Religion classes in school - Megathread

Honestly, you could schedule anything you can dream up in the opposite shift—electives, extra credit, drama club, sports, whatever—because all the classrooms and teachers are wide open. The kids usually head home for lunch after their fifth or sixth period, then they just drift back around 2:30 or 3:00 for those afternoon activities and extracurriculars.

Matthew Young35 said:If you work at a school, you don't get to have that luxury.

Look, I don't even work in a school... and personally, I'm fine with how they've laid everything out. Those gaps aren't a big deal to me at all.
You happy now?

Do you not see this as an issue for your own kids at their school, or are you claiming it isn't a problem for students in other districts either?

Wait, so you're saying there’s only one shift and religion class can't be moved to the second one? 🤣

Does that mean the whole school just sits empty from 2 PM until tomorrow morning?

melloworca6 said:I honestly don't get why I wrote something so nonsensical. If I had been working the opposite shift, and if a mandatory subject could be moved to a two-hour block during an alternate shift, then why couldn't religious studies be done the same way? Or like how kids at my school used to go to PE during the other shift. Anything is possible if you actually want it to happen. 🤷

I have no clue where you live. I’m guessing New York City, so maybe it would be a good idea to step outside the big city bubble once in a while. It isn't the center of the universe. You need to realize there are all kinds of different schools across the USA and all sorts of scheduling combinations. Look, I get it. It makes me sad too that our schools aren't standardized—from the equipment to the organization. In one school, you've got tech that even major corporations would envy, and in another, you can barely keep the heat on in the winter. But that's just how it is. If you think there's only one school where kids are sitting out on the playground or in hallways, relying on whether or not adults feel like watching them, you're wrong. Believe me, it’s happening in more than one place. Back in elementary and high school, religious studies was almost always right in the middle of the schedule. Usually, a school only has one instructor or chaplain teaching it, so unless you start cloning people, it's nearly impossible to organize it as the first or last period for everyone, especially if it meets twice a week.

I'm dying to know if the situation would change if it were a different setup—like if they offered Islamic studies that you didn't want your kid to hear, shoved right into the middle of the day, leaving your child wandering around unsupervised. Would you still be singing the same old songs about "who cares," "let them be independent," and "kids these days are too sensitive"? I bet not. I'm afraid we'd see the exact same movie: petitions being signed, referendums organized, maybe even people praying outside the school gates. 😁

In the US, those kinds of options are already on the table if there's a need for them. And honestly, this whole part about kids wandering off during class still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I was a kid once, right? We used to have gaps in our schedules all the time, and we'd just go wild—playing football, tag, trying to talk to girls... 😁

Jason Ortiz5 said:And honestly, if you brought them back to life today and gave them a crash course on everything we've figured out since their time, what do you think they'd actually say?

Huh, wise words. I guess if you had said that about Archimedes it would be one thing, but specifically for Newton...

Matthew Young35 said:I can't say I've ever heard any of them weigh in on whether religious education belongs in the public school system.

If you made a list of everything you haven't heard anything about, it would probably shame every book ever written.

Anyway, it seems like everyone is just hyper-fixated on religious education because they're hyper-fixated on the church. Maybe you guys think our society is good enough that kids will just pick up basic ethics and morals on their own, but I don't really have that much faith in a nation that uses more tobacco products than almost anywhere else and sees alcohol consumption rising year after year while health issues are climbing too.

briskbison55 said:In the US, those kinds of options are already on the table if there's a need for them. And honestly, this whole part about kids wandering off during class still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I was a kid once, right? We used to have gaps in our schedules all the time, and we'd just go wild—playing football, tag, trying to talk to girls... 😁

Huh, wise words. I guess if you had said that about Archimedes it would be one thing, but specifically for Newton...

If you made a list of everything you haven't heard anything about, it would probably shame every book ever written.

Anyway, it seems like everyone is just hyper-fixated on religious education because they're hyper-fixated on the church. Maybe you guys think our society is good enough that kids will just pick up basic ethics and morals on their own, but I don't really have that much faith in a nation that uses more tobacco products than almost anywhere else and sees alcohol consumption rising year after year while health issues are climbing too.

But wait, where is all this coming from, considering kids have been sitting through religious studies for twelve years of their schooling over the last quarter-century? Could there actually be some sort of connection there? 😬

edit: I was actually being modest when I said twelve years. I recently found out that even at MIT, they offer Biblical theology as an elective course. 🤦 I imagine you'd find similar things offered at other universities too.

