SCOTUS Post #2

Actually, this isn't about the Supreme Court or it's decision, but it is about the topic of that case, namely religion in public schools. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but religion was part of public schools when I was a kid and when my parents were kids and when their parents were kids, and it doesn't seem to have affected them. Lots of people who encountered religion in schools turned out perfectly normal and either continued in their religions beliefs or changed them without too much emotional trauma. It just doesn't seem to be having the negative impact that people like Newdow are attributing to it. That said, why is it always the atheist who are bringing these challenges? Why isn't a Buddhist challenging the recognition of a deity in school, or an Muslim challenging who's god is being referred to in the pledge?

Speaking of atheists, I can't help but comment on something I heard Newdow state in an interview. Apparently, the issue he's most concerned about is that his daughter will think that the government will teach her that his religion is bad, wrong, or evil. This is good, because having an atheist accept that their beliefs are religious in nature is the first step towards getting this whole issue to just go away. If atheism is the belief that their isn't a supreme deity then isn't the failure to teach about a deity inherently supporting atheism? For example, if a school teaches about a deity, it's teaching the religion of that particular deity, but it if doesn't teach about a deity, it's teaching and reinforcing the view that there are no deities, thus teaching the religion of atheism? Maybe I'm making a leap there, but I think the arguments is workable.

Let's look at this differently. If a public school wanted to teach a comparative religion class, could it? Based on the court cases on the topic of religion in public schools, I'd bet not. This is because we've scared schools away from anything overtly religious. I'd wager, though, that it's less offensive across the board to teach about all major religions than about one or two in particular. However, if a school were to attempt this, some atheist somewhere would challenge the issue on separation of church and state grounds (something I'll rattle on about in some future post).

My point is that atheism is as viable a religion as Christianity and Islam. Since religions require faith and it takes faith to believe that there is no supreme deity, atheism is a religion. As such, to avoid overtly teaching atheism by not teaching about deities, schools would be engaging in more constitutional behavior to teach about all religions than to teach about no religion at all, right?