can just as easily substitute religion for education in Gatto's piece. What is the purpose of religion?

1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of ~~public education's~~ religion's mission

Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying it's all bad. Education has served some of us well. It is not just a giant brainwashing factory meant to zombify our citizenry and neither is religion. Nevertheless I think it's important to pay close attention to any major institution that purports to be "for the good of the people".

I don't think I have to draw the connection between red states and high religious adherancy either. This is and has been obvious. Is it any wonder that the midwest, known both for it's religion (see top map), conservatism (see next map), and low high school dropout rate (see white areas last map) is also a region of low college completion percentages?

2000 presidential election by %

high school dropout rate
Food for thought.