Teaching religion in school is child abuse ?

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Cov
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Teaching religion in school is child abuse ?

Post by Cov » Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:36 pm

Forcing children to attend school is only for their good, right ?
After all, we want the best education for our off springs.
Only good grades get us further up on the ladder.

But what about those teachers who are unfit to teach ?
I remember my time at school very well, and the majority of teachers do try to do their jobs well, but at the same time fail to manage fitting the students into their individual talents.

Why is it that I remember to have been in so many classes where the teacher's first goal was to get through their lessons without any interruptions by the students ?
Whether the students could follow did not have ANY priority at all.
That's a "eat or die" phenomena I have never figured out until now.

There you might decide to become a teacher, be it because you have been pushed into this role, because you enjoy the good reputation or because you like being in the middle of attention ?
But actually, you cause multiple times damage in what you do.
Is that called job satisfaction ?

Another thing.
I come from a broken family.
My parents were violent towards us 5 children, because they were unable to cope with their own problems.
Of course, if you don't have a healthy upbringing, such children's lifes are doomed to be complex.
Did we get ANY kind of understanding from our school system ?
No, we didn't.
Pushed from the parent's side to deliver only A grades because nothing else was good enough (which is an unrealistic, f***ed up demand in itself), and pushed from the school to deliver the same ... neglecting completely the unfortunate circumstances for some children like us.

That makes me think that we are not being prepared for life, but are just food for the machinery of the sick minded.
That humans have authority over other humans is one thing.
The government has authority over us citizens and they can reinforce it with their dedicated power, called the police.
The employer have authority over us worker and they can reinforce it by terminating our contract.
The landlords have authority over us tenants, and they can reinforce it by the rights they have been granted by the law.

But who decides what humans have more power than others ?
Just because I was born in a family with big influence, my life can be place on the upper part of the ladder ?

And why can we bully children into a belief ?
Children are still vulnerable and depending very much on the parents.
If they don't play the game by its rules, they can find themselves facing the full force.
The way the muslims do it, is the most extreme example coming to my mind.
If they don't follow the herd, they have in fact lost justification for their lifes.
I cannot imagine a system anymore sick than that.

Religion seems to live from brainwashing the weak, doesn't it ?
What would happen if we would allow to let one generation only to grow up without force to believe in any religion ?

I guess the world would not stop spinning.

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Post by andyb » Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:12 pm

Teaching religion in school is child abuse ?

Thats plagiarism that is...... but you are most welcome, I wont sue I promise.

You are quite right that it should be banned in schools, its going to be impossible to enforce in the home (and unethical as well).

The french are on the right track with this, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3619988.stm at least its a start.

Ban all religious symbolism to start with, and then sometime later reduce religious teaching in schools to history lessons, or something similar that is a reflection on the modern world.


Andy

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:59 pm

the wrong religion is brainwashing the weak.

that's my only comment.

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Re: Teaching religion in school is child abuse ?

Post by blackworx » Sat Apr 11, 2009 4:39 am

Cov wrote:The government has authority over us citizens and they can reinforce it with their dedicated power, called the police.
The employer have authority over us worker and they can reinforce it by terminating our contract.
The landlords have authority over us tenants, and they can reinforce it by the rights they have been granted by the law.
Although it frequently may not seem like it, at a fundamental level the government exists to serve you, not to exert control over you in some sinister fashion.

Neither employers nor landlords have any authority over you. You have a contractual agreement with them and you all have certain legal rights. In general the employee/tenant has more numerous and clearly defined statutory rights because of historical abuse by employers/landlords, which I think is what you are referring to. If either side breaks the contractual agreement or fails to uphold the other party's rights, then the other party is legally entitled to act accordingly. This is not authority over you.

As regards not teaching religion, I think we should make the distinction between learning and religious indoctrination. I spent two hours a week for six years at school learning about world religions, and I am glad to have that knowledge. What I am not glad to have is the memory of the hypocritcal, insincere weekly hymn singing and church visits we were forced to do.

I think letting children grow up without knowledge of something that is a major part of the world they live in would be criminal, regardless of where you stand on the theological argument. If children are completely ignorant of religion and all it stands for they would imho become easy targets for indoctrination into any faith/cult.

Just my $0.02

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Re: Teaching religion in school is child abuse ?

Post by dukla2000 » Sat Apr 11, 2009 8:01 am

Cov wrote:Forcing children to attend school is only for their good, right ?
Not at all - it is for the benefit of society. Better educated citizens provide a more capable society e.g. workers who will be higher earners and pay more taxes to help assist the less able (e.g. pensioners). Which is why education is one of the few roles of the State acknowledged by Adam Smith (others being security and justice).

A bit like vaccinations - if you thought the government is trying to protect you from disease you are deluded. They are interested in herd immunity (which does have a side-effect benefit to every individual). If they were interested in your immunity then they would test for precisely that, and repeat vaccinations if you were not immune.
blackworx wrote:Just my $0.02
Many points well made - amen!

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Post by judge56988 » Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:40 am

I don't think it does much harm to teach about religion in school although I would like to see it presented in a way that clearly shows that it is a belief and not fact. Kids will make up their own minds when they are old enough to understand the world in a more scientific way, just as they will stop believing in fairies - most of them anyway!
I was made to go to Sunday School by my parents and it certainly didn't make me believe in God - the more I found out about "God" the more ridiculous it seemed to be. I think that you have to learn about something before you can make a considered assessment of it's validity.

It seems to me that organised religion was originally about trying to control society and to get people to live by certain rules that were needed in order to actually be able to have a functioning society. The ten commandments or their equivalent. The message was simple and used the good old fashioned carrot and stick approach - if you were good you went to heaven and if you were bad you went to hell. These days we have laws and prisons (and better education) to serve the same purpose.

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Post by spookmineer » Sat Apr 11, 2009 5:37 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:the wrong religion is brainwashing the weak.
I think there are a fair few Muslims saying the exact same thing (taking a guess here that you're not a Muslim - if so, exchange with Christians or any other religion).


Teaching religion should not be banned in schools but it would have to deal with all kinds of religion.
Not educating children about it is just harsh. It's not that denying there are religions is harsh, but when they meet people who are religious and not being educated about it is harsh.

Teaching religion in history class is fine, as long as children get educated. It is part of society, and therefor you need to know about it.

I think I've had similar lessons about religion as Blackworx, I share his point of view.

Personally, I think banning headscarves is insane. What's next, having a beard will be forbidden (impacts other religions too)? Do Muslims have to dye their hair?
Will people get a fine if they wear a cross on a necklace?

It's a shame for democracy (free speech) if you can't display that you are religious.

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Post by xan_user » Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:13 pm

The only thing i want my kids to learn about religion, is too run away as fast as possible.

Calif. Sunday school teacher booked in child death

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... gD97GDBA80

Judge orders records of priests accused of molestation released

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 0486.story

Edit: beat ya to it cov!
Last edited by xan_user on Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Cov » Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:18 pm

Calif. Sunday school teacher booked in child death
By TERRY COLLINS – 8 hours ago


TRACY, Calif. (AP) — Police in a northern California town say they still don't know the motive in the killing of an 8-year-old girl whose body was found in a suitcase dumped in an irrigation pond.

Police in Tracy, Calif., said Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and killing Sandra Cantu.

Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman told reporters Saturday that Huckaby was arrested after she went to the police station, started a conversation with officers and became very emotional.

The sergeant said he can't begin to "even theorize what her motive was."

He said there are no other suspects and no other arrests are expected.

Huckaby is being held without bail and her arraignment set for Tuesday
What might have been the motive for the suspect Mrs Huckaby ?
She was only 8 years old.

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Post by Michael Sandstrom » Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:56 pm

What might have been the motive for the suspect Mrs Huckaby?

Perhaps the Sunday school teacher decided that the eight year old girl was so angelic that she deserved to be in heaven.

Religion might be the most dangerous form of insanity!

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Post by xan_user » Sun Apr 12, 2009 6:05 am

Michael Sandstrom wrote:What might have been the motive for the suspect Mrs Huckaby?

Perhaps the Sunday school teacher decided that the eight year old girl was so angelic that she deserved to be in heaven.

