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Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 12:54 pm
Well, my question is why is it too far?
What place do Bibles and other religious materials have in a classroom, unless it is a class teaching religion and culture specifically? Having a classroom led prayer or sermon doesn't make much sense to me. That's reserved for mass, isn't it?
The "under God" in the pledge (not anthem) was actually added after it had already been in circulation, done by the Eisenhower administration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Addition_of_the_words_.22under_God.22
Lastly, how is it time-consuming? I fail to see the logic of how not teaching something takes up more time than teaching something. The status quo is that a fair number of religious beliefs are already being taught in schools, and Christianity gets its fair share in world and European history classes across the country. From what I gather, you seem to want more Christianity to be taught? Or that the other religious beliefs should be removed? Both seem like giving Christianity an unfair allotment of school time, whether or not they make up the majority of the school. If someone wants to learn more about a specific religion, they should talk to their preacher, parents (if they are of that faith), or find some other way to research. Public schools especially should not be aligning with any particular religion, in respect to the separation of Church and State outlined in the US Constitution.
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Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 3:50 pm
Christianity was the main religion taught in in schools here in America at one time. It was not till recently in the past 50 to 60 year that some people dreamed up that the church and state must be sperated. They claim it is from our constitution which I can not find becuase it is not there. Our law states that the Goverment can't set up it's own church or tell the churches what to do, but the church was aloud to influnce laws, specially around moral things.
Some of our first schools taught reading, writing and the bible. The bible was used a lot in reading class as well as writing scripture. In my literature, we dig cover The Song of Songs as a love poem.
The Bible can be taught in classes as a book of collected writings, history of a cutlure, a source of info to write a play or draw a pic. Science class, make say that some believe in creation, but not a place to teach much bible. But nothing wrong in saying that God gave us these wonderful animals by what ever means He so choose. Math would be the only place I can't see the bibile fitting into. Unless you want to figure out just how many animals could fitting into the ark based on the size of the ark and each animal.
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Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 5:00 pm
The fact that the government can't set up its own church or tell churches what to do is exactly what separation of church and state is; by teaching only Christianity in public schools, that's an endorsement of one religion, which is the same as setting up a State-aligned church.
Also, that's why the Feds can't simply justify the passing of laws "because the Bible says so," as that would be another example of endorsing a particular religion.
Teaching Biblical texts is totally fine, but just whether or not it's fair to teach Christianity as the ONLY or the MAIN religion is the issue.
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 3:06 pm
DartStriker Too far is not allowing bibles and biblical materials in the class room. Actually, students (at least where I live) are allowed to bring bibles to school. It's a book - you can read it during your free time! Now, they can't go cramming the teaching down their peers throats. But they can have them. Now if your teacher tells you to put it away, it's probably because you're not working or something. You've got to stay on topic in class! DartStriker I never said it was unfair, but it's time consuming. The point is it's more logical to teach what the majority of people want to learn. And what do you mean by Teach? As for as I can see schools don't teach anything about religion other then when the mention the Catholic Church in world history. But they mention many other religions too. Actually, this year I learned a lot about Christianity and other religions in school. We learned about Rome adopting it, the Crusades, the splitting of the Catholic church from the Eastern Orthodox, the Reformation (and everything it entails), and more. We also learned about Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism. As for me, I think my school teaches enough about the religions. And when/if I wanted to learn more, I can learn more from my classmates and people outside of school.
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 7:16 pm
I think that you are right! I mean, at my school we didn't do any of that stuff, but I think it is important to experiance all religions, and I am sorry that some of the kids at my school didn't get to have that opportunity.
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Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 9:13 am
Yeah pretty much I don't see any other religions being taught I mean at my old school there used to be a place where the christians could pray every morning before going to class. And if you weren't a christian they'd give you a weird glance and avoid you domokun
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Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:42 am
I think that we shouldn't teach religion at all in schools. Let the children either grow up learning a religion from their parents or leave them to make their own choice before they become young adults.
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Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 2:47 pm
Altae Well sheesh, they're just elementary school kids. I don't think they understand christianity much at that point at all. Kids learn religion on their own, outside the classroom, not from christmas parties and pageants. You shouldn't underestimate children. They learn more between the ages of 0-6 than any other time in their lives!!
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Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2006 7:12 am
They should celebrate all holidays and all religions. I live in the U.S. and at my school the only thing that they teach is evelution which really ticks me off because i'm a christian and all. Schools should celebrate all holidays, it shows the different beleifs of different people.
