I didn't put this on your FB page, Viking, but here it is:
1. Schools are for secular education, presumably to prepare said children for life after school. Religion is a PREFERENCE and not a necessary life skill. Reading, the ability to write, the ability to make a budget, etc - those are life skills.
2. Bibles are available in the school - they are there in the library, kids bring them with them. The ONLY thing not allowed religiously - and this applies to ANY religion in a school - is teacher led religious groups or studies, during, before or after school. Why? Children are impressionable. Teachers are an authority figure, and we ALL teach our children to respect and even obey authority figures. Do you want an UNTRAINED person - and the average teacher has never been through seminary - teaching your kids about religion - any religion? I would prefer the teacher stick with the subjects in which they have been trained.
3. Religion has a place in the home and in the church. Want your kids to learn about religion from an educated source? That's what churches are for. Want them to learn your understanding of the religion? That's why you are the parent. Want a complete stranger to teach your kid about religion? Head on down to the 16th street mall and park them in front of one of the street preachers- but don't get mad at your kid for having a messed up view of your own religion.
4. If you are going to teach Christianity on the public schools, FORCE children of different religions to learn about yours, then your children should be forced to take a comprehensive course of world religions and their beliefs. This will go on for as many semesters as the Christian based education, and there will be no time for the improtant subjects - english, reading, math, science, history. The school day and year will have to be lengthened to accomadate your new classes.
5. While students may feel schools are a prison, they are not. Many - some would say most - prisoners turn to Christianity not from a desire to learn about god, but purely because it looks good for the parole board. Somehow, reading a bible in this biased system means the crimminal is reformed. It means no such thing, and I had this straight from the mouth of a trustee when I went on a scared straight tour with youth offenders (as an adult accomplaniment through my internship) in the 1990s. He made it very clear that there were very few real Christians and that most used it as an early out bargaining chip.
So yeah, they can read the bible - and pretty much any other religious book, bunches are in the prison library. That library is not funded by the prison or federal funds, BTW - most prison libraries exist thanks to donations by those who forward the in prison education programs and individuals.
6. Lots of things are federally funded - does that mean they must necessarily have a religion assigned to them as well? If so, then then federally funded highway work on 285- I think it should be assigned the Discordian belief, because it sure doesn't seem to make sense most days.
The analogy has turned into a fallacy. Sorry, Viking - but this one is a failure. It sounds pretty, but just melts away when put under even minor scrutiny.
