Are you religious?

I disagree. A religious school is good imo. I mean, it allows the person to find out if 'this religion is for them'. It allows them to dig deeper into the meaning of it, and learn whether or not it's right or wrong for them morally. I mean, yeah sure, you study in a secular school, you learn a bit of the different religions, but when you grow up, how would you know the real meaning of Religion?

A religious school allows you to create your own idea of religion, from the attitude of the teachers, the students and their values. It also allows you to make your own interpretation of the religion's teachings and gives you a basic background on its community.

 

Personally, I don't think atheistic schools should exist. The prevalent attitude with many people these days is that religion is for nutcase people who should be locked away. They "hope that religion will pass away" and that they'll laugh when they remember the days when people thought there was a God.

The thing is, these people have often never actually seriously though on the topic. They haven't looked at different religions, looked at what they taught. They're entire religious experience has been from movies and the media. Tell me, how many movies have you seen where the monks aren't power-crazy, satan-worshipping maniacs who drool and run around in the dark murdering and laying evil plans? How many times have you seen the evil Popes (and there were a few, John XII especially), but never the good Popes, like the one who saved Rome from Attila the Hun?

Just a few tings to think about how we form our views. I mean, look at how most people think of Russia: "Bloody Communists". And while I'm against Communism, you have to look at what the real Russia is like today. They aren't all raving Soviets who want to Nuke America. But so many people don't think.

 

Their is a massive problem with what your saying.

What you're saying is to leave it to a person's judgement to tell him what's right and what's wrong, correct? And what if that person is a child? A child has judgement true, but it isn't as good as an adults, that's why it's told what's right and what's wrong. If there were more schools that do what you say, we'd have a lot more juvenile delinquents and more criminals because their 'judgement' and 'morality' isn't developped by education.

I think you should read about legalism. Maybe that would help.

 

Why leave it to school to teach you moral values? That is the responsibility of the parents.

 

Sometimes parents don't have the time to teach moral values. Most re at work, some are abroad, and only a few can actually teach their children properly. Want proof? Go to my school, you can see several people with no respect whatsoever, no good morality, and total dickheads.

 

YouTube comment:

Logic is believing in things that we can prove beyond reasonable doubt and not basing our beliefs on outdated traditions and superstitions. Assuming that there is a reason for our existence is egotism. We have no more purpose as a species than flies: we're a cosmic accident and our little planet is completely insignificant compared to the rest of the universe. The only reason we've achieved so much is because we happened to develop language, enabling us to pass on info between generations.

Damn-near made my day.

 

Not teaching religion in schools doesn't make it an "atheistic school" (by the way, how many schools do you think there are that teach their students about ALL religions, not just one, and do you personally think they should teach all? Or just yours?). Anyway, teenagers can easily make a decision about what religion they wish to follow (if any) and join groups like a 'christian youth group' and have all the religion they want fed to them. School is no place for something like religion.

But the exact same can be said about religious people. A lot are even ignorant of their own religion, let alone others. And won't even listen to anyone criticise their religion or promote another, judging and even abusing those who don't believe everything they do. Not to mention other things they don't like in the world, thinking it will eventually disappear or stop if they condemn it and spread hatred long enough. I certainly don't want that taught to my kids if I had any.

If they don't like something, they'll teach kids that it's wrong. There's a big problem with teaching so-called 'moral values' in school, especially from biased religious teachers. And where does it end? 'Moral values' become 'christian values' (or other religion's values), where bigotry and judging others is 'right' and homosexuality, sex before marriage, and anything else they don't like, is 'wrong'.

I don't want religious people teaching my kids what's 'right' and 'wrong' according to their christian values.

Religion is not what teaches kids to respect people, to behave themselves, not to steal, not to take drugs, etc. and generally not act like a dickhead. And teaching it in school is not going to somehow just make kids 'good'.

I've been around christianity most of my life. Being fed that crap through my childhood, I had to make the move to get away from it. And if I had kids I would not want that being rammed down their throats in school. They'd have the choice to choose a religion when they're old enough to understand what they're being told, not when they're little kids who'll just go with it because they'll get in trouble if they don't. Religion is not a standard thing that everyone is, should, or wants to be involved in, and it shouldn't be made such by teaching in school just like any other class.

While everyone has the choice to get out of religion, everyone should also have the CHOICE to get into religion in the first place, not be forced into it as a child in school.

 

I agree with Dogpatch to an extent. As we've probably said earlier, it's still a good idea to limitedly teach children about what this and that religion believe in, so they can have some knowledge about what different people believe in. It's just knowledge about the different societies around the world.

Forcing religion upon them and telling them what's wrong and right, is something completely different from that.

