Separation of Church and State

Well, it was once done in America and it wasn't treated as a violation of the First Amendment.

NO

This is so naive. The indoctrination is IN secularism by the very fact that it is practiced, that religious instruction is verboten. It's in the unspoken presupposition that education has nothing to do with God, that science has nothing to do with God etc. etc. etc. This is conveyed loud and clear by the mere fact of the silence on God, but beyond that, it's naive in another way if anybody thinks teachers don't preach their own beliefs to their students. I personally got a powerful direct indoctrination in atheism and the religion of secularism, and in fact ridicule of religion in both high school and university. That was a long time ago and it hasn't stopped.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-14-2005 06:03 PM

I'm against the public schools, not for teaching any kind of religion in them.And indoctrination doesn't have to be intended. Look it up. Imbue is a synonym for instance.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-14-2005 08:07 PM

Translation: The public school system is our greatest practical investment in the indoctrination of revisionist PC ideas of equality, enforcement of general conformity to the Doctrines of the Day, and one of the greatest obstacles to the freedoms supposedly granted us by our Constitution.

The scare about the economy is just hysteria. Ridiculous. If anything the educational level would rise if Christians left the public schools.

What post was that? I recall answering something along those lines by saying I did not want religion taught in the public schools, I want Christians to leave the public schools.

You need to brush up on your translation skills. I don't want anybody shoving anything. I want Christians to leave the Great Indoctrination Factory which is the public schools. If others want to stay I have no objection, or they could start their own schools too.

Faith in Christ is a way of life. Christ IS the Christian's life. There is not the smallest area of life that He does not reign over. Education belongs to Him just as all else does. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, which some day you too will know, and there is no such thing for a believer as treating Him as a mere opinion among opinions to be subordinated to godless ideas. That you would demand this of us and call the practice of our faith "unprofessional" simply illustrates exactly why Christians should get out of the public schools NOW.

Well I haven't advocated anything but Christians leaving them, and I've advocated this many times on other threads. And that's what I meant by being against them -- against them as a Christian. Sorry I wasn't clear. I can also generalize it, however, to supporting anybody's right to start their own schools.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-15-2005 01:24 AM

Well, but this is exactly what I was answering. Mathematics class is just as much the time and place for prayers and even perhaps preaching as any other time and place. To call it "unprofessional" is missing the whole point about what Christian faith is.

Christian faith is not something you just learn in a few hours of instruction and keep in a compartment in your head and expose willy nilly to contrary views. It has to be lived every minute, through all the courses in history, philosophy, science and everything else, including all the other religions.The religion may be robust as all get out, but the individual believer nevertheless spiritually starved in an environment that treats his belief as some kind of individual optional philosophical point of view he's to keep to himself.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-15-2005 01:48 AM

I didn't respond because I was away. I think I answered this though, saying that I'm not advocating teaching religion or allowing religion in government run schools at all, but rather that Christians should leave the public schools altogether, either homeschool or start more Christian schools.

No I didn't, and I've answered this three times now.

Um, no, despite your absolute certainty you do have it wrong. The point was to counter the ridiculous idea that the First Amendment prohibits the schools from teaching or advocating religion. If that were so they could never have done it, but the fact is that they did, and in the era when the First Amendment was written too. To say that the secularists are wrong in their demand to exclude religion from the public schools is not the same thing as to say that I'm advocating that we go back to the early days when Christianity was the basis of the school system. It's merely to point out that secularists don't know what they are talking about and that our Constitution has been hijacked and the First Amendment turned against itself, and that legal actions against teachers and students for religious expression in school are unConstitutional. This is a factual, legal and logical matter.The other is a practical matter. We can't return to the past and I am not advocating anything of the sort. Most of the country is no longer Christian, and therefore Christians should leave the public schools. I've consistently advocated this since I arrived at EvC. To repeat: Informing you that government is acting unconstitutionally in suppressing religious expression in the public schools is not the same thing as advocating that the public schools go back to the days when education was based on Christian doctrine. It's for your edification, that you learn what the First Amendment meant, so that you might cease and desist from demanding that religion be suppressed in its name. This is a completely other thing from what I would advocate for the solution to the problem of our no longer being a Christian nation. Perhaps I've explained it well enough above, but let me repeat it. Yes it is an unconstitutional infringement on religious rights to deny schools, teachers and students the right to teach and advocate religion, and it is a gross misreading of the First Amendment to turn it into a "barrier" to such religious activities in the schools. If that can be recognized, then we can go on to consider practical answers to the problems that both religious and nonreligious students face in the school system. And my practical solution to this is for starters that Christians have their own education system and leave the public schools altogether. I hope you're getting how this is wrong now.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-15-2005 09:46 AM