Religion might be the most dangerous form of insanity!
Might be? Religion is the most dangerous entity ever created by man.

Its historically the most dangerous thing to happen to earth since a really big meteor hit the planet ~65 million years ago.

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Post by judge56988 » Sun Apr 12, 2009 8:45 am

xan_user wrote:
Michael Sandstrom wrote:
Religion might be the most dangerous form of insanity!
Might be? Religion is the most dangerous entity ever created by man.

Its historically the most dangerous thing to happen to earth since a really big meteor hit the planet ~65 million years ago.
OMG - We agree on something! Praise the Lord!

or in secular terms:

F**k my old boots! We agree on something.

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Post by Cov » Sun Apr 12, 2009 8:54 am

judge56988 wrote:OMG - We agree on something! Praise the Lord!
Well, some people actually do win the lottery, don't they ?

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:22 am

Religious people donate more money and time to charity.
Involved in less crimes.
Have less suicide.
Have less violent crimes.
Divorce less.
Use drugs or abuse alcohol less.
Lower incidence of clinical depression both lifetime and prevalance.
More wars were due to Atheism or intellectual cults being intolerant of religions.
More killings in atheist society of Religious people and non religious people.
Less democracy in anti-religious societies.

Hitler killed Jews because he hated their religion. Catholic church went against hitler officially very late into his terror carreer as far as limelighting, but immediately blocked him in the beginnings of his cleansing by forbiding him to take instituitionalized and MR people to be exterminated. Catholic church did not vocalize its desires enough in the public eye (IN GERMANY ONLY) during the Jewish round ups. This was before they were killed. THis sillence was during the first few years of banishing Jews prior to the few last years of extermination. Read Papal documents and decries and youll see it was not supporting Hitler.

Lenin/stalin/all them morons in succession killed millions of Jews and Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Purposefully because of a hatred of Religion.

Crusades? How many were killed? Estimated that 200,000 people were killed over a 200 year period. More people die from snakebites. It was stupid, horrible and 100% anti-Christian to do this. However, 100's of millions are killed because they are religious by non-religious. China/tibet. Making the Buddhists wipe their rear ends with holy documents, killing and raping them, right this very minute.

Don't mistake USA for Christianity. It's a false compression, a trick. This is not a Jesus loving, Jesus following nation. Neither was Nazi Germany, (That's a tad more obvious though, heh). Because someone says they are a religious person, they are not automatically one. political correctness states and "applauds" self definition of religiousity. However, out of the heart, the mouth does speak. And, the a person is religious to their religion if they FOLLOW IT!! If they are perverting it for their own immature and ignorant devices, they are not religious. (Hitlers Mein Kampf book used any and every possible device to persuade people to rally as a republic/monarchy/dictatorship/solidarity thing, his book had very simpletonesque ideas about Bible and Catholic theology to try and support his bizarre beliefs)

And yes, in June, I have enough time to show every statement at the top is verifiable by sociological studies and cross cultural studies (social grad student, seminary school prior and psychology graduate prior, so we read about these things all the time)

end of comments though

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Post by Cov » Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:41 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:Religious people donate more money and time to charity.
More money and time than who ?
Than the unreligious people ?
And if yes, what would it show ?
That religious people have a softer heart than the unreligious ?
Or maybe they are trying to reserve a better position in heaven ?
All those question have to be clarified before I admit your statement.
Involved in less crimes.
You seem to trust in the all-knowing public statistic, right ?
Despite your high education, you're blind by what's happening off statistics ?
Have less suicide.
Why would that be of any significance ?
And where can you keep a statistic about that at all ?
Have less violent crimes.
Again, that's a statement which I cannot verify.
Besides this, does "less" make it anymore justified ?
Are we putting "my" statistics against "yours" now ?
Where are you trying to get by doing this ?
Divorce less.
Alright, if I have taken you for serious, now I know that you are not.
In a society where 2/3 of people get divorced at one point in their lifes, you really want to come with that statement ?
Neglecting all those relationship which SHOULD seperate, but are kept going for the sake of god who knows ?
Use drugs or abuse alcohol less.
As I said before, claiming this is just being blind.
But there must be a reason for why we have a f****d up world in the first place, right ?

