Yes, I would applaud a “pluralistic” approach to teaching all religions and theistic concepts with a nod to Judeo-Christian concepts being at the center of US history and governmental development. With that said, I think we should teach to kids that at the souce of American exceptionalism has been our adoption of Judeo-Christian ethics and beliefs. For example, committed marriage partners, the Protestant work ethic, Ten Commandments, an affirmative golden rule (actively going out and benefiting others not just sitting back), etc.
Personally, and this will not sit well with most of the people who have posted, I support a voucher system that would allow the parents to decide what flavor of educational/religious schooling they want. Why not? American GI’s can use the GI Bill to attend a religious school?
Heck, if the agnostic/atheistic parents want to start their own school, so be it.
Simply put, the default should not be some relativistic-there-is-no-God or Gods approach to teaching values to kids in school, nor an active undermining of religious concepts. There must be some highlighting of the primacy of religious values in supporting a stable society.
If we remove this, as we have done, we are unraveling one of the supports of society. Most ardent atheists I have met have never lived in a true ghetto or real urban area (i.e. really no where in San Diego that I can think of). They proffer their ideas in the shelter of middle class and upper middle class environments.
They have not taken the time to examine the impact of a values-free or anti-traditional values environment that now exsists in the inner cities and looked at what it has truly done to women and children. In these areas, there is no God, religion is for “those people,” so why not have sex with as many women as possible and let the government take care of them? These children grow up without fathers and repeat the process over and over again and crime and death increase.
The secular left (or whatever term you want to use) are content to preach their theories or ideas about the need to purge religion from the government and some go so far as to say the public square, but most of them live in nice areas and never witness the day-to-day heartache of failing schools, mind-numbing violence, and kids having kids.
Sure they’ll throw some money at the problem to some degree, but they never look at root causes, which is (sorry for the Calivinism lecture) that man’s heart is depraved and all men are in rebellion against God. By removing mention of religion from the public sector and the eradication and ridicule of Judeo-Christian values, you allow men (especially young men)to live their lives without consideration that there is a God who will judge them and that socity abhors their behavior.
With this removal, secular Hollywood movies and music have filled the hole, touting hyper-promiscuity, violence, and drug use.
And if there was every any doubt as to who makes a better citizen, most honest people would say they would rather have their daughter-after breaking down in a very rough neighborhood–encounter a group of young men coming from a Bible study than coming out of a bar or liquor store.(From Dennis Prager.)
Finally, as has been substantiated by recent large studies, religious people are far more generous and far more involved in the community than agnostics and atheists. Faith leads people to act. Many of my liberal friends–and I have far more liberal friends than conservative friends for some reason–just sits back in their nice little enclaves and pretend that the government must be doing something about it. Well, I guess government has done something about it; they have made it much worse on every level.
