I wonder if religion can be replaced. Can just anything “fill the hole in the heart” that religion once did and still does for some of us. While many human activities have value, nothing, in my opinion, can take the place of religion.
The U.S. has fallen woefully short of providing an ecology of care for those most in need. And I have fallen short of creating an ecology of care for my loved ones, including the one who took their own life. What more might have I done to support this person, to assure this person that their life was a gift of great value?
Spokanites (or is it Spokanians?) might not be aware where the dangerous stench is coming from. It arises out of “the cesspool of liberalism” about ninety miles south-south-east of them. This is what Dan Foreman, a newly elected Idaho State Senator, once called “Latah County, particularly the university, [and the] greater Moscow area” (Moscow-Pullman Daily News April 25, 2018). Now he will soon represent this “cesspool” in which I swim.