How can there still be so much darkness in society despite having so much religious education? 🕺

wanderingbadger44 said:But wait, where is all this coming from, considering kids have been sitting through religious studies for twelve years of their schooling over the last quarter-century? Could there actually be some sort of connection there? 😬

edit: I was actually being modest when I said twelve years. I recently found out that even at MIT, they offer Biblical theology as an elective course. 🤦 I imagine you'd find similar things offered at other universities too.

How can there still be so much darkness in society despite having so much religious education? 🕺

No, just at MIT. According to the exam instructions, you're actually allowed to have your own Bible with you during the test. 😁

James Alvarez2 said:Wait, so you're saying there’s only one shift and religion class can't be moved to the second one? 🤣

Does that mean the whole school just sits empty from 2 PM until tomorrow morning?

Whoa, where am I even claiming that???
It *can* happen, it just isn't happening right now.....
Personally, I don't have an issue with it

Honestly, looking at everything they cram into those private religious classes, I’m starting to think the gaps in the daily schedule aren't even the biggest issue. ☕

It just feels gross to me—this idea that religion gets to own the monopoly on morality. I actually heard someone mention in class the other day that most religious folks don't even have a clue what "morality" actually means by definition. Teaching kids to view the world through that specific lens from such a young age? It doesn't do anyone any favors. And let's be real: when you have a subject that basically tells some kids that everyone else—anyone who doesn't fit their mold—is somehow "bad" or less worthy, there is absolutely no reason for that to be happening in our public schools funded by all of us.

shadowcrane91 said:Whoa, where am I even claiming that???
It *can* happen, it just isn't happening right now.....
Personally, I don't have an issue with it

I mean, you probably have a hard time even making sense of all those dots, commas, and the total lack of spacing...
Just a reminder...

shadowcrane91 said:Look, we only have one single shift for grades 1 through 8 here...
So basically, religious ed can't be scheduled in a different block, and we can't just move everyone to the first or last period... which means it ends up stuck right in the middle of the school day.
And yeah, sure, a staff member—like a teacher or a janitor—might catch them out in the halls if they're wandering around...
But it’s not like they're being supervised for the full 45 minutes.
Honestly? I'm fine with it.

Am I allowed to actually have an opinion and say this is okay to me?????

Or am I supposed to just bow down to your collective consensus and pretend it's a huge problem????

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy J3 using Reddit

@Steve (I was literally just typing your name as Shaquille like five seconds ago...) 🤣 So you're basically claiming you're Steve... 🤣)

The way you write about believers hits home sometimes. I don't really fall into that category you're describing, but man... I can totally see where you're coming from if you're stuck dealing with those types of people daily... 😢

wanderingbadger44 said:But wait, where is all this coming from, considering kids have been sitting through religious studies for twelve years of their schooling over the last quarter-century? Could there actually be some sort of connection there? 😬

edit: I was actually being modest when I said twelve years. I recently found out that even at MIT, they offer Biblical theology as an elective course. 🤦 I imagine you'd find similar things offered at other universities too.

How can there still be so much darkness in society despite having so much religious education? 🕺

Since we're being ridiculous—well, obviously there's going to be plenty of evil until religious studies becomes a mandatory subject through every single stage of schooling. 😁 But honestly, if I started writing about the old American educational system and how the government treated every single counter-revolutionary element... maybe it's better not to go there here.

Jason Ortiz5 said:Honestly, looking at everything they cram into those private religious classes, I’m starting to think the gaps in the daily schedule aren't even the biggest issue. ☕

It just feels gross to me—this idea that religion gets to own the monopoly on morality. I actually heard someone mention in class the other day that most religious folks don't even have a clue what "morality" actually means by definition. Teaching kids to view the world through that specific lens from such a young age? It doesn't do anyone any favors. And let's be real: when you have a subject that basically tells some kids that everyone else—anyone who doesn't fit their mold—is somehow "bad" or less worthy, there is absolutely no reason for that to be happening in our public schools funded by all of us.

Well, personally, I find the exaggeration a bit much. Like, do you have an issue with the Ten Commandments? Of course not. Sure, how someone chooses to follow them is another story, and that’s why we need actual laws, but those general guidelines are just as important as how you're raised at home or your own character. I see religious ed no differently than any other lecture; you get a framework and some principles, and then it's up to you how you use them. I think anyone who views it strictly as brainwashing is totally missing the point and looking at the whole thing through a really narrow lens.

