Thursday, January 3, 2008

I'm in favor of mandatory religious education.

I'm in favor of mandatory religious education, Bible reading, theology discussion, interfaith religious discussions, comparisons and everything. Dan Dennett suggested this on the grounds that if you just taught a kid a bunch of facts about all religions then any really militant and fundamentalist faith would be purged simply by being exposed to standard factual information. However, I feel that goes too far. I think we need to go ahead and bring it in with the whole Christian really just trying to convert folks baggage. The first amendment of the constitution is pretty clear that such activities that the religious support and want and would approve this plan just to inject are unconstitutional. So an undefined sort of vague trojan horse of sorts. Basically they get it in to convert folks, a few court cases later and they need to tone it down a little and then a little more. After a while it will end up exactly as Dan Dennett wants, just a secular class concerning facts about religion.

Christmas was brought into the public sphere because folks wanted people to celebrate the religious holiday. It was quickly nipped, picked, and clipped down to the secular bit it is today a winter holiday with songs about snow. What would a whitewashed religion class look like? Exactly what Dan Dennett wants, but this way it would be the Christians who really push for it. Rather than start it out in a clear box... it starts out like an amazing program to bring school children to Christ and quickly gets thrown into a box to save it from the first amendment.

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