[Ammi]

Originally Posted by lostalex

religion is not special and it doesn't need to be treated with kid gloves. ridiculous ideas should be ridiculed. and bigoted hateful ideas should be treated as bigoted hateful ideas and scoffed at and condemned. All major religions are hateful and bigoted, and they deserve all of the opposition they receive.

If religion was just your personal belief then why is it being shoved down our kids throats in school, and shoved down everyone's throats in politics?

...I don't believe personally that there is 'no place' for anything religious in schools but I also don't say that I believe in religion in schools as such either..it's like anything that you can take something positive from..like say advice or something..?..or those 'self help' type books..?..I'm not sure if this is a good analogy or not but it's like taking the bits you think apply to you or your life philosophies etc ..so with bible stories/moral stories etc ..there is something which can be applicable in teaching and in schools with children..but that isn't as such teaching them 'religion'...I'm not saying that schools don't go further than that/some schools but that's where I personally think it has 'a place' and I don't think that's enforcing any beliefs...and a bit like what Ruby said...I don't believe that people can 'hide' behind religion if they're not good people generally in life and that's something that I have personally experienced, which is why I don't practise a religion but I do believe in the 'good' of people and if practising a religion does help give them some of that 'good'..the it can't be a bad thing...it doesn't for me have to 'make sense' if it's something that you believe in which helps make you a better person because that in itself is what makes the sense...