Is Religion allowed in School?

In other threads the ideas concerning Intelligent design versus the world view of science has been the topic. In this thread I'd like to explore whether teaching religion is wrong or against the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Most have hear the term "Seperation of Church and State". I contend there is no such seperation found withing the Constitution.

The Constitution is a leash on Government, not on the people.

When the school is run by the government, how do you decide whose religion will be taught?

To answer the question of the thread, not in public school.

All major religions should be taught.

MAJOR? So in the U.S. that means one. Great use of democracy.

All major World religions, the top 10 or so.

lol.

Anyway, if we can fire public school teachers for being Communists, I think it's safe to say that we can ban teachers teaching kids to value a belief systems that rewards victimhood and inaction, and glorifies ultimate nihilism.

All major World religions, the top 10 or so.

So, for christianity it would probably be Catholicism, right? I mean, we wouldn't want to mess with the minor denomination's views since they woudlnt be in the top 10.

It's ok to teach religion from a historical perspective.. not from a scientific one.

For instance, knowing the historical aspects of Jesus are valid to teach, because he was one of the most important historical figures in history... But when you start talking about him being the son of god, you're over the line.

Catholicism is not a Christian faith to many Christians.

All major World religions, the top 10 or so.

I see no problem with a Religious Studies class as part of High School or College curriculum as long as it's an elective.

~Ulrika~

Oh, Kevn. What you lack in brain power you sure make up for in gumption.

~Ulrika~

I'm talkng about grade school. From first grade up.

Thing about that is, elementary school kids can't choose what classes they want to take.

In other threads the ideas concerning Intelligent design versus the world view of science has been the topic. In this thread I'd like to explore whether teaching religion is wrong or against the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Most have heard the term "Seperation of Church and State". I contend there is no such seperation found withing the Constitution.

The Constitution is a leash on Government, not on the people.

The Constitution of the United States

Article VI, Section 3: “...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Thomas Jefferson interpreted the 1st Amendment in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in January 1, 1802:


"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."


Some Religious activists try to extricate the concept of separation between church and State by claiming that those words do not occur in the Constitution. Indeed they do not, but neither does it exactly say "freedom of religion," yet the First Amendment implies both.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom:


"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."

James Madison objected to state-supported chaplains in Congress and to the exemption of churches from taxation. He wrote:

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

In a sermon of October 1831, Episcopalian minister Bird Wilson said,

Among all of our Presidents, from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism.

John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 states:

The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.

James Madison, introducing the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress, Congressional Register, June 8, 1789:

"[The] civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed."


John Adams - Adams, a Unitarian, flatly denied the doctrine of eternal damnation. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, he wrote:


"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. "



James Madison, letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819

"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State."