 

I go to neither a christian nor an atheist school. We don't have "christianity" as a subject, but "religion". We see it from an objective perspective, learning about the religions, learning to understand and respect other people and their religion. There are no total dickheads here either. An atheist school or a christian school doesn't matter, it's much more about the society that socializes the individual than whether or not they are taught religion in school, and therefore the percentage of dickheads will be just as big in an atheist as in a religious school.

IMO

 

Same here as with Darkbringer. We learn about Religion, Life-wiev and ethics. We don't specialize within this and that in religions, we just learn about their basic beliefs, we learn to respect one another no matter how we look at things, and we never learn about what's right and what's wrong. We learn to have a more open and acceptable mind.

 

It's interesting to see where the legal system in western societies originated. Basically, it all comes from Christian values. Yet without the Christian reasons behind it, where does the authority of the legal system come from? Why should we listen? Perhaps I believe mass-murder is good, or bombing a hospital would be a self-fulfilling thing. If we all choose what is morally right, where does it end?

Sometimes religious "crap" (to quote Dogpatch) helps back up peoples morality.

 

You do realize that you are saying that atheists are morally inferior don't you? Just because you dance around it doesn't justify what you're getting at. I would be happy to get into this with you but then you would have to give me leeway to make sweeping negative generalizations about religion. Are you willing to hear similar arguments to those you use without being offended? If not then this thread was a bad idea and could only cause disputes that are not solvable, nor in the sphere of the other conversations. What do you think?

 

I was told that some public schools have Six Commandments for secular reasons...

 

Well, I'm used to sweeping generalizations about religion, and I'm very sorry if that's how my point came out. I personally know quite a few non-religious people who have good morals.

My point was that having a religion backs up the morality, and helps people have a set of rules to help society. Of course, there are a few who work in the opposite way, using religion (falsely) to justify their actions. Often these people are actually breaking most of the rules set out by their religion. Make sense?

 

I believe you that you didn't mean it with malice, but that is what those words meant.

For some religion does provide a moral framework, that is true. What you also seemed to be stating is that those who do things that you would consider immoral in the name of religion are mistaken in believing that to be acceptable in that religion in all likelihood. This I disagree with.

I'll show you how what you said could be easily countered through an example of Catholic teaching and logic.

1) The Bible says to stone to death children that disobey.
2) The Bible is moral.

This contradicts, "Thou shall not kill" but is in accordance with other laws that explicitly call for killing. This forces one to pick which law is to be followed on a subjective basis. Following the Bible to the letter is impossible in the situation of a parent with a disobedient, bad-mouthing child. The parent must choose which law. If that person chose to follow the rule mandating stoning then you would most likely call that person immoral, and I would agree. What you cannot say, however, is that he was not more moral according to the Bible than you.

 

And that's why some religion(s) and some people believe that bad people goes to hell; because they take the bible litterally.
Some parts of it are meant to be taken literal, others are metaphorical. If you want to know what you should take literal and what you should take metaphorical, you have to study the bible correctly, which very few does. Stoning children could be in relation to something that would neutralize it.
Let me do a cheap example:
I can suddenly say that I like poo.
You'd most likely think that I mean poo, but my best friend from China is named poo.
Or, it could be my slang for Shampoo. And the list goes on.

There is no way that you can take the bible completely literal or completely metaphorical, and by that follow it in an appropriate way. No way.
You have to study it and try to understand it for your whole life. You can read the whole bible and understand everything it says, but there is much more to it if you don't actually study it. If you take the bible completely literal, then you'll definitely end up with this:

1) The Bible says to stone to death children that disobey.
2) The Bible is moral.

 

What you said is admitting that you pick and choose. Either it is the literal word of god or it is not. It is that simple. If some is true and some is not then you have no basis for morality in it since it's impossible to tell which is true and which is not. It would all be "feeling" based which varies from person to person and culture to culture. You have no argument.

 

Executed not saved.
You set the comma.
That is how everything can be read. The bible is no exception. People can make whatever judgements they want, and in that case, you are right. But if people decide to make those judgements, they would do it as an excuse for their actions, and would probably be immoral without influence from the bible anyway. It just doesn't magically change "immoral" people to good people.

 

The bible is divided in two, the Old Testament and the New. Back in the day, when warfare, slavery, and uncivilized times were rampant, harsh measures were necessary. Also, the people had a totally different mindset. The Catholic Church was formed by Christ to reform these rules. Stoning isn't condoned by the Church, and never was. Even the Jews wouldn't do that these days. Same with many of the old rules in the bible.

It's like the civil law (governments). Capital punishment used to be legal everywhere, but now it's becoming rarer.

People often say we pick and choose, but they don't realise that we aren't mindless lambs who will follow old ways blindly. Stoning people just isn't "in" anymore. But seriously, we don't change the rules for no reason. As a traditional Catholic, I follow teachings which have been established for hundreds of years.