I respectfully disagree with God in Public schools. I don’t want anyone and everyone trying to teach MY daughter about God. It is my job to teach her about God, not the schools. Morals can be taught without religion. Right and wrong can be taught without religion. It is a parent’s right to raise his/her child in her/her own religion without having to combat conflicting teaching of other religions from a school teacher who is obsessed with “saving” her students by converting them to her religion.
If I wanted a school to teach my daughter about God, then I would send her to a religious sponsored school. Most church sponsored schools give a discount to their congregation members thus making it affordable to send your child to your church sponsored school if you want religion taught at school.
Public schools are for everyone of ALL religions-Catholic, Pentecostal, Wicca, Baptist, Mormon, Jewish, Buddhism, Muslims, agnostics, and even atheists. As a non-denominational Christian, I don’t want a teacher of any specific denomination “teaching” or “preaching” to my child their specific beliefs. For one thing, I don’t want my child confused about religion because of having teachers of different faiths teach different beliefs. Public schools are for EVERYONE of ALL faiths thus we can’t discriminate on religion. If one religion is to be taught, prayed, revered in school then ALL religions must be given equal teaching, praying, reverence.
The religious right wing is obsessed with “putting God back in schools, government, courts, etc. but the question is WHICH God? Of course each right winger means their own version of God. The problem is some of those versions of God don’t accept my friends because my friends include women (gender discrimination exists in some religions), African Americans, homosexuals, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, and even one atheist. All of which are good moral people without my having to convert them to my religious beliefs.
Let’s look back to the times of Jesus. After all many religious fanatics of the Christian faith like to preach Jesus right? Christians were persecuted during Jesus’ time? It is in the Christian’s holy bible. So one would think having known persecution themselves that Christians would be a bit more respectful towards others by not persecuting them, right? As if. Christians were the ones who forced their religious beliefs upon the Celtic tribes of Europe-with war. Christians forced their religious beliefs on the Native American Indian-wiping them out in the name of the Christian God because they were unholy salvages. Christians were also the ones who demanded the African Slaves who were brought to America convert to the Christian faith and beliefs. The crusades of Europe were Christians trying to force Christian beliefs on the Islamic tribes of the middle east. Seems to me the Christians are just as blood thirsty as any other religious fanatical group out there.
Think back to Henry the VIII of England. He got mad at the Catholic church so he declared himself the head of the Church of England by divine right. He kicked the Catholics out of England. Wait how can he just kick everyone out of England who was loyal the the Catholic church? These people owned land in England. Many generations of the family having been born in England as Catholics and suddenly they were expected to either renounce their Catholic upbringing to become good citizens of the Church of England with Henry the VIII as leader OR move leaving behind family lands and titles which had been passed down thru generations. Why? Because Henry the VIII wanted to divorce his Catholic wife in order to marry a younger prettier wife. Thus began the religious wars in England between the Catholic church and the Church of England. When his daughter Mary took the throne as queen, she demanded that England return to the Catholic fold-or die. Thus she was called Bloody Mary by many for the amount of killing done during her short reign as queen-all in the name of religion.
After all the fighting and persecutions in Europe, no wonder our American forefathers wanted to make sure that government and religion remained separate. 1st amendment to the constitution promises each and every American the right to religious freedom without persecution. Isn’t that wonderful? Only now we have Americans arguing over God and prayer. Where is it allowed and where is it not allowed?
Let’s think about this logically. A Catholic parent does not want a Jewish teacher teaching a Catholic child about religion-do they? How about a Baptist parent? Does a Baptist parent want a Catholic teacher teaching about God in school? I think not. See the problem is that we are a nation of many religions thus we must try to accommodate all the different religions. That is difficult to do with such variety as exists in religion. Thus in order to not offend any religion, we must strive to keep religion out of publicly funded schools.
How about court houses and other public tax payer funded facilities? Well if we allow the Christians to have religious symbols then we must allow all the other religions to have their symbols in such public places as well. That makes for a very crowed and in my personal opinion gaudy looking court house. Easier and simpler to just agree to keep religious symbols out of public funded facilities like town halls and court houses.
What about government? Well politics has long recognized that the religious beliefs of the president is a BIG thing to many. That is why having a Catholic President was such a to do back when Kennedy became president. That is why so many are fixated upon President Obama’s religion-some claim he is a secret Muslim while he openly declares Christian. I say, does it really matter? I care more about morals than religion.
News flash for Christians who hate Muslims: go read the Koran. The first half of the Koran is the same stories as we see in the old testament of the bible. News Flash for those Muslims who hate Christians. Go read the bible and find the same stories as you studied in the Koran are in the Bible. Obviously the two religious denominations are related and branched off. Those who scream, “But the Muslim religion is so violent” have obviously not read the Christian verses which say some of the same violent verses. Only due to interpretation we interpret the verses differently now than we did once upon a time (remember crusades and annihilation of the native American!)
I personally wish everyone would learn to get along and start talking rather than hating each other in ignorance. Embrace your enemy with love and get to know your enemy. You might find you have way more in common than you thought. Plus the world would be a better place and much closer to world peace than we are currently.
I promise not to push my religious beliefs on you if you promise not to push your religious beliefs on me and my family. Let’s all just live in peace and worship in our own way in our homes and in our own churches. Keep religion out of the public schools and government.
Angela's Blog 