James Alvarez2 said:I mean, you probably have a hard time even making sense of all those dots, commas, and the total lack of spacing...
Just a reminder...

@Steve (I was literally just typing your name as Shaquille like five seconds ago...) 🤣 So you're basically claiming you're Steve... 🤣)

The way you write about believers hits home sometimes. I don't really fall into that category you're describing, but man... I can totally see where you're coming from if you're stuck dealing with those types of people daily... 😢

Don't let it get to you. I'm not trying to paint everyone with the same brush or say all believers are like that. But you have to admit, you know you're in the minority here. Most people who call themselves religious are just doing it out of habit, or because it's convenient, or because they tie their faith to their national identity. They haven't actually put in the work to learn anything about what they claim to believe.

My best friend is a believer. She's an amazing person, honestly one of the best people I know.

briskbison55 said:Well, personally, I find the exaggeration a bit much. Like, do you have an issue with the Ten Commandments? Of course not. Sure, how someone chooses to follow them is another story, and that’s why we need actual laws, but those general guidelines are just as important as how you're raised at home or your own character. I see religious ed no differently than any other lecture; you get a framework and some principles, and then it's up to you how you use them. I think anyone who views it strictly as brainwashing is totally missing the point and looking at the whole thing through a really narrow lens.

Wait, so before people heard about the Ten Commandments, everyone just did whatever they wanted and everything was fine? Like, they just suddenly discovered the concept of good and evil out of nowhere? Is there a history teacher on here who can give our forum buddy a quick lesson?

Jason Ortiz5 said:Wait, so before people heard about the Ten Commandments, everyone just did whatever they wanted and everything was fine? Like, they just suddenly discovered the concept of good and evil out of nowhere? Is there a history teacher on here who can give our forum buddy a quick lesson?

I mean, tribes living before the Ten Commandments were basically in the wild, right? It was pretty brutal—way more women per man with zero rights besides cooking and having kids, blood feuds without any actual legal system, basically just survival of the fittest. Of course, some mainstream historians like those Ivy League types might try to argue otherwise and claim things were all controlled and orderly back then, but honestly, those people only call themselves historians in certain circles.😁

And what did we say about being exclusionary earlier?

So, was there really nothing happening between those wild tribes—kind of like a scene out of an Oakland commercial—and that lightning-fast engraving of the "10 Commandments"?
Hey, any historians out there feeling brave?

briskbison55 said:In the US, those kinds of options are already on the table if there's a need for them. And honestly, this whole part about kids wandering off during class still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I was a kid once, right? We used to have gaps in our schedules all the time, and we'd just go wild—playing football, tag, trying to talk to girls... 😁

Huh, wise words. I guess if you had said that about Archimedes it would be one thing, but specifically for Newton...

If you made a list of everything you haven't heard anything about, it would probably shame every book ever written.

Anyway, it seems like everyone is just hyper-fixated on religious education because they're hyper-fixated on the church. Maybe you guys think our society is good enough that kids will just pick up basic ethics and morals on their own, but I don't really have that much faith in a nation that uses more tobacco products than almost anywhere else and sees alcohol consumption rising year after year while health issues are climbing too.

That's a stellar argument, suggesting that sexual harassment of young girls happens during those unsupervised gaps. I wonder how we ever thought to protest unnecessary scheduling gaps when children might be subjected to THAT while they're unattended...

briskbison55 said:In the US, those kinds of options are already on the table if there's a need for them. And honestly, this whole part about kids wandering off during class still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I was a kid once, right? We used to have gaps in our schedules all the time, and we'd just go wild—playing football, tag, trying to talk to girls... 😁

Huh, wise words. I guess if you had said that about Archimedes it would be one thing, but specifically for Newton...

If you made a list of everything you haven't heard anything about, it would probably shame every book ever written.

Anyway, it seems like everyone is just hyper-fixated on religious education because they're hyper-fixated on the church. Maybe you guys think our society is good enough that kids will just pick up basic ethics and morals on their own, but I don't really have that much faith in a nation that uses more tobacco products than almost anywhere else and sees alcohol consumption rising year after year while health issues are climbing too.