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Post by Michael Sandstrom » Sun Apr 12, 2009 7:38 pm

Religious people have frequently been known to participate in mass suicides--for example, Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidians and several other groups. There is also a history of religious cults involved in mass murder.

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Post by spookmineer » Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:42 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:More wars were due to Atheism or intellectual cults being intolerant of religions.
A war started due to Atheism is different from a war started by someone who happens to be an Atheist.
Atheists being critical towards religion is not the same as being intolerant towards religion.

Every war in history can be traced back to dogma, or irrationality of one kind or another. The big three are nationalism, religion and racism.

Hitler didn't only hate Jews, he was also intolerant towards homosexuals, gypsies, the Poles, the Russians, mentally challenged people and everyone else who didn't fit the Arian race. He was insane.

As for Lenin and Stalin, can you prove that it was their atheism, and atheism alone, that was the cause of the things they did?
They replaced religion for another ideology - the absence of religion is not the cause for their actions, the political ideologies are.

People don’t kill because of a lack of belief in something. If they kill at all, they do it because of a positive belief in something. Atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief, not a positive belief in something.

Trying to single-labelling people is very one dimensional and ignores the complexity of things.

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Post by rpsgc » Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:25 am

~El~Jefe~, two words:

Inquisition, Crusades.
Last edited by rpsgc on Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by rpsgc » Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:31 am

So if 15% of all Americans do not belong to any type of religion how the effin eff can just 15% do most of the murders? And unlike you, I don't post statistics pulled out of my ass. Here is the link.

Go practice your crazed ways and lunatic beliefs somewhere else and leave us, the normal and sane ones, ALONE. Sheeps.

Here's a funny definition of christianity:

"Christianity: the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree..."

Now who's the loony here?


Oh wait, there's more.

Number of people killed by your god in the bible: 2.391.421
Number of people killed the devil in the bible: 10!

Surely a kind and forgiving god, eh? Just like you preach it, oh wait!


But, but... there's more!

Let's compare to other religions:

Number of people killed by god in the bible: 2.391.421
Number of people killed by god in the book of mormon: +19.578
Number of people killed by god in the quran: 4

Really Islam is the religion of intolerance and violence... oh wait. You just assume that because a few have decided to go ultra extremist and become terrorists. Yeah, I mean, it's not like there are any christian terrorists or mass murderers, oh wait!

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Post by andyb » Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:33 am

Personally, I think banning headscarves is insane. What's next, having a beard will be forbidden (impacts other religions too)? Do Muslims have to dye their hair?
Will people get a fine if they wear a cross on a necklace?

It's a shame for democracy (free speech) if you can't display that you are religious.
Only in schools, for school children and teachers. Outside of school, you are allowed to do what you want within the confines of the law.

If ALL religious symbols are banned, then it is fair for everyone. This is the main reason for having a school uniform, everyone is the same - everyone is treated the same. But oh wait.... their not because people can see that they are christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc etc by what they are allowed to wear. A kid cant turn up at school with a silver chain with their name on it, but they can with a silver chain with a cross on it. Its hypocracy at its finest. An in a way no different from a few years ago when my boss complained about the frequent 5-minute break I used to go on, I pointed out that they were "non-smoking breaks", and were as frequent and long as the "smokers" smoking breaks.

If someone is allowed to break a shool uniform rule to wear something that the next kid doesnt want to wear, that kid should be allowed to pick something of their own, I would have gone with some comfortable trainers myself.

The only solution is to not allow children in schools to wear anything of religious symbolism. What they do outside of shool is up to them. Every kid gets changed out of their shool uniform the moment they get home, they can put on their religious symbols then.


Andy

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Post by DonQ » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:32 am

Michael Sandstrom wrote:What might have been the motive for the suspect Mrs Huckaby?

Perhaps the Sunday school teacher decided that the eight year old girl was so angelic that she deserved to be in heaven.

Religion might be the most dangerous form of insanity!
You reminded me of a quote I read not too long ago. It went something like, "Bad people will do bad things and good people will do good things but in order for a good person to do something bad... that takes religion."

