| Shiken said:
Allow me to better explain my views on the situation then as I rushed my reply and worded it badly. I was refering to the ridiculous uproar that the issue caused a time ago. America is too sensitive and it drives me nuts! It is to the point that if one person gets offended over the stupidest thing, others rights of freedom are affected and their views on a matter are considered "bigot" regardless of their opinion of the actual person who is claiming to be offended. BUT that is another topic...
I have no problems with origin of other religions being taught in schools, as long as it is not preaching or in anyway an attempt at conversion. This goes for all including Christian beliefs, which I am. If there is any hint of possible intent conversion in an educational setting, shut it down. Leave those aspects of your religion for outside of public education grounds, if only because you cannot teach someone who does not want to learn.
Now origins and history, by all means teach it all. It is important to know it if you want any right to preach your own beliefs.
In short, I don't know the exact cause of all this crap but it goes like this for me. If it is in ANY way teaching in a way that could be geared to conversion, it has no place in public schools. But if it is purly for education and history, people need to suck it up and deal with it. In the case of the later, refer to my rant above of america being oversensitive. |
I'm confused. Are you saying that in school, you can learn about the origins of a religion, but nto a damn thing about the religions teachings? The "If it is in ANY way teaching in a way that could be geared to conversion" is sort of up for interpretation. For example, here in Norway (a largely secular country, mind you), we learn about the teachings of select religions (Christianity (and therein also Catholisism, Orthodoxism and Protestantism), Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhhism, and a few others), we learn about their origin, the everyday life of a Christian/jew/muslim/buddhist etc. and a lot more. I mean, you can't learn about a religion without learning something about what the religion says, imho.
