State religion

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Pugsly

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If I were to babysit your children off and on for 7 years and told them how Christianity was wrong in many, subtle ways…then I told your children how to look at life, how to understand human sexuality, how to understand Nature, Human interactions of every kind…EXCEPT…I never mentioned God, would I not be indoctrinating them into my religion anyway?

Public Education indoctrinates our children with a secular religion. What do you call that secular religion?
 
Pugsly said:
If I were to babysit your children off and on for 7 years and told them how Christianity was wrong in many, subtle ways…then I told your children how to look at life, how to understand human sexuality, how to understand Nature, Human interactions of every kind…EXCEPT…I never mentioned God, would I not be indoctrinating them into my religion anyway?

Public Education indoctrinates our children with a secular religion. What do you call that secular religion?
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How are you defining religion?
 
Public education inculcates a set of a priori assumptions about the world and human nature. I wouldn’t call it religion. It’s just positive psychology.
 
Pugsly said:
If I were to babysit your children off and on for 7 years and told them how Christianity was wrong in many, subtle ways…then I told your children how to look at life, how to understand human sexuality, how to understand Nature, Human interactions of every kind…EXCEPT…I never mentioned God, would I not be indoctrinating them into my religion anyway?

Public Education indoctrinates our children with a secular religion. What do you call that secular religion?
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It is called Freemasonry.
 
Pugsly

**Public Education indoctrinates our children with a secular religion. What do you call that secular religion? **

Having worked in the public education arena for over 33 years, I would not say it indoctrinates children with a secular religion. Rather, I would say it indoctrinates children with the view that there is something wrong with being religious.

For me it is amazing that children who go from K-12 are still able to be counted as Christians by the time anti-Christian teachers and administrators get through with them.

Hence the popularity of private Christian schools, where God can be mentioned with respect and prayer is even allowed.

It does seem to me ironic that public schools cannot mention God but Congress has a chaplain and the Supreme Court building is adorned with a statue of Moses and a tablet of the Ten Commandments.
 
It doesn’t. I’m a young one in the K-12 system right now, and I have never questioned my faith to Christ. The only thing I’ve done is wonder whether I should be Catholic or Non-denominational, and thankfully I chose the former.

Teacher led prayer has no place in public schools. Prayer groups formed by the students are fine, but it is wrong for it to be sanctioned by the administration.

I have never had a teacher tell me that religion is wrong.

That being said, private Catholic schools are still the ones I’m planning to send my children to in the distant future when I have a family.
 
Ever heard of John Taylor Gatto? Governments use education to instill values, it’s no secret. When someone disagrees with the majority view we call them “uneducated”.
 
joko

I have never had a teacher tell me that religion is wrong.

I’ll bet you never had a teacher in a public school tell you religion is right.

The fact that God is not allowed to be mentioned in the public school means they are telling you there’s something about religion that isn’t right.
 
Freemasonry is in fact a conspiracy against the Catholic Church.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
I’ll bet you never had a teacher in a public school tell you religion is right.

The fact that God is not allowed to be mentioned in the public school means they are telling you there’s something about religion that isn’t right.
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Pugsly said:
If I were to babysit your children off and on for 7 years and told them how Christianity was wrong in many, subtle ways…
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We live in a pluralistic society. Between that and the first amendment I wouldn’t expect any public education classroom to tell you that any religion is correct. Now if you go to a Christian of Muslim private school they may tell you that a specific religion is the correct one, or that even a specific scent or denomination is the correct one .But when you have a classroom of students that are composed of various Christian philosophies, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, and other backgrounds how do you say that any one is right without implicitly saying the others are wrong?

The body of claims that are made by various religions cover a broad set of subject areas. Without trying one can easily say something that is not in line with one of the many religions out there. If you say something about the estimated age of the earth, about the linage of the native Americans, and so on you’ve contradicted the claims of some sects/denominations of some religions even if that is not your attempt.
 
Thinking

We live in a pluralistic society.

We’ve always lived in a pluralistic society. And until atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair came along, atheism never took the public school system by storm denying even God a presence there.

How pluralistic and tolerant is that?
 
Charlemagne_II said:
We’ve always lived in a pluralistic society. And until atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair came along, atheism never took the public school system by storm denying even God a presence there.

