Re: Andrew 4/20/11

If we were more informed about others' religions would we still be likely to have wars and think negatively about their cultures or is it harder to hate someone who you understand?

Should children be told which religion they want to follow or should they be allowed to choose?

I can understand where Andrew is coming from when it comes to defeating our egocentrism and possibly discontinuing wars. Unfortunately, I do not think that teaching world religions in high school will stop congress from declaring war, there are more factors that contribute to their decisions other than egocentric tendencies. I do however think that learning about other cultures will diminish negative thoughts about them. Understanding is at least one step toward eliminating hatred. With an empathetic mind set one can understand the other countries from their shoes yet still not like them. If we can still hate ourselves for things we have done or do, that shows that empathy does not solve hatred. That said, empathy and egocentrism is not the problem that we face, the problem is the overriding amount of patriotism to the point where pride turns into the need to win and be best.

As for children choosing their own religion, I'm not to sure I believe in that or not. Children do not tend to spend their days contemplating the meaning of life or what religion to follow. Technically you are born whatever your mother is (at least in my religion, I'm not sure about others). Yet, again you can't really stop someone from believing in a certain religion or not, if that is what they truly believe, yelling, trying to convince or questioning probably will not do anything. Children are pretty stubborn on their beliefs whether they be true or not. If a child is taught all the different religions thoroughly I don't see why they couldn't choose which to believe. If you really want your child to believe the same things you do if you engage in religious activities with them on a regular basis they are less likely to feel the need to convert.

Question: Why are some people so concerned by the beliefs of others? Why do they get upset when others do not have the same views as they do?

Creationism in schools

Reading Pennock's article got me a little irritated. Public schools tend to teach only evolutionary theories and when catholic schools teach them it is only as a "false theory." The YEC is working to ban the practices of public schools only teaching evolution-science and have only creationist point of views be taught. This is both unrealistic and stubborn. Getting rid of the teaching of things like plate tectonics does not go against anything that the bible says and getting rid of it would be a shame because those are important things that we should know about the earth. And even if it did, educators are so concerned with not making the the knowledge exposed in the classroom contradict itself yet that is the way the world is. My first thought was, 'why not instead of arguing that this way is the only way, we compromise?' Why not have a unit of going over scientific theories as well as western and eastern theories. Sadly, Arkansas tried to create a plan like this by making the "Balance treatment" act that entailed equal treatment to creation-science and evolution-science. Unfortunately it was 'unconstitutional' because it went against our freedom to religion.

Question: Is it against that same freedom to ban mentioning of the possibility that western or eastern religions are true?