God

Jeremy Pressman, a Modern Orthodox Jew, wanted to take his basketball skill to a new level, see how he fared outside the world of Jewish private schools, so he spent his senior year at Pennsbury High School in Bucks County. Where he rode the bench, 13th man on a 12-man team. Because he observes the Sabbath, Jeremy couldn't practice on Saturdays or play games on Friday nights. His coach told him, quite understandably, "How can I play you when others are practicing more and you aren't even coming to half the games?"

Let me commend you for reporting that "the Eastern PA Organizing Project, a faith-based and community group... " rebuked the School District of Philadelphia. Faith groups can and should rebuke secular organizations, for faith groups are better at changing lives than secular organizations. We are accountable to the God who made us, whereas secular organizations leave out God all together. The only hope for improving the educational system in America is impacting the Word of God upon it. Thomas Muldoon, Philadelphia

I was dismayed to read about the Boothwyn couple who claim the word "God" appeared to them on a slice of eggplant. An atheist, even I am insulted by this level of disrespect. If God really wants to appear miraculously, let's see him appear on my cell phone after I have used up all my minutes. If Verizon does not charge me an arm and a leg for the overtime call, that would be a miracle! Michael McGonigle Philadelphia

9 tonight CHANNEL 12 The series looks at the historical role religion has played in the public life of the U.S. First, "A New Adam," explores the origins of our unique religious landscape. Hour two, "A New Eden," considers the beginnings of our nation's experiment in religious liberty.

I JUST RETURNED from Crawford, Texas, where I was invited by Cindy Sheehan to participate in an interfaith service. As I was driving toward the large tent that has become the heart of the antiwar movement in this country, just a few feet from the entrance to George Bush's ranch retreat to lead prayers for peace and the souls of those of our children who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, I passed a group of pro-Bush, pro-war demonstrators....

REGARDING Jack Phillippe's Dec. 19 letter mistakenly insinuating that God is mentioned in the Constitution: The phrase, " . . . that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator . . . " is contained in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. But how does Jack feel seeing that the Declaration of Independence trumps his Bible in the values department in that slavery is acceptable? Or maybe I read that in another work of fiction. Bill Paci, Philadelphia Dollar Education Re: Willard Elementary school stories.

On the day that the news pages and broadcast airwaves were filled with the story of Jessica Dubroff, the 7-year-old pilot who died in a plane crash in Wyoming during a cross-country trip, another little girl, Christina Hunter-Shaw, 8, was being eulogized here. She had been killed in an auto accident earlier that week near her West Philadelphia home - a story that got much less media attention. But to those who knew her - her family, her neighbors and her teachers and classmates at Daroff Elementary School - Christina was more than just a faceless name in the news.

RE THE letter from Kevin Flanagan titled "Abortion: Maybe It's God's Will": I can most assuredly tell you from reading the Bible that it is not God's will that people who call themselves doctors kill innocent human beings. God has no penchant for destruction. If anyone deserves destruction it is not innocent unborn human beings - it is Americans who have allowed abortion to continue in this nation for more than 30 years. We have innocent blood on our hands. Maybe it's the U.S. who is next to be disciplined.

WHEN Darby Borough cops found what they said were more than 200 marijuana plants inside Daniel Thomas' rowhouse Tuesday morning, he told them that he was an out-of-work horticulturalist. Technically, that's accurate, police say — if by "out of work" Thomas meant that his massive pot-growing operation featured an automated lighting and irrigation system that could function without his daily participation. "This guy is a major-league grower of marijuana," said Police Chief Bob Smythe, strolling in borough hall through a knee-high forest of pungent cannabis plants, which police had transported, using a rented Budget truck, from Thomas' house on Glen Avon Road.

Earth Day, the environmentalist holy day, is approaching again, reminding us that environmentalism has become a kind of religion. Which raises a question: Why is it OK to teach environmental religion in public schools, while the teaching of Judaism, Christianity, and other traditional religions is not constitutionally permitted? As Joel Garreau, a former Washington Post editor, wrote in 2010, "faith-based environmentalism increasingly sports saints, sins, prophets, predictions, heretics, sacraments and rituals.

M OMENTS after a Philadelphia jury on Monday found him guilty of the first-degree murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Tyrell Hart quoted Scripture, thanked God and opined that his victim was in a better place. "It may seem like I lost. But actually, I won because before I came here, I was a lost soul," Hart, 22, said before being led away to begin serving a life sentence without parole. The Common Pleas Court jury of eight women and four men convicted him of the fatal Oct. 14, 2009, shooting of Selene Raynor, 21. The jury also found him guilty of third-degree murder in the death of the couple's unborn child.

A hospital room is not a pulpit. That's Lesson One, explains Kundan Nasir, on his rounds as a student chaplain at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton, Mercer County. "There's no liturgy for a patient visit, and I fall on my face a lot," says Nasir, 28, who is pursuing a master's degree in divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary. "Sometimes I say the patient's name wrong when I'm praying with them. Or I misread their diagnosis on the chart. But that's OK. " The Washington Township resident is sharing these insights with patient Shereen Semple.

Two 11-year-old boys in a park. One of them says something (or doesn't), the other one takes a stick and bashes him. Whack! Two teeth are toast. That's what happens before the Tony-winning play God of Carnage begins, before the two sets of parents sit down to meet each other and discuss the - how do you say? - incident . Before the adult bashing begins. "Fortunately, there is still such a thing as the art of coexistence, isn't there?" says the bashed boy's mom - and you know, you just know, that the stage of the Walnut Street Theatre is bound to become a battleground.

Philip Barrett of Philadelphia works two jobs, but he doesn't want that to be his life. In February, battling stress, he withdrew from Towson University in Maryland, but he hopes to return to college. Marcy Allen of Salem, N.J., graduated from college in 2010 with degrees in theater and French, but the only employment she could find was as a part-time mail carrier - the job she held the summer after her freshman year at Rider University. The two, both in their 20s and navigating unexpected bumps in life, have found solace and strength in a Wednesday night Bible study group in Camden led by a man whose own youthful charisma, they say, is part of the attraction.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Jesus Christ was mentioned in the opening invocation. Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A. " warmed up the crowd. And Mitt Romney quoted the "endowed by our Creator" line from the Declaration of Independence. But beyond that, at a rally Sunday night here in the heart of the Bible Belt - where folks readily remind you that you're in the heart of the Bible Belt - God wasn't on center stage. Instead, the Republican presidential front-runner used a brief stop in Tennessee, one of 10 states with presidential primaries or caucuses on Super Tuesday, to pay homage to the almighty dollar.

Our relationship to nature isn't a done deal or a set formula. As a reminder of that, we only need look at the appealing simplicity and interest of several featured artworks relating to ancient Egypt in an otherwise diverse display, "The Decorated Book: Continuing a Tradition," at the Athenaeum. One of these, a big "scarab" woodcarving (actually a beetle-shaped case for a book), immediately caught my eye. John Magnan recently handcarved this solid and well-conceived sculpture with movable parts.

THEOLOGIAN William Hamilton, a member of the Death of God movement of the 1960s that reached its peak with a Time magazine cover story, has died in Portland, Ore. He was 87. Hamilton died Tuesday from complications of congestive heart failure, his family said. Hamilton told the Oregonian newspaper in 2007 that he had questioned the existence of God from when he was a teenager, when two friends - an Episcopalian and a Catholic - died from the explosion of a pipe bomb they were building, and a third - an atheist - escaped without a scratch.