Saturday, April 24, 2010

Deviltry in Schools

Judging by the amount of hate I see spewed by Christians, why is it a goal for many to conservatively re-Christianize America's public schools?

Why should our children be taught as early as kindergarten that the entire world is filled with sin and they are sinful creatures because they were born, and must work to avoid it?  Why should they be taught to condemn children who might be homosexual once they realize what sex is?  Why should they learn that sex, the act thanks to which they exist, is vile but that they must fight against an impulse to have it--thereby putting the idea into their heads?  Why should children learn to parrot and not to think?

Christianity terrifies me.  I know many very vocal people who insist that simply reading the Bible can lead us to good, self-conscious lives, but that true moral authority and problems must be referred to the superiority of the Church.  Under the wing of believers like this, this means that children will be taught not to question.  They will be taught to follow.  They will become drones.  They will slide backwards into ignorance and fear because the one book they depend upon for all their answers is mismatched and incomplete, and because the people from whom they blindly accept their morality advocate that belief is strongest and best when there is no proof.  What could a Christianized school system do?  (Naturally, there are many other state-supported religion scenarios that are possible, but this one strikes closest to home for most Americans.)

It could rot the questions inside every child's mind.  It could delete half the curriculum because it doesn't support the religious opinion--showing that power is more important than knowledge, that fighting for dominance can be threatened by the slightest spark of reasonable dissent--and therefore showing how easily dissoluble the religious belief system actually is.  It could encourage children to hate those whose sexuality is judged.  It could encourage a great deal of early sex and pregnancy because students have nothing else to do.  It could allow discrimination and even violence towards those who aren't of the popular religion.   It will turn our children into prejudiced, uneducated little religious soldiers.

As an atheist, I see adding religion into schools as an act of insanity.  Schools are not here to form a child's character.  They are here to educate.  Religion, as a school of belief, damns new possibilities and therefore the presence of actual education, which means the development of independent thought.

Religion is clinging to life by its fingernails.  No wonder its members are acting like the Antichrist is coming.

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