Religious studies and the church teaching children ethics and morality? What kind of ethics? Discriminating against your neighbor because they don't share your faith, or judging them because they don't feel the same way you do? Or perhaps it's that particular brand of morality where you "sell sheep a bill of goods," telling believers they should live impoverished for earthly riches while being "rich in spirit," all while you drive a brand new Ford and sip wine from a golden chalice—funded by the donations and taxes stripped from the poor and the elderly retirees who can barely afford groceries on the 9th of the month, yet still left $1.75 at the service the other day? Or maybe it's that chauvinistic morality where men rule the planet. A male God, a male Savior, a male priest, a man chosen by God... while women are treated as second-class citizens, mere appendages, deemed unfit to pass down something as "high" as the Word of God. Honestly, please... the very notion of such "ethics and morality" makes me sick...

shadowcrane91 said:Whoa, where am I even claiming that???
It *can* happen, it just isn't happening right now.....
Personally, I don't have an issue with it

It’s quite sad to see one self-proclaimed "educator" addressing everyone else with such a condescending tone in every single post, using those question marks... not to mention that this "educator" doesn't seem to care about the welfare of all the children in the school. 🕺
Would you really send half a preschool group out into the hallway for an hour just so you could teach religious studies to the other half?

briskbison55 said:Since we're being ridiculous—well, obviously there's going to be plenty of evil until religious studies becomes a mandatory subject through every single stage of schooling. 😁 But honestly, if I started writing about the old American educational system and how the government treated every single counter-revolutionary element... maybe it's better not to go there here.

briskbison55 said:Well, personally, I find the exaggeration a bit much. Like, do you have an issue with the Ten Commandments? Of course not. Sure, how someone chooses to follow them is another story, and that’s why we need actual laws, but those general guidelines are just as important as how you're raised at home or your own character. I see religious ed no differently than any other lecture; you get a framework and some principles, and then it's up to you how you use them. I think anyone who views it strictly as brainwashing is totally missing the point and looking at the whole thing through a really narrow lens.

The Ten Commandments? It’s truly pathetic that a believer needs a deity to instruct them "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not steal" and similar trivialities. For us secularists, we don't require a god to tell us those things are wrong, nor do we need the threat of hell to ensure we behave ourselves.
Ethics and morality don't originate from God; they originate from humanity.
Studies have shown that children raised within religion tend to be less tolerant and more aggressive toward their peers. One might wonder why...
It is because they are indoctrinated from infancy into value systems that insist THEIR god is the only true one, that THEIR believers are the ones headed for heaven, and that THEIR commandments are the absolute truth, rendering all other global religions incorrect. Religious education teaches children discrimination, not morality. True morality is taught by parents and society. And frankly, one has to question the morality of a small believer and their deeply religious parents, who teach the child that non-Christians are destined for hell, telling an innocent child that the devil will torment them simply because they don't believe in a god—that is a lived experience. That is your "ethical and moral" faith and religious education: a foundation for discrimination from the very beginning...

Lisa Rivera said:That's a stellar argument, suggesting that sexual harassment of young girls happens during those unsupervised gaps. I wonder how we ever thought to protest unnecessary scheduling gaps when children might be subjected to THAT while they're unattended...

Religious studies and the church teaching children ethics and morality? What kind of ethics? Discriminating against your neighbor because they don't share your faith, or judging them because they don't feel the same way you do? Or perhaps it's that particular brand of morality where you "sell sheep a bill of goods," telling believers they should live impoverished for earthly riches while being "rich in spirit," all while you drive a brand new Ford and sip wine from a golden chalice—funded by the donations and taxes stripped from the poor and the elderly retirees who can barely afford groceries on the 9th of the month, yet still left $1.75 at the service the other day? Or maybe it's that chauvinistic morality where men rule the planet. A male God, a male Savior, a male priest, a man chosen by God... while women are treated as second-class citizens, mere appendages, deemed unfit to pass down something as "high" as the Word of God. Honestly, please... the very notion of such "ethics and morality" makes me sick...

It’s quite sad to see one self-proclaimed "educator" addressing everyone else with such a condescending tone in every single post, using those question marks... not to mention that this "educator" doesn't seem to care about the welfare of all the children in the school. 🕺
Would you really send half a preschool group out into the hallway for an hour just so you could teach religious studies to the other half?