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Post by aristide1 » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:51 am

The Catholic Church is the richest organization on Earth. Not exactly what Mother Teresa had in mind, is it now?

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Post by shleepy » Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:14 am

"Teaching religion" in schools that are not clearly affiliated with those religions (e.g., a Catholic school to which Catholic parents send their kids because their family is Catholic) is just plain wrong. First of all, I am very much anti-religious, and secondly, it would be utterly immoral to brainwash kids without the consent of the kids' legal guardians. It doesn't matter if the parents are bad people (poor kids, but so what? tough luck) - the school definitely has no right to enforce arbitrary moral standards.

I went to an Episcopalian school for a couple of grades, though, and our "religion" class was just about the history and whatnot of Christianity (and to a small extent, other religions). No strong bias or anything for saying that Protestant Christianity is the way to go... Not a single student in my class was Episcopalian, heh. I respect that kind of thing. Religion has a lot to do with shaping history, so even hardcore atheists should understand the major religions and know a little bit about their history if they want to be well-educated and have valid criticisms.

As for the general idea of religion and killing it off - it's not going to happen any time soon. Religion isn't entirely a natural phenomenon, but it seems to feed several natural human needs and has been around for quite a while. If you're hooked on it early, it will be very hard to fight it with logic. If you're not very intelligent or educated, then you are especially vulnerable. There's also just a huge direct social pull for it (beyond the idea of having an abstract leader - god - to whom there may or may not be an instinctual social pull); a church is a community, and there's a strong social drive to be in some sort of community or just group of people where you're accepted. And it's just so damn well ingrained in society! Atheists are looked down upon in many places or social situations, even if they're law-abiding, friendly, successful people. An admitted atheist will have an extremely difficult time getting into a political office just about anywhere in the US, and definitely on the federal level. Finally, it would be hard for a government/society to create laws without previous precedents. In any Western country, they're largely based on Judeo-Christian moral standards. They're simple. They make sense, with regards to avoiding anarchy. They usually work. How could we organize civilization otherwise? I don't know. That's a question for the future.

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Post by Cov » Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:16 pm

shleepy wrote:... If you're not very intelligent or educated, then you are especially vulnerable.
You mention a few very good points which must be taken into account when discussing about this subject.
What are with all those who don't question our world as much as you and I do ? I guess these are all those with lower background knowledge.
If they really take over a theory such as a religion without suspecting that humans work in strange ways sometimes, then how much is left of their credibility ?
... There's also just a huge direct social pull for it ... a church is a community, and there's a strong social drive to be in some sort of community or just group of people where you're accepted. And it's just so damn well ingrained in society! ...
This makes me realize that it might even be the point which I have neglected to consider the most.
We all know about that humans (and animals) work by seeking for pleasure and avoiding pain.
That is the basic motivation of everything we do.

Why should it be any different when choosing "your" religion ?
What could be possibly wrong with people who offer you their hands and are willing to take care of you .... but only if you join their church ?
Isn't that like one of those games for adults: "I play your game but you need to keep me sweet" ?

Of course nobody would admit being part of a sick game, but then again, honesty is not one of our strongest attributes anyway, right ?
Leading me to the next point .... yeah, isn't it crucial being able to trust in order to get closer to the truth ?
But whom can you trust ? People who're looking into your eyes and claiming that you can trust them ?
I would say "Do me a big favour and don't waste my time, ok."
If you had burned your finger when holding it into a flame, would you do it again ?
No ? Are you sure ?

... Atheists are looked down upon in many places or social situations, even if they're law-abiding, friendly, successful people ...
I judge everybody by how they appear to me.

No matter their skin color, political view or religion.
Children are still able to do the same. They play with each other, no matter all those rules, invented from us grown-ups.
What do you expect from a society whose main target is to keep the lie alive under any circumstances.
No, it hasn't increased ... I have just put more attention to it since I realized what a key problem that really is.
From when I leave the house in the morning until I return at night, I meet dishonesty in all shapes and forms.
Some are trivial, others are severe. But considering the amount of lies we're faced with, why should any religion be excepted from it ?

