The Young Turks

Here in Ontario, the government publicly funds the Catholic school board. I went to Catholic school all throughout elementary and high school. I will be honest, if I had to choose to send my child (which I do not have) to a secular public school or a Catholic school, I would choose the Catholic school. There is a perception, whether right or wrong that they offer better education and are safer. Its very much a psychological thing. 

I prayed three times a day, in the morning after the national anthem, lunch, and the end of class (in high school it was mostly only in the morning). As you can tell, that affected me little in my political views. Frankly, it is my Christianity that made me more left than not; the reason is that I do not think prayer alone is enough to change people's opinions. It all depends on how religion is taught to the students, I had a "faith-based" sexual education in the sense that the book we read said God, but the information from what I can remember was accurate, albeit tame. It was normative, no homosexuality was officially discussed, but tolerance was. 

The school's were rife with drugs, sex, etc. So going to a "Catholic" or Christian school, and praying does absolutely nothing in terms of social mores for the majority of the students. What I can say is that at least from my perceptions, violence was rare. So in my opinion, its not prayer thats the issue necessarily, of course it should not be enforced in a secular public school, but how  religion is taught to the students. 

Blog: http://perspectivos.blogspo t.com/

To hold prayer sessions or whatever, but I'm talking about public schools, because that is the place where prayer and the Bible were taken out.

You may say that a Catholic school prefers a more strict type of education, valuing chasity and being a good person and such, and have generally less violence than most other public schools in America(I think it also depends on where you live in america)but it is not a "secular" type of school, though I dont think that in America catholic schools are much of a problem.

Well, if the education is OK, and if you want your child to be raised catholic, you may send your children there. But, I was actually talking about the Protestant christians, since they are the ones(mostly) that want the Bible reintroduced into school classes.

If I am generalizing too much forgive and correct me, but it has something to do with the convservative Baptist society in America I guess. 

"I mean, God, being an entity that we cannot sense with out 5 basic senses, was supposedly taken out of schools, supposedly leaving the children with no morals, no ethics."

Uh-oh.  A scary thought just occured to me:  What if God is Muslim?  God as a suicide bomber?  Think about it. 

You should have stated where you are from.  OBVIOUSLY, we welcome non-Americans here, seeing as Cenk is an IMMIGRANT.

It's really cool that you post around here and ask questions.  You can learn a lot more about America and American Psychology watching The Young Turks than the regular Media that we incessantly bombard the rest of the world with. 

The First Amendment to the Constitution says there shall be no Establishment of Religion in the United States.  Like Britain has the official state-sponsored Church of England, and many Catholic countries give special status to the Catholic Church.  And Islamic coutries which write into their Laws things straight from the Koran.

America was founded by people escaping oppressive religious tyrranny.  Be it Puritans in Massachusetts or the Catholics in Maryland, ostracized from England or the Hugenots, Protestants escaping France.  The Founding Fathers wanted a country where no sect or belief was endorsed by the State, because they had SEEN the consequences of such oppression.

But up until the middle of the 20th Century most Americans has been Christian, with a small but vibrant Jewish community, so most Americans saw no harm in poking a little religion into State functions, especially SCHOOLS because nearly everyone werer Believers, in some shape or form.

Then Atheists and Agnostics started to gain numbers and question WHY functions of the State were injecting Religion into public functions. And the Supreme Court agreed, deciding that even CHEERING for a vague non-Sectarian God had no place in anything having to do with the State.

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About Ethics without God.

There are many schools of Philosophy about Ethics that do not involve God.  The "Natural Rights" of John Locke, whose work DEEPLY influenced the Founding Fathers.  David Hume's "Social Utility." John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism.  Ayn Rand's Objectivism.

I had a lot of dicussions with my College Roommate, a "wandering" Catholic about Ethics. Me being a devout Agnostic and he still being a Theist. 

He said, "If you don't belive in God, what's to keep you from KILLING ME?"

My response was, "I DON'T WANT to kill you!!!"

The very IDEA of murdering someone is repugnat to my nature.  To do so, even when I HAD to in order to survive would do such IRREPERABLE psychological DAMAGE to myself, the very THOUGHT chills me.

The idea that getting your Ethics from a BOOK or a PASTOR or a DOCTRINE, based upon some questionable, Metaphysical Gobbledygook scares ME, even more. What if the Book or Pastor or Doctrine says, "Kill Me"?

The History of Religion shows how people will use Religion and Doctrine as a justification to commit the most horrible ATTROCITIES.  From the INQUISITION, to the Russian POGRAMS, to the Nazi and Stalinist Ideology that murdered MILLIONS.  The BODY COUNT between Ideologues and Free-Thinkers is like 100,000,000 to ZERO.