The Ten Commandments? It’s truly pathetic that a believer needs a deity to instruct them "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not steal" and similar trivialities. For us secularists, we don't require a god to tell us those things are wrong, nor do we need the threat of hell to ensure we behave ourselves.
Ethics and morality don't originate from God; they originate from humanity.
Studies have shown that children raised within religion tend to be less tolerant and more aggressive toward their peers. One might wonder why...
It is because they are indoctrinated from infancy into value systems that insist THEIR god is the only true one, that THEIR believers are the ones headed for heaven, and that THEIR commandments are the absolute truth, rendering all other global religions incorrect. Religious education teaches children discrimination, not morality. True morality is taught by parents and society. And frankly, one has to question the morality of a small believer and their deeply religious parents, who teach the child that non-Christians are destined for hell, telling an innocent child that the devil will torment them simply because they don't believe in a god—that is a lived experience. That is your "ethical and moral" faith and religious education: a foundation for discrimination from the very beginning...

I honestly thought I was the only one who missed this connection.
To me, though—and maybe I'm just looking at it sideways—this is actually an argument FOR better supervision for kids during those gaps in class. It’s basically proof that we need to keep a much closer eye on these hormone-driven teenagers... honestly, sometimes even more than the first graders.

briskbison55 said:I mean, tribes living before the Ten Commandments were basically in the wild, right? It was pretty brutal—way more women per man with zero rights besides cooking and having kids, blood feuds without any actual legal system, basically just survival of the fittest. Of course, some mainstream historians like those Ivy League types might try to argue otherwise and claim things were all controlled and orderly back then, but honestly, those people only call themselves historians in certain circles.😁

And what did we say about being exclusionary earlier?

Exactly. Moses wrote down the Ten Commandments in the desert after fleeing ancient Egypt, and we all know that ancient Egypt was little more than a collection of scattered tribes—cannibals with even less law, culture, or self-control than most, much like other early civilizations.
Oops, what kind of "civilizations" am I talking about? I mean savage tribes...

Then the Christian God arrived and enlightened the entire globe through those ten divine commandments 🤔 Fortunately, without them, we would still be living like savages in the Amazon. Or perhaps like those savage, immoral tribes of Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Shintoists, or pagans. And don't get me started on the ancient Greeks and Romans, peoples even more unrefined and wild, whose peak achievement was barely pitching a tent over a branch...
They still haven't grasped the concept of good and evil today; they just fight one another—unlike our God-enlightened world. Not to mention those tribes where, instead of the woman being subordinate to the man in the divine hierarchy as seen in Christianity, she is simply subservient to him.
And then there are the tribes where women hold the power; that's called a matriarchy, and they are the wildest and most godless of them all...

Jason Ortiz5 said:So, was there really nothing happening between those wild tribes—kind of like a scene out of an Oakland commercial—and that lightning-fast engraving of the "10 Commandments"?
Hey, any historians out there feeling brave?

I mean, you really shouldn't go calling on those history buffs too aggressively... because, I don't know, they might just end up explaining how the first schools actually came from the Church. And honestly? They’d probably be right. Without the Church, I guess humanity wouldn't have even made it out of the Middle Ages, or at least not in the way we know it. It's just one of those things, maybe.

Lisa Rivera said:That's a stellar argument, suggesting that sexual harassment of young girls happens during those unsupervised gaps. I wonder how we ever thought to protest unnecessary scheduling gaps when children might be subjected to THAT while they're unattended...

Religious studies and the church teaching children ethics and morality? What kind of ethics? Discriminating against your neighbor because they don't share your faith, or judging them because they don't feel the same way you do? Or perhaps it's that particular brand of morality where you "sell sheep a bill of goods," telling believers they should live impoverished for earthly riches while being "rich in spirit," all while you drive a brand new Ford and sip wine from a golden chalice—funded by the donations and taxes stripped from the poor and the elderly retirees who can barely afford groceries on the 9th of the month, yet still left $1.75 at the service the other day? Or maybe it's that chauvinistic morality where men rule the planet. A male God, a male Savior, a male priest, a man chosen by God... while women are treated as second-class citizens, mere appendages, deemed unfit to pass down something as "high" as the Word of God. Honestly, please... the very notion of such "ethics and morality" makes me sick...

It’s quite sad to see one self-proclaimed "educator" addressing everyone else with such a condescending tone in every single post, using those question marks... not to mention that this "educator" doesn't seem to care about the welfare of all the children in the school. 🕺
Would you really send half a preschool group out into the hallway for an hour just so you could teach religious studies to the other half?