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Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:26 pm
loli-poo My school was exactly like yours, EndlessDark. In fact, most schools still are like that in America. Only because this nation was built on Christian beliefs, and therefore, school officials feel the need to show that to the children. I don't agree with the reason, but it doesn't really affect me and it never did. I'm not Christian, I never really was, I've always kind of been Agnostic. Religion has never been a huge priority in my life. But that's just me. I do feel that schools really should focus on all religions and not just one. They should teach the children about them so, sooner or later, the children can choose which fits them most or perhaps, not choose one at all. Teaching just Christianity does affect a child in a sense that either, if they are Christian, they will believe that it is a superior religion, better than the rest; and if they are not Christian, they will believe that they are "different" like you had said. It's a shame that most schools do still teach just one religion. I wouldn't say most schools. In my elementary school a substitue was fired for talking to kids about Christianity. At least in my area teaching religion in schools is now looked upon favorably. Most of the fanaticly religious parents send their children to a private school or homeschool the. My social studies teacher taught us this year about 4 main religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hindu. We went in-depth about the roots of each religion and that culture today, with very little focus on one particular religion. Some teachers do still inflict their ideas on a class, but it is generally only a word or two, and makes little difference. Obviously it might be very different in your area, but I wouldn't say most unless you've actually experienced a large quantity of schools that taught that. If you have, then I apologize.
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Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:17 pm
A topic like this requires thought on my behalf because I am a Christian. However, my church doesn't celebrate Christmas as a religous holiday; more an excuse to get and give presents. I would say that the majority of the school should choose what to do, which does work to a point, but then I imagined what it would be like if I was in a country that didn't follow Christianity. Thus I feel that it should be up to the student to decide whether or not to participate, and if there's a religous holiday someone of another faith has to observe then let them. There would still be problems in that though. Children who choose not to participate may be shunned by the others or ridiculed. Something similar happened when I was in elementary school; there was a kid who was an athiest then and he was always teased. I can easily imagine something like that happening in my hypothetical situation and I wouldn't want that to happen.
As far as what religion is taught in the class room I'd say a variety would be best. In a situation like that they should be treated equality becauses if they're not then if someone did come to believe in Christianity then it really wouldn't be because they've come to feel that it's the truest of religions. Having people say why they believe what they believe would be very obvious to me-teachers included, but as before they couldn't impose beliefs on others. More like "this is what I believe, I don't agree with your beliefs, but they are yours. If you ever wish to talk about religion then by all means lets get started." or say how their religion helps them in different situations when a door is open.
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Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:40 pm
NickCpointless i think its crule to force those kids to be in the plays my school forced me and my friends to be in the play despite the fact we didnt beleive in the religon but we didnt beleive in anything else and our parents put christanity down as our religon i think the kids should choose weather they want to be in the play or not Well, most private schools are Christian, so by choosing that school, you also choose to go with the beliefs of that school.
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Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 12:04 pm
Christainty was a... minor influence this pass school year for me in World Cultures. Why? The guy thought that we've learned enough about the "eon of Christanity" and we should learn religions we didn't know. The thing I was mad about was that we didn't learn much about Shintoism.
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:28 pm
I think that religion, ANY religion, has no place in schools. Well, unless you're in a high school, college, or university and you're taking a World Religion course, then it's acceptable, but otherwise, no. And your question about how the Christian celebrations are included in the schools and other religion's celebrations are not... My response to that is that there should not be any religious celebrations included in schools.
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:50 am
Religion, religion... man how I hate it so. It always brings up such ugly controversy. I suppose I'm a protestant Christian, though a non-practicing one. I never go to church. I've never read the bible. And I can assure you, if schools made it mandatory to learn about a certain religion in school, I'd riot (not that a graduate like me ever has to worry about that, but...).
The main thing, though, is this: you mustn't exclude minority religions from something just because they're indeed the minority. For that one person in here who disagreed with the separation of church and state, let me just say that in this case, the state would overpower church: "Majority rules, BUT the minority has rights." The rights of the minorities would make what's happening today: what conservatives call "the bane of America." I never knew that the freedom of religion was "destroying" America. What an interesting psyche these conservatives have, no?
In my opinion, schools should accommodate for either ALL religious needs or NONE AT ALL. If there are Christians, let there be a Christmas pageant. Be there Jews, give them Chanukah activities. And so on and so forth with each religion. Down to the last student if you have to. And if you ain't willing to do that, then there shouldn't be s**t. I'm not saying that other students should be forced to learn about another's religion. But there should at LEAST be accommodations for the minorities.
On a sidenote about the whole evolution vs. creationism thing... well, evolution really has more of a "right" to be taught in a science class. Although this 'theory' is stated to be not proven entirely true, evolution has much more evidence to support its scientific relevance than there is, ever has been, or ever will be for creationism. Bottom line is, evolution should be taught in science class. If you want to learn creationism, go to your damn church for crying out loud... for that is the only place it should ever be taught, and never in schools.
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