Over the past few years, anger issues have become a major issue in our society. Children bring guns to school to "get even" with other children that have, in reality, done little or nothing to them. Road rage has become one of the most troublesome problems on our highways today. Murder rates in this country are higher than in any other first world nation. Hate crimes have become one of the most dangerous parts of the lives of minorities. Every day, it becomes increasingly more dangerous just to walk out into a public place.
Many people, therefore, are asking themselves, what has gone wrong with our nation? The government and other groups create countless studies in an effort to discern where we went off track. Is it a consequence of our enhanced freedom? Is it part just a darker part of the human nature we all share? Is it a facet of our society? Of all these questions, only the last one approaches in any way the answer.
What our mostly "politically correct" government and liberal thinkers such as Michael Moore, who seem to be leading the way in research in this direction, fail to realize is that the rise in hate and anger based crimes seems to have corresponded with the banishment of any form of religion from our popular culture. In recent years, it has become politically incorrect to mention the name of our God, one thing that gets our current President into a little bit of trouble with the liberal elements of our society. Recognizing that we are all on this planet "Under God" has been taken out of our countries pledge. The Ten Commandments, though they are a very straightforward representation of the basic rules of human society, have been banished from any public forum merely because they have a biblical origin. Teachers cannot even mention the name of the Father without fearing the loss of their job. God, therefore, has been banished from our lives.
We are reaping the benefits of this, and it seems we've sown poison seeds. The one major benefit of religion that any secular person would have to admit would be that a shared religion places moral guidelines on a people, and as such makes them behave better and creates a better functioning society. There is not a single religion on this earth, except of course for cults, that does not push the ideas of love and respect for human life. Any person who has ever attended any religious service would of course agree with this, unless they were skeptical from the start. If everyone had the "fear of God" on them, I would assume they would follow these simple ideas, and society would progress a lot smoother than it currently does.
There is another benefit to religion, but this one may be less obvious to those who do not believe. Without the benefit of any religious activity in their schools, public school children are then forced to do nothing but concentrate on their intellectual development, something that needs doing but is not all that needs to be done. The ugly little part of human nature that our society likes to pretend does not exist is the emotional being that every human is. Largely, this is either ignored or dealt with so poorly it has no effect at all on that child's emotional development. Children that are more emotional in public schools (the bully, the cry-baby, the rebel) are therefore shunned from most activities because they "do not behave like the other children." They are singled out to be treated badly because they are, in fact, different and are yearning for some way to vent and control the emotion inside of them. Their emotional education is lacking, and they thus lash out with a sense of reality that they can't control or understand.
A religious experience is different, however. Of course, a non-secular school will have many of the same problems, but the difference is that religion becomes a major part of that child's learning experience. Every year there are countless masses and religious retreats, there is prayer at the beginning of every class and every day as a whole school, and it is acknowledged that there is a higher power. The religious retreats though, are the most important.
If done well, a religious retreat will concentrate on the emotional development of a person. This means that, in a setting without any consequences for being themselves, a person will be encouraged to allow their true emotions to come out. Once they stop bottling it all up, it becomes a simple thing for the teacher to teach them how to manage these emotions. But, none of this would work without the help of religion. A common faith is pretty much the only thing that would allow any person to feel comfortable enough with a group of people to bare their heart to them. And even then, it's not an easy thing.
America, therefore, is today in large part ignorant. Sure, we have facts floating around in our heads, and most of us know not to use racial slurs, but we do not understand a very large part of our being: our emotional selves. Honestly, I can't find a solution to this problem other than the road of religion, and would incourage any person to see the light of Jesus Christ and know the peace He brings. I also concede that for most people, this is impossible. If our ignorance is to be lifted, we must find a way to teach our people about their emotions, and do it quickly, for everyday it gets worse, and at some point, the anger and hate in our hearts WILL go too far.