The Ten Commandments? It’s truly pathetic that a believer needs a deity to instruct them "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not steal" and similar trivialities. For us secularists, we don't require a god to tell us those things are wrong, nor do we need the threat of hell to ensure we behave ourselves.
Ethics and morality don't originate from God; they originate from humanity.
Studies have shown that children raised within religion tend to be less tolerant and more aggressive toward their peers. One might wonder why...
It is because they are indoctrinated from infancy into value systems that insist THEIR god is the only true one, that THEIR believers are the ones headed for heaven, and that THEIR commandments are the absolute truth, rendering all other global religions incorrect. Religious education teaches children discrimination, not morality. True morality is taught by parents and society. And frankly, one has to question the morality of a small believer and their deeply religious parents, who teach the child that non-Christians are destined for hell, telling an innocent child that the devil will torment them simply because they don't believe in a god—that is a lived experience. That is your "ethical and moral" faith and religious education: a foundation for discrimination from the very beginning...

I’m saying this for the third time now—look, we shouldn't be being all exclusive here. Not that I want to sound completely brainless or like some total weirdo for how I phrased it, but seriously... if you actually took my last post at face value, you might need to go get your head checked. My whole point was just to mock the idea that parents need to hold their kids' hands every single second instead of just letting them go out and play. That's all it was.

Quinn:

Religious education and the church teaching kids about ethics and morality? I mean, really... what kind of ethics are we actually talking about here? Is it the kind where you just go around discriminating against anyone who doesn't believe exactly what you believe? Or maybe it's that whole thing where you judge someone just because they don't feel the same way you do? It feels a bit off, I guess. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it seems like it's more about drawing lines in the sand than actually being a good person.

I mean, no matter how much those judgmental types and similar folks keep harping on about it, the church just doesn't teach that stuff. It’s such a massive issue here—you have people running religious education classes whose own kids don't even attend. It’s honestly just this senseless intolerance for no reason at all. I guess... I don't know, it feels like tolerance should really be the hallmark of you progressive atheists, right? It just makes sense. 😉

Quinn:

It’s just... I don't know, this whole chauvinistic moral code where being "male" is somehow the center of the universe? It’s everywhere. You’ve got the male god, the male savior, the male priest—basically, everything is framed through men, while women are treated like these second-class beings, just some afterthought created from a rib or something. Like, apparently, a woman isn't even fit to hold a position of power or pass down something as "sacred" as the word of God. Honestly, I don't know how people live like that. It actually makes me feel sick, thinking about this kind of "morality and ethics." It's just... ugh.

Yeah, that's definitely a red herring—like, a totally biased way of looking at things without showing even a shred of tolerance for anyone else's perspective. I mean, honestly, this is exactly why we have to make sure everyone actually has the right to choose for themselves... otherwise, these kinds of lies just end up being accepted as the absolute truth. It's scary, really.
Quinn:

The Ten Commandments? I mean, isn't it kind of sad, honestly... like, if someone is actually a believer, shouldn't they just *know* better? It feels a bit heavy-handed, I guess. Like, does God really have to step in and go, "Hey, don't kill people," or "Don't steal stuff"? Those are just basic human decency things, right? It’s almost a little pathetic that those kinds of rules even need to be laid out like that. Maybe I'm overthinking it, or maybe I'm just being cynical, but it feels a bit redundant, you know?

I mean, I could probably ask you... is it actually kind of sad? Like, the fact that we seriously need laws written down just to tell people, "Hey, don't kill anyone" or "Don't steal stuff or you're going to jail." It feels heavy when you think about it. Back then, before all this legal paperwork, there was just... this other kind of justice, I guess. Maybe it was more raw? But I suppose the biggest thing is that we shouldn't be pulling things out of their historical context, right? You can't really judge how things worked back then by looking at them through today's lens. That's just... yeah, it's a lot to wrap your head around.

Quinn:

I mean, we secular folks don't exactly need some deity hovering over us telling us what's right or wrong... we just know, you know? We wouldn't want to do bad stuff anyway. And honestly, we don't need someone threatening us with the devil just to make us act decent. Ethics and morality? They come from people, not from God.

So, I guess that’s why religious studies is an elective in American schools—it's totally up to you.
Quinn:

Studies have actually shown that kids raised in religious environments tend to be less tolerant and more aggressive toward their peers. Just think about why that might be.

And, uh, there are also studies saying that people who believe everything they read online are usually wrong most of the time, too... maybe think about why that happens.

Quinn:

Parents and society are the ones teaching them morality.

Great—less than 10% of highly educated Americans, plus a fair amount of people without even a high school diploma. It’s almost a miracle that kids aren't all just watching MTV or listening to pop music instead of enrolling in trade schools rather than philosophy degrees and other... well, useless stuff.😉