How pluralistic and tolerant is that?
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Murray v. Curlett. / Abington School District v. Schempp ended school sponsored bible reading (though it is still allowed for academic purposes such as an example of literature or contextually relative material in social studies classes), but it doesn’t enforce atheism. Students can and do engage in religious activities at school. Not much unlike how I learned about the Seven Pillars of Islam or the Five Precepts in my history class.

At the high school I went to religious activities included bible study and prayer groups. But as a result of the case that you mentioned these activities are voluntary and not sponsored or enforced. So the Hindu and Muslim students could choose whether or not they wanted to attend (there were some that did attend to gain better cultural understanding).
 
**At the high school I went to religious activities included bible study and prayer groups. But as a result of the case that you mentioned these activities are voluntary and not sponsored or enforced. So the Hindu and Muslim students could choose whether or not they wanted to attend (there were some that did attend to gain better cultural understanding). **

When prayer was abolished in the public schools, an immediate decline in public school morals began. I remember it well. There is nothing so salutary as to start the school day with a prayer. The prayer needn’t be denominational. It could even be silent meditation. Just the fact that God is present in the schoolroom is a signal to young people that they are expected to be godly. Atheists can meditate on atheism while Catholics can meditate on Christ. But no. That kind of common sense compromise will not be tolerated even by atheists, who are the first to whine that they are the victims of religious intolerance.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
When prayer was abolished in the public schools, an immediate decline in public school morals began. I remember it well. There is nothing so salutary as to start the school day with a prayer. The prayer needn’t be denominational. It could even be silent meditation. Just the fact that God is present in the schoolroom is a signal to young people that they are expected to be godly. Atheists can meditate on atheism while Catholics can meditate on Christ. But no. That kind of common sense compromise will not be tolerated even by atheists, who are the first to whine that they are the victims of religious intolerance.
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What keeps kids from practicing silent meditation? It’s a private thing that can happen anytime. I was often accused of contemplating my navel by my Jesuit educators.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
When prayer was abolished in the public schools, an immediate decline in public school morals began.
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Pray wan’t abolished. It just was no longer enforced or sponsored by the school faculty.
Charlemagne_II said:
I remember it well. There is nothing so salutary as to start the school day with a prayer. The prayer needn’t be denominational. It could even be silent meditation.
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Also allowed. Before the pledge to the flag in my school there was a moment set aside for silent meditation, prayer, or what ever you wanted to do with it. You may not recall it, but we’ve spoken about this before. It was in a conversation in which you had suggested that some one come up with a prayer that wasn’t specific to a denomination that could be recited and I pointed out that some Christian denominations are against reciting prayers and they believe prayer should come from the heart. For the previous conversation go here.
Charlemagne_II said:
Just the fact that God is present in the schoolroom is a signal to young people that they are expected to be godly. Atheists can meditate on atheism while Catholics can meditate on Christ. But no.
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What school system do you have in mind that has thought restrictions?
 
Charlemagne_II said:
joko

I have never had a teacher tell me that religion is wrong.

I’ll bet you never had a teacher in a public school tell you religion is right.

The fact that God is not allowed to be mentioned in the public school means they are telling you there’s something about religion that isn’t right.
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No, it’s because of the multitude of faiths within the public system. If I were in a Catholic school, talking about God would be fine, as most people attending would be Catholic.

All that said, the students should be able to talk about God at school, so long as the teachers don’t show preference/intolerance to other religions.
 
Joko2599 said:
No, it’s because of the multitude of faiths within the public system. If I were in a Catholic school, talking about God would be fine, as most people attending would be Catholic.

All that said, the students should be able to talk about God at school, so long as the teachers don’t show preference/intolerance to other religions.
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Where I live if you said “Let us pray to God” you might get the response “Which one?” (Hindu’s and Neo Pagans)
 
Roscoe

What keeps kids from practicing silent meditation? It’s a private thing that can happen anytime. I was often accused of contemplating my navel by my Jesuit educators.

Nothing prevents silent meditation. But the whole of modern society seems dead set against encouraging it. The start of a school day would be a great place to start the habit of silent prayer or meditation.
 
Thinking

**What school system do you have in mind that has thought restrictions? **

Most public schools today.

When I was in the 11th grade in Carlsbad, New Mexico, my English teacher decided to give us a thinking exercise. It was St. Anselm’s proof for the existence of God. Do you seriously think such a thinking exercise would be allowed in public schools today?
 
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