I want to thank Adam for his very articulate and well-referenced rebuttal to my "Left Behind" rant. It’s very much appreciated.
Seth, also, seems quite surprised by the people on this site that feel oppressed by religion. He’s coming at it from the other angle as well.
[I proposed a new issue where we should theoretically take this discussion. I'd like people to weigh in on that issue so we can get it approved.]
I think Adam makes some very good points, but he misses some basic ones, too.
As long as the left insists on taking the tax dollars of religious parents for public schools, religious people have a stake in how those schools are run. As our society’s view of the importance of family is going to have an impact on the world our children grow up in, religious parents have a stake in protecting traditional family. As once a culture begins to devalue human life, every human life is endangered.
Everyone does have a stake in how the taxes collected for public services are spent. Taxing is done during both liberal and conservative administrations and, to be fair to all stereotypes, while many teachers may be liberal, many construction companies (getting the big government dollars) are owned by conservatives.
It’s a matter of degrees. If you "see God" in the socks you wear, you’re probably trying to micro-manage and influence the delivery of public services. But how is it that you let roads be built without religious references? It’s because religion is not necessary to the proper functioning of roads.
But, "Wait!" you say, "Religion IS necessary on roads, it’s just missing!" I can see how this crusade will play out… all of the deaths on the roads are due to moral decay. People drive badly because there are no signs that remind them, "Thou shalt not tailgate!"
[Aside: It just started snowing...we haven't had much of a winter. I'll be heading to Central Park later if this keeps up!]
The point is not that anyone wants to introduce religion into the network of roads (I really hope they are not!) The point is that the exact same arguments and logic that are used by the religious to justify religion in public schools are equally as arbitrarily applicable to every public service. The money needs to say "In God We Trust" but the stamps don’t. (Roosevelt thought that having the "In God We Trust" motto on common coins that were abused in all sorts of manners was close to sacrilege.)
But the measure of public schools is only whether they educate children well. If the money spent by the religious to keep or put religion in the schools, and the money spent by the secular to keep religion out of schools, were spent instead on improving the schools… we’d all be better off.
You guys are about personal responsibility. It’s just wrong to suggest that a classroom where "under God" is not said is going to erase the religious upbringing of your children. Honestly, your religious foundation can’t be so weak such that your kids will "go secular" because they don’t hear about God from their schoolteachers! It can’t be that frail! You can’t be raising your children so irresponsibly! Say it ain’t so!
When I was in school I remember not understanding why other kids went to Sunday School. My family is catholic (barely) and I didn’t discover that all gods were myths until my late teens. I remember my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Garay doing a nice tap dance around my, "How can the Big Bang be how everything was created when God created everything?"
If you guys stopped devaluing your religion by trying to make preachers out of teachers, and let schools teach basic education (which includes what scientists call science…not the Kansas version), you would lose nothing, and you would gain a few things.
Why don’t we just put the rhetoric aside, huh? You know why you want to be in the schools: Marketing. In the marketplace of souls your religion is gaining ground. It does this partly by introducing "faith" into public services. You know what… if my candy bar company had a majority of the candy market already, I’d be all for increasing candy companies’ access to schoolchildren.
Just spreading the word…or self-interest?
This is why people like me are against it. You guys say all you want is access…that’s the same way all sales are made. If you didn’t have this as your basic premise, I wouldn’t have a problem. One thing I very much respect about Judaism, is that it isn’t easy to become a Jew and they don’t sell their wares.
I don’t have much respect for, "Wear this rubber thing on your wrist and get your ticket to the Kingdom of Heaven, regardless of how many people you murdered before you found God!"
I’d created a public discussion on this issue to see if either of us can learn something from the other.
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