Students to be taught there isn't a God

reply to post by Dulcimer

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you take religion out of the schools... you take "in God we trust" off the the dollar bill... you take "one nation under God" out of the pledge... you take away what America was founded on.

let me clarify something... You take God out of the school system, you set America up for failure...

we are already beginning to see the result of our selfishness and our unwillingness to take responsibility for the mistakes we made. instead of tweaking the already functioning system we have tried to reinvent the wheel and it has only made things worse.

Just get rid of religion full stop.
It's embrassing and retarded.
Look at all the great advancements we had from the Messopotamians and the Greeks and the Romans....then religion took over, and nothing! We had to pretty much wait for the enlightenment (the crumbling of religions power base) before we started moving forward again.
Get rid of all of them.
Let the individual decide, and protect children from early developmental indoctrination. Religion has no place in learning, unless it learning from our mistakes.

reply to post by Yoda411

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Separation of church and state was mentioned in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson. its not in the constitution and it was meant to be one dimensional, keeping the government out of the church... thats it!
the church was always meant to be a part of the government.
which church? the one America was founded on... One nation under God... In God we trust. Jesus Christ.
why? because God shed his grace on America... just wait till he takes it back for takin advantage of it.

HO HO HO!
The 'under God' bit was added to the pledge in 1954. That was not what America was founded on. Please go review the history of the pledge of allegiance.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by WatchNLearn

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Seems a bit extreme that people have to be taught the bleeding obvious but what ever gets the sheeple masses off the 'Opiate'. Is good in my book. God is something you've been taught then you fool yourself into thinking that its an experience external to your own thoughts?

reply to post by cruzion

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your missing the point, it doesnt matter when it was added in their, it is in fact what this country was founded on.

Actually, America was founded on Puritanism. It was the Puritans that made the first colonies. Are you talking about some other 'founding'?

reply to post by cruzion

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I guess I was more referring to the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

Who is this Creator?

that would be God.

reply to post by Methuselah

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Oh, the other founding!
So you want us to be even more degenerate a nation now? And I thought we were making progress...We don't want your religion. Thanks, but no thanks. It's 2008, not 1776.

"Top of the class, in both atheism and good behavior, come the Japanese. Over eighty percent accept evolution and fewer than ten percent are certain that God exists. Despite its size – over a hundred million people – Japan is one of the least crime-prone countries in the world. It also has the lowest rates of teenage pregnancy of any developed nation."

humaniststudies.org...

Do you think that the founding fathers were not all that clever? Are you assuming that they were too stupid to chose their words carefully? Have you read those documents all the way through? There seems to be precise language for precise reasons. Why did they not say God then?

The United States of America was not founded on religion, it was founded by secularists. The words "under God" and "in God we trust" did not appear in the pledge or on money until the 1950s under McCarthyism as a ridiculous way to fend off the "godless communists."

So we shouldn't teach children about the Greek Pantheon? The Egyptian gods? The Norse gods? It's going to make studying ancient literature rather confusing. Imagine trying to make heads or tails of the Odyssey if the children are never allowed to mention Poseidon!

Like it or not, Religion is a major part of the human experience - and it does substantially shape history and the world we live in. What we need is more education about religion, not less. The tricky part will be being able to find teachers who can objectively teach religion, without falling prey to preaching it.

There's a difference between looking at dead religions from a distance, versus students being taught about Christianity/creationism and that they're going to hell. Big difference between that and glossing over the fact that Egyptians worshipped gods such as Osiris, Horus, Anubis, etc. You can just show them and tell them some names for a general jist of it, you don't have to go into detail and make them read the book of the dead and tell them that Anubis is the lord of the underworld and he will judge you when you die.

reply to post by Methuselah

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Most of the founding fathers were Deists, not Christians, fyi.

And all that God nonsense was put on the money and in the pledge during Communist times. It wasn't there at the beginning.

The more you know.

reply to post by Lasheic

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It's very easy. I had classes called 'Religious Education' that taught what each major religion believed. None of it was phrased as fact - simply "Christians believe in Christ... blah blah..." "Jewish folks don't..." etc. Nothing scary.

Religion needs to be taught in school, just not taught as fact.

reply to post by Dulcimer

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Yes I agree. If the childrens parents wish ther progeny to receive religious instruction there is other venues for this. Those who push the hardest for prayer in school are the Christians who wish that their message be given and all others excluded.

reply to post by Yarcofin

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I would argue that teaching about religions which are still practiced in modernity would be more important than teaching about dead religions. Partially because the children will be growing up in a world side-by-side with people who DO practice religion, and regardless of how silly you or they may think religion is, the reality is that it will shape their world. 9/11 was carried out by religious fundamentalists. Don't you think it important for students to understand not just the political, but the religious motivations behind such an atrocity?

Not to mention that, again, many of the currently practiced religions have been around to shape the human experience since antiquity. Understanding their beliefs is a key part of understanding historical events which were perpetuated for religious reasons, or guided by the beliefs of religious adherents.

dave420:
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Unfortunately, I'm not as optimistic. I've seen too many horror stories of biology/science teachers basically preach the gospel in the classroom while uttering Evolution only in disdain. If we have problems separating education from indoctrination in a science classroom (where religion has NO place), then I remain dubious as to how effective we'll be able to keep it out of a class which deals with studying religion. Especially if the teacher is a fundamentalist believer in one of the religions they are supposed to be objectively teaching.

It seems it would read more accurately as "Students given OPTION to take class"...
This is fair. I personally believe religion has no place in schools - or politics ... unless perhaps an option to take a "world religions" class - for the sake of understanding where these beliefs are born and to understand better what we are dealing with.

I have only one thing to say and that is this. There is only US on this planet and all the good that happens on this planet are caused by human NOT some guy sitting on a cloud. Same goes for the bad deeds that are done. It's that simple.

[edit on 14-12-2008 by FearSoul]