Hello everyone,
My thoughts on this subject have been running around in my head ever since prayer was taken out of schools. When JFK was shot and killed while he was President, we were not supposed to have prayer in school, but our teachers were brave enough to allow prayer for him, even though it was silent prayer it was something we needed in that time of shock and sadness that overwhelmed us when we heard while at school. I guess in a way that was the beginning of mine and others my age awakening to the horrible things that happen in this world that have an impact of great numbers of people. Since that time, all of the books that signify any religion at all have been taken out of public schools, which wreaks to me of the censorship we endured until that was changed in the 60s. Prior to that time, we could not read certain books for book reports or reading assignments, because they were considered improper material for people to read. These were books by reknowned authors whose books have long endured even through censorship and being banned from schools and some libraries. Censorship was something that really bothered me, because I could not understand why we could not read what we wanted.
My problem with all of this is that if the material of religions is not available in school libraries for people to read if they wish to, then how can anyone make a decision about what they want to believe if they are not exposed to a strong belief system at home? Darwins theory of evolution has been allowed in public schools for a very long time and even though I was engrossed in science when I was in school and was good at it, it didn't make sense to me in alot of ways, even without my religious upbringing. Much of what he said didn't come together in any cohesive form that I could see. If we came from organisms that crawled out of the water one day and began their journey on the way to evolving to man and one of those jumps was that we came from apes, then why do apes still exist? In my simple way of thinking about it, everything else that either served its purpose or was no longer needed disappeared from the earth and doesn't exist any longer. At my fathers funeral, the minister reminded everyone of something my dad said one time to a teacher in school when the teacher was teaching evolution. He said "Maybe your ancestors came from monkeys swinging in trees, but mine didn't." Of course he got into trouble for that, but it brought a smile to our faces as we remembered hearing that our dad said that.
My thoughts are that if everything is taken from the sight and out of the reach of people, then how can they compare and learn? If they allow the teaching of evolution in the classrooms of public schools, then have the information available so that students can read about the other arguments and statements made about our beginnings too. Debate is supposed to be a healthy way of learning in school, so if another side is not there to be compared, then there is no debate and fallacies continue to be taught, because of people's fear that children might learn something from another point of view. These are my thoughts on the subject and not meant to throw others thoughts on it out at all, but to show how I think of the subject.
Love in Light and Peace,
Winds of Change
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