What is "Freedom?"

Of all the things Thomas Jefferson accomplished, he was most proud of establishing the University of Virginia, for he maintained that democracy--his baby, so to speak--could not survive without an educated people.  Freedom without education, and without conscience, is chaos.  As Scripture says, "every man does what is right in his own eyes"   --- but without "do unto others what you would have them do unto you," our society cannot survive. 

One of the gifts that education brings is contact with many other ways of seeing and thinking; it brings tolerance and understanding and conversation.  In the more radical sects of Islam, we see an attempt to control society by restricting education so that people cannot expand their understanding, but can only obey repression and control.  In democracy, we have more freedom, but less order, as everyone tries to outshout the other and gain control.

In any society, it is necessary that men be governed by some rule, not by forced control and imposition of harsh punishment, but by recognition of God, by freedom of worship, and by conscience.  A "free" society that disregards God will destroy itself, as Sodom and Gomorrah shows.  No one is safe when bullies are allowed to prey on the innocent and control society.  The alternative is not radical Islam with its enforced order, but prayer and education so that people are free in mind, body, and spirit.