Customer Reviews

America: To Pray or Not to Pray

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

All I needed to finally stop reading this book was to get to the charts inside in which the author explains a wide variety of social phenomena, such as falling SAT scores, increasing STD's, increasing single mother households, etc. as apparently caused by the 1962 decision to remove prayer from school. It is clear anyone who claims this book uses data can not grasp the most basic of faulty assumptions - that is, causation vs. correlation. By the logic presented here, someone could just as easily conclude that the actual period where the most drastic changes started to occur was in the early 1970's, which was when the Religious Right started to slowly dominate politics in the United States. Being that the Religious Republican Right generally are not considered with poverty, finding this CORRELATION in the data comes as no surprise at all. To call this book pseudo-science would be an insult to the field of pseudo-science.

This is an excellent account of historical fact. The repercusions of our actions, or inaction, leaves a distaste in the pit of our stomach. The social reality of where our country was before the 9/11 attacks has been laid out in a way that only those who refuse to see reality can argue against Barton's research. The writer from Ohio who was embarrased to reveal his name is one such person. I hope that you will disregard his adolescent ranting and name-calling because this book is excellent!

This book shows in clear chart form what has happened to our society since prayer was taken out of public schools in 1962. 40 charts clearly show the degredation of morals, the increase in violence, the increase in disease, and the drop in performance on standardized tests since 1962. What is interesting is that almost all these indicators of civilized life were pretty much constant until 1962. If you are interested in helping to bring this country back to sanity, be sure to get this book to share with your friends and neighbors.

I enjoyed reading "To Pray of Not to Pray" because I enjoy non-fiction reading. It disturbed me the fact that since prayer was taken out of public schools, the country's school system has been going down ever since.

I do not have any children of my own, but I do have nieces and nephews who are in the school system. Since reading this book, I will encourage my brothers and sisters to pray with their children before they leave for school.

Prayer in schools may never return, but I know that if parents pray with their children at home that the guardian angels will be with them on their way to school, in school, and on their way home from school.

My prayer is that many people will read this book and learn why our schools are in the shape they are in.

David Barton has become one of the guiding lights of the Religious Right, apparently because he's willing to twist history and make up quotes to support his narrow agenda that America is a "christian nation."

God apparently told him to self-publish "America: To Pray or Not to Pray" in the late 80s, where he tried to conflate the ending of prayer in schools with dropping SAT scores. It's statistical nonsense, with him comparing unrelated data, often measured under different yardsticks, and trying to claim that they prove his theory, while they simply show his blatant hypocrisy in lying with statistics.

(If you'd like to lie using statistics, the best work on this subject goes back to the early 50's, and is even called "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. It's short, it's readable, and it contains easy-to-understand explanations of all the tricks that Mr Barton is so fond of using.)

Whether a result of divine intervention or merely coincidence, the statistics from before and after the 1962 court decision speak for themselves. This book opened my eyes to data from before my birth that helped put things in perspective. I liked it. It was easy to read and understand. It's one I'll keep in my library and I'm sure you'll want to as well. Read the book and make your own decision. Too many people use these reviews as thier own personal soapboxes.

Barton is a proven (and admitted) liar in dealing with quotes of the founding fathers, now he had found it necessary to lie about prayer in schools. One of the most popular lies of the religious right is that it is against the law for students to pray in school. Of course, this is silly and has never been the case--anyone can pray in any school at any time. Barton and people like him want simply to force their narrow religious views on captive schoolchildren. Doesn't seem very christian to me.