According to today's Wall Street Journal, the United States had its largest outbreak of measles for nine years in May of 2005. Indiana reported 34 cases in one outbreak (there were only 27 cases among all U.S. residents in 2004). Interestingly, all but one of the patients were out of the same church and 20 of these were home-schooled children. A 17-year-old girl in the church had taken a mission trip to an orphanage in Romania, had contracted the measles there, and had attended a church-wide gathering the day after she returned to the States. Most of the children who caught the measles had not been vaccinated.

The following is an excerpt from Soldiers in Training by Brother Daryl Coats.

In Bridgeport, West Virginia, the High School recently settled a case that had been brought against it by the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the ACLU. The school agreed to take down a portrait called the "Head of Christ" that had been on the wall outside the principal's office for 37 years. In the same school, one classroom had a portrait of Buddha and another had a two-foot statue of Buddha. These were not opposed and will be allowed to remain. One reason the school officials decided to surrender their rights out of court was the fact that, if they had lost, they would have had to pay the legal costs of both sides. This is established by federal law and it is one of the reasons so many schools quickly give in when they are sued. A bill to change this law passed the House in September. However, it seems unlikely that the Senate will be passing the bill anytime in the near future.

In the old days, an atheist might present his atheism as a better alternative to belief; he might even mourn the loss of meaning in life by his rejection of God but claim it to be an honest conclusion. The new atheist, as exemplified by Dr. Richard Dawkins, turns the tables against the believer. The believer is the one who is to be feared. Atheism is needed to calm the God-intoxicated wars and hatred of society (we presume not the kind of atheism purported by China's Mao or Russia's Stalin). Children need to be protected from religious parents. Dawkins calls the religious training of children a "form of child abuse." Believers need to be shunned as stupid and dangerous. We who believe need to prepare ourselves and our children for this kind of attack. It is not around the corner; it is now. Note: information taken from editorial in Friday's "Wall Street Journal."