Religion in schools

Also please no spelling comments I used word 2007 it said I was fine. I am not a professional writer and am only a ged Graduate in my first Semester as a college student.

Once upon a time in my little mind.

By me Kaity Kat

""A Congress that allows God to be banned from our schools while our schools can teach about cults, Hitler and even devil worship is wrong, out of touch, and needs some common sense." Rep. James Traficant, (D-OH) 1999-APR-27."

I think that Rep. James Traficant is clearly projecting in his lament that Congress needs some common sense. A comment like the one attributed to him here, vocally underlines the deficit in common sense evident in this kind of Christian rhetoric.

Firstly, if God was to be allowed into the schools, in such a multi-cultural society, that would mean everybody's God, not just the God of one strain of Christianity. The removal of God from the classroom would also include the removal of the Devil. The Devil is a part of the Christian canon of fables, but is also the God of that quaintly Christian off-shoot known as 'Spiritual Satanism', which is not to be confused with the far more enlightened Satanism favored by The Church of Satan, which isn't prone to humouring crazy monotheistic fantasies.

James Trafficant and those like him, are simply morons. I'm not simply name calling here, I am identifying. So simple minded are these folk, that they can't wrap their head around the notion of God extending to everybody's highfalutin notion of God, not just the Christian one. Christians like Mr Trafficant simply don't understand that if his God is allowed into schools, then so is everybody elses, and they will all have an equal right to demand special allowances and to proselytize, including the Satanists, the Atheists, Agnostics, Wiccans, whoever.

So clearly James doesn't have even have single serving of common sense. The man is a fool, or doing a really good impersonation of one.

"I have heard the very small children having serious conversations about death and the devil and even drugs!"

Um, I went to a Roman Catholic elementary school in Ireland, in fact, something like 98% of elementary schools in Ireland are Christian, and you would have found my little friends and I talking about death, the devil, vampires and all manner of stuff. Try not to forget that we learned about all of this stuff from the church to begin with; their teachers told us about the devil and described him in terms that not death metal band could ever hope to compete with in terms of gore. Same goes for death, heaven, but more importantly hell. Imagine telling young children tales of torture that lasts for eternity and never loses it's novelty at the hands of demons, in a lake of fire, no less. Then tell me that ANYTHING that anybody else is telling them about is more fucked up.

"Some things that have been brought to my attention are the fact that the nativity scenes and the use of Christian symbols have been banned from schools but the use of symbols such as the menorah at Hanukkah and the star and crescent symbol at Ramadan public schools that encourages the display of these symbols"

Can you cite some references regarding these schools and their alleged practices? Names and locations of schools, reliable news stories that confirm these practices, etc.

"we (teachers) are being told to do is basically remove Christianity from the classrooms on Christmas but embrace other religions."

Are you? I would have assumed that the whole separation of church and state business, meant that all religion was to be kept from the classroom. Can you back up the claim that you are making with some evidence of legislation that allows other religious iconography in a school, but which bans Christian specific icons? Also can you present us with any evidence that suggests you, as teachers, are being officially instructed to break the laws of the land, by promoting religions of whatever flavour in schools?

"including banning teachers from saying “Merry Christmas” but instead are told to say “have a good winter break”."

Winter break is what everybody is receiving from the school. Christmas is a celebration during Winter Break, which is celebrated by Christians. I don't think it's a big deal, as an Agnostic, to be wished a Merry Christmas, in fact I'm delighted with any greeting, but the fact is that plenty of Christian parents would lose their minds if a Wiccan teacher was wishing them and theirs a Happy Yule.

In fact I could see Christian parents losing their minds if their kids were being taught by a Wiccan in the first place, especially one who was allowed, by law, to teach their kids about Wicca. Yet Christians see no problem with teachers being allowed by law to teach other peoples' kids about Christianity in schools. Many Christians are quite content with the notion of other religions being banned from schools, but can't seem to understand why theirs should be banned along with the rest. How conceited is that?! Not to mention unreasonable. But then again Luther did announce reason to be the enemy of faith.

