God In Schools? Umm . . . Which One?

There has been a lot of debate about how God needs to be put back in school, to which I sarcastically ask why. Did he fail a graduation requirement?

In all seriousness, which one? The people who ask this are typically Christian fundamentalists, and even some of the moderates. What they don't seem to understand is that this is a multicultural nation. There are many different religions here and if the Judeo Christian God is represented, then ALL gods must be represented, including Vishna, perhaps Zeus, and Allah, and Ahura Mazda, and the pagan gods that the Native Americans worshiped and so on and so forth. Every single one. Rather than getting into the mess of lawsuits that would come out of this, it would be better if schools focused on education rather than religion.

If you as a parent are so intent to have your children taught a particular religion, either teach him yourself, or send him to a private school. Public schools cannot play favorites to any religion, it is unfair and unconstitutional. It is for this reason there is no religious education or mandatory prayer in school. It is for this reason why Creationism is not to be taught in a science class.

Prayer in a school is fine, so long as it is not mandatory and not sponsered by school officials. It is also fine so long as non-participants are not put down, demonized or ostrasized (otherwise it becomes discrimination.) Christmas is also fine, so long as the school only focuses on the secular parts of Christmas becausethere could be non-Christians in this multi-cultural nation!

Some people claim that taking God out of school leads to an increase in violence and delinquency in school children, as if religious folks are any more or less moral than non religious folk. This is a flawed argument because religion isn't the sole source of morality. Morality comes from making good judgements based on what experience and wiser elders have taught. God and other religions can certainly help to forge a moral code, but it isn't the only way. Athiests can be moral and immoral as well. People are people, selfish and greedy no matter what their religion and thus any rise in violence isn't due to God being removed from schools but due to a lack of discipline or a lack of education of morality and ethics.

If you want God to be taught in schools, fine, so long as I can come to mass and teach Chemistry and Evolution.

J Kuhl Signing Off