You are paying out of your own pocket when paying taxes. All education outside the home costs money. Public education is a baseline curriculum, if you want to exceed that curriculum it will cost you. Karate, Gymnastics, Music, Dance etc all exceed the curriculum and cost money. That includes Religious education.
Ok I see what you are attempting. It still costs more money to operate the multiple schools during the “weeding out” process. But your goal as I see it to use the market to marginalize the minority. “Sorry, if you don’t like a Christian school go live in an other town.” But in reality you are asking for your children to be educated in Protestant Christianity. Catholics only making up 25% of Christians in America.
I’ve not yet expressed the extent to which I think society is pluralistic, only that it is.
I hope this doesn’t mean that these groups are to be disregarded for being lower in number.
What would be an appropriate acknowledgement and how is it being suppressed?
Given a sexual “issue” if I limited consideration to the views of Christians what I will find is a spectrum of views. This could be about condoms, masturbation, birth control, “approved” sexual positions, homosexuality (or how homosexuals should be treated), nudity, so on. If “traditional” Christian sexual morality means what I think it is, then this isn’t a conflict of Christians and non-Christians as much as it is a disagreement among people in general regardless of whether or not those people are Christian. But the views of a people in an area do have an impact on what is being taught in school on sex. You’ll find the policies of the Texas board of education to be vastly different then those in Seattle (as an example). If you feel that your local school district has an inappropriate approach you can be part of the conversation to change it. But you’ll need to have your views also supported by something secular.
Why would some one be penalized for not being familiar with a bible?
You are concerned that the “wedding out” process would result in some people’s worldview not being respected in the schools that would survive such a process (a democratic one, btw), yet you are completely unconcerned about those same minorities (Muslims, Jews, etc.) being unable to send their children to schools that support their worldview under the current system. It seems that you are happy as long as the public school system creates an atheistic education system and are merely using minorities to further that end.
No, you are against choice - the right of parents to choose which scholastic setting is best for their children. No one is suggesting tax dollars should go to “sectarian religious purposes” as education is NOT a “sectarian religious purpose.” The question is not whether the government should support school prayer or religious instruction in schools, the question is whether the government should provide the resources necessary to educate children and allow the parents the choice to send their child to the school of their choice with said funds. You oppose the right to this choice, preferring the government to force parents to fiscally support secular/ atheist schools.
I don’t see the lack of religion in education as atheist, I see it as secular. Just as all the other government and private services that I use. I don’t drive on Atheist roads, or go to Atheist grocery stores. Religion doesn’t factor. They are just roads and grocery stores.
A couple of things, I wanted to highlight that “secular” isn’t a synonym for “atheistic.”
You have the choice to send your child to the school of your choice. You just don’t have the right to make me pay for religious indoctrination through tax dollars.
The public school system, as it currently exists, is Godless, i.e. it is a space that has been expunged of God and any references to God. It is a no -God (theos) zone, i.e. an a-theos zone, i.e. and atheistic space. The school system is atheistic. Whether or not “secular” and “atheistic” are synonyms is really beside the point. It is clearly and certainly absurd to claim that creating an atheistic public education system, which all citizens are forced to support with tax money is somehow a fair compromise between religious people and atheists.
But you retain the right to force me to pay (with my tax dollars) for your atheist indoctrination schools? How tolerant of you!
That’s your choice, why shouldn’t other parents have the right to make other choices? Why should the poor (who you expressed concern for earlier) be denied the right to make choices for their children?
Not mentioning something is not the same as teaching against it. It’s not as if teachers are telling kids that God doesn’t exist. They just don’t talk about Him. Neutrality does not default in atheism. If you’re going to claim it does, you’re giving way more ground to atheism than I would.
Again Secular isn’t the same as Atheism. An educated populace is beneficial to society. Even if you didn’t have children it would be beneficial to you and the rest of society to educate other people’s children. Secular education is a baseline of the education system. If you’d like more education there are venues.
I think you are expecting too much from the education system if you can’t see the analogy to other government and private services. I don’t send my children to a doctor or music teacher because of their religious affiliation.
Let’s try an exercise. Let’s assume for now that there are no non-religious people. Instead you’ve got a collection of people following theistic and non-theistic religions spread among each other. What would be your approach to be your approach to these various religions and school such that you are fair to every one?
How can you tell that the “moral fabric of society” is being destroyed.
Who is that?
I think that’s the god of non-stamp-collecting.
That’s not true. Public schools can’t indoctrinate some one with a specific religion or god concept, but references to god-concepts are not prohibited. They are contextually relevant in some classes (history, social studies, literature). Preferential treatment can’t be given to any specific god concept. So within a public school you may hear about Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Thor, Brahman, Ma’at, or Ba’al among others.
Well, they aren’t synonyms and public schools aren’t atheistic. This means that many of your statements are dependent on a false premise.
I think many of us don’t like paying taxes
