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 Religion Should Be Taught In Public Schools

InfiniteWarrior
post Oct 3 2008, 01:24 AM
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The Bible's history and literature will be required to be taught in public schools in Texas under a new law that has been clarified by the state attorney general to mean exactly what it says.


I don't really get the impression that what it says means the course will be called The Bible as Literature or The History of the Bible.

QUOTE
Chisum said the legislature specifically addressed the Bible, not the Quran or any other religious writing, because "the Bible as a text … has historical and literary value."


And no other does?

QUOTE
"It can't go off into other religious philosophies because then it would be teaching religion, when the course is meant to teach literature," he said.


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K. I've been told on more than one occasion that "you can't talk to people about what they believe" and -- in a great many cases -- I've learned the hard way that is very true. It's apparently still taboo in many quarters, but as specific beliefs of both religious and non-religious varieties are creating a great deal of havoc in the world, might it be better if they weren't?

I've said here before that I am a deeply spiritual but not religious person and skirted the fundamentalist issue back when the original politics thread began in 2004. Firm believer that everyone has the right to walk his or her own life path, I nonetheless feel strongly that interfaith dialog and interspirituality are subjects of incredible import and have had the good fortune to discuss these and more at length with Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Gnostics, agnostics and atheists everywhere.

Naturally, I will keep it there hereafter, but would sincerely appreciate your opinions if you're so inclined.

I agree whole-heartedly with Obama that "people (religious and otherwise) are looking for a more substantive conversation about faith" but that conversation is impossible as long as 1) it's still taboo to discuss it at all and 2) the atmosphere for doing so remains as destructive as it's become worldwide.

Should courses in World Religions be made available as electives in public schools?
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JayBaen
post Oct 9 2008, 05:08 PM
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QUOTE(InfiniteWarrior @ Oct 3 2008, 02:24 AM)
Should courses in World Religions be made available as electives in public schools?
*


World Religions, World Philosophies, World Cultures ... really anything to round out American's incredibly provincial attitudes.

It really doesn't come as much of a surprise to me that you have arrived where you are. I'm pretty close to being part of your quilt, and suspect so are several of us, (and likely why we continue to chat).

There's nothing quite like perspective for giving one a reality check. I remember my first trip out of the country and thinking, "Wow ... there's really people over here. Living lives. Just like me." It was kind of unsettling, almost as if a veil lifts and your seeing real truth about something for the first time - like Neo breaking out of his hive in the Matrix. How I didn't really get it up until that point, I didn't know.

It was experience.

Which is really what you're asking. Should we give young minds the chance to experience something else? Anything else beside the Anglo-Saxon kool-aid? Ironically, you've tripped on a strong mantra of the Christian religion. "Seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened ..." (Not: "learn these things.")

For me it has been the experiencing of multiple religions and ways of life that have led me to find a few Least Common Denominators that ring true.

The good news is, even with my strong belief in the separation of Church and State - teaching about religions (assuming you are presenting more than one), is not in conflict. Religions define culture, and vice-versa. Just look at our political problem in the Middle East. How much better equipped might the current administration be had they a course or twelve in World Religions?

JB


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Yellow Is Golden

DelphiGT

"There's nothing in this universe that can't be explained. Eventually." -- House, M.D.
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