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Post by smilingcrow » Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:22 pm

I couldn’t agree more; let’s stop teaching religion in school along with all the other ‘subjective’ subjects like music and the arts and focus purely on science, history and the ‘objective’ subjects.
Musical appreciation is like religious appreciation as some love jazz and hate opera, others just don’t get music whilst a minority like all forms of music. We can’t allow that.
But hang on isn’t a lot of history based on subjective opinions and interpretations! Probably best if we junked that to.
But what about science? Isn’t what passes for science changing over time so it’s not really reliable anyway! Let’s throw that out also.
What does that leave us with? Mathematics! Language! Forget language though as that’s too open to interpretation so just teach mathematics in schools and nothing else.
Sounds go(o)d to me.

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Post by mathias » Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:44 pm

As if teaching religion in schools wasn't bad enough, the power they let religious people have through the education system gets even worse than that.

Here they give papists their own school system to run as they see fit. That means they don't just shove their religion down your throat in religion classes, masses every few weeks and trips to churches, they run their little playgrounds however they see fit, dramatically cut into the amount of important courses you can take in various ways, act like the church owns the place, let crazy fundamentalist nutcases teach religion and religion related topics in completely unrelated courses however much they feel like, and they go out of their way to make it difficult to transfer from their school system to the nonreligious one or the other way around(HAH, like that would ever happen!) and do whatever else they can to con you into staying in their twisted little outposts, and of course they don't care one bit if you have to haul yourself halfway across the city to get there.

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Post by xan_user » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:22 pm

Im not really seeing how art and music caused millions of deaths throughout history like religion has...sure there's been some nasty overdoses and car wrecks.
But genocide from artists and musicains? you lost me there.

Religion's violent history should be taught in school along with anti brainwashing skills. Give the kids the tools they need to stay as far away from the church as possible.

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Post by mathias » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:24 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote: Have less violent crimes.
Okay, let's take a look at murder rates in clearly religious and irreligious countries with over 100 million people...
and let's add in a few other very distinctly irreligious countries to compensate for religious people breeding like rabbits.

Religious:
India: 3.44
Indonesia: 1.05
Brazil: 25.7
Pakistan: 6.86
Bangladesh: ?
Nigeria: ?
Mexico: 10

Unreligious:

China 2.36
Japan: 1.10

France: 1.64
Norway: 0.78

Now, of course correlation doesn't imply causation, but it's not really any different if people with violent tendencies have a natural attraction to religion, hmm?
~El~Jefe~ wrote:Hitler killed Jews because he hated their religion.
And just how can you know whether hitler was a christian, atheist, agnostic or odinist?

In any case, hitler was an inbred, just like lots of muslims.

And it's even harder to be sure that nazi germany was on the whole irreligious.
rpsgc wrote: Number of people killed by god in the bible: 2.391.421
Number of people killed by god in the book of mormon: +19.578
Number of people killed by god in the quran: 4

Really Islam is the religion of intolerance and violence... oh wait. You just assume that because a few have decided to go ultra extremist and become terrorists. Yeah, I mean, it's not like there are any christian terrorists or mass murderers, oh wait!
Oh, come on, if christianity tells it's followers "You don't need to kill people, god will do it for you." that's a reason to get upset at it and dismiss everything scary about islam? That's insane.
aristide1 wrote:The Catholic Church is the richest organization on Earth. Not exactly what Mother Teresa had in mind, is it now?
Mother Teresa isn't exactly beyond criticism herself, you know?

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:45 am

mathias wrote:That's insane.

Religion is insane...

InfyMcGirk
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Post by InfyMcGirk » Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:54 am

IMHO, religion is an adult's prerogative. It should be the result of:

(a) a prison sentence
(b) a blinding light
(c) a mid-life crisis

... or any combination of the above.

Children can't make informed decisions about religion, so they should be protected from it otherwise people can take advantage of their vulnerability. Just like the age of consent for sex.

Religion has no proper place in schools.

I used to be a bit more indifferent about the dangers of religion, but then religious idiots started trying to pollute the science curriculum with all the 'intelligent design' nonsense. Trying to crow-bar such bullshit into children's minds under the cover of science is certainly an abuse of the children's trust, if not actual child abuse.

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