"The 3Rs stand for Rights, Responsibilities and Respect."

Many Christians don't want any other religion or anti-religious organisation to have an equal stake in the minds of children, that's a fact. What they want is the exclusive right to disseminate their message, while intimidating all other beliefs out of the school. I don't know very many Christians who would be okay with their kids' religion classes being divided up equally to deal with Christianity, Atheism and Islam, for instance. So basically Christians aren't really big on the religious rights of others, simply their own, at least not in any 'equal rights' sense of the word.

Next up, responsibilities. Look around you at how responsible some Christians are with their right to freedom of speech. The Popes have consistently denounced condom use for decades, despite the rising AIDS crisis. Both Catholic and Protestant churches have legions of abused children under their goosey wings. Both churches facilitated and in many cases actively protected the abusers and molesters, not the children. For shame. As we speak, there are hordes of Christians in America actively plotted to turn the US into a Christian theocracy; they are taking the right extended to them through religious tolerance and they are using it to attempt to remove that right from others; how's that for failing to rise to the responsibilities expected of them in regard to the rights they've been afforded?!

Respect. Hoho. How much respect do you think The Church of Satan would be extended in regard to their rights in a predominantly Christian school? How much respect would be extended to the Wiccans, the Atheists and the Agnostics in such an environment? What chance do you reckon these groups would have of even making it onto school grounds, let alone being offered an equal platform to spread their message as the Christian spokespeople, in such schools?

I would be more than happy to teach kids about Agnosticism on an equal platform to a Christian. But I know that's not what they want. They want to be able to get their hooks into schools and then bully and beat the other religions out the door, not through debate either, but through censorship and intimidation.

"Some of the benefits to having religion is the school systems is freedom for religious preference. Doing things such as placing your child in your religious preference private school can be effective."

That's not a benefit to the children, it's a benefit for the religions. I'm more concerned with the rights of the child to an education that helps them to learn to think for themselves, than I am in protecting a churches right to manipulate the minds of innocents unhindered by dissent or reason, simply because parents, who are the grown-up result of the same contrived conditioning, believe it is the best thing for their kids. What else would they do but believe this? That is exactly what the Church conditioned them to do as innocent and impressionable children: to believe, not to question or to think for themselves, but simply to believe what the Church tells them, even if it defies all reason.

Religion has no place in education unless it is prepared to stand next to other belief systems and endure the same criticism and scrutiny as any other belief or lack there of. Most religions don't want this, because they can't survive such open debate in the minds of children; only in the compromised minds of adults who they've managed to condition since childhood in a contrived educational environment can they build a fortress of willful ignorance solid enough to blind them to all reason, logic and truth.

Fresh children's minds have not been programmed yet, so they represent the best and cleanest canvas for both those who want to condition them to believe without question and for those who want to condition them to think and to question everything. I see conditioning a child to believe as child abuse, I see it as the hobbling of the child's critical faculties. Children should be taught to think, and then allowed to make up their adult minds for themselves what they will and will not believe in.

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I am the people my mother warned me about.

http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong

TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™

To me, religion doesn't belong in school unless the student is planning on actually studying the developmental/anthropological side of it - which doesn't generally happen until college anyway.

I would hate to hand my child's religious teachings over into the hands of a teacher - a teacher that I probably don't know very well, and that my child won't know for more than 8 months. Is that really a valid way for a child to learn about their religion? I suppose it could be to an extent. But not very well. They wouldn't be able to learn how to meld that religious belief system into their lifestyles. They wouldn't be able to explore what that religious belief system means to them, or how it might shape them as a person. All they'll learn is when and where to pray. Big deal. If parents are so lazy as to not want to teach their child that themselves - they shouldn't expect the schools to take on that responsibility.

And I love your final quote... :)

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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."

"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon

Fanaile Essence