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From: rcd@opus.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Politics, religion and book-burning
Message-ID: <323@opus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Apr-84 21:28:09 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.323
Posted: Wed Apr  4 21:28:09 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 05:50:14 EST
References: <302@opus.UUCP> <2164@cbscc.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
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<>
On a few of Paul's points on treatment of religion in schools:
>2) There is strong oppostion against students using public school
>facilities for Bible study meetings.  These meetings have the same
>characteristics as any other student club but in many places there is
>growing opposition to allowing them the same priviledges--because they
>are religious in nature.  The principal of one school in Florida ordered
>pictures of the school Bible Club to be cut out to the school yearbook
>with a razor blade.
Just as there are unreasonable Christians, there are unreasonable liberals,
atheists, agnostics, you name it.  The principal probably should have been
fired.

>3) In Nebraska, the fathers of seven childeren who were attending a
>Christian school were jailed.  The school refused to close by court
>order.  The state was trying to impose state certification requirements...
>...it didn't matter that the students of that school scored consistently higher
>than their public school counterparts in SAT testing.
This argument doesn't hold, I think.  As long as we have a public education
system (which one might reasonably assert is at least a necessary condition
for the function of a democratic government), there ought to be a
certification of what is taught.  It's fine that some people want to send
their kids to private schools - but the kids should get at least the
minimal education required in public schools.  Come on, the standards
aren't that tough.
SAT's are remarkably poor indicators of the quality of a school,
particularly if you don't control for other factors.
>...It is plain to me that the state considers the education of
>children to be its sole priviledge...
I think that's a long reach.  Let me assert that the state considers an
adequate education of its citizens to be a valid concern.

>Parents who send their children to private schools have the burden of having
>to pay taxes to support the public schools on top to the private school
>tuition.
And a good thing they do!  For your taxes, you get schools for your
children which meet some minimal standards.  If you want something other
than the default schooling, you have to pay.  Look, this argument is lame
from the word go.  My wife and I pay a bundle in taxes.  We don't have kids
and we never will.  Do I get my money back?  Of course not, and let me
hasten to add that I don't want it back, because I think that investing in
general education is one of the best expenditures of my tax dollar.
How do you think taxes work?  Do you get road-construction taxes back if
you don't use the roads very much?  What the fundamentalist-religious-
school lobby wants is a unique exception to tax rules - a unique privilege
of selectively withdrawing from American society.  Sorry, no dice.

>My kids can expect me to talk
>about religion honestly with them and I hope they will not
>see in me the hipocracy that many kids detect in their
>supposedly Christian parents.  I am not so insecure in my
>religious beliefs as to want to shelter my children from others
>in the fear that they will "see through its inconsistencies" and
>adopt a secular or other religious philosophy.
Paul, that's good.  That's why it makes sense to read what you write and to
respond to it.  I don't think you're typical in this regard; it's an
attitude I don't see enough of.

>I don't think the decline  in educational quality is due to
>lack of religious training, but in the removal of moral
>principles tradionally instilled by religion...
Right!  The moral values have to be imposed somehow, somewhere.  If they
don't come from religious teaching, they have to come from somewhere else,
but that doesn't mean they have to come in school, does it?  In fact, CAN
they come in school?  Isn't 6 years old (or so) a little late to start?
-- 
Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd