Why do most parents focus on narrowly indoctrinating
their children into their little area of religious belief,
apart from all others and apart from even the remote
possibility that religions are inventions of man?

Why not give children a wide spectrum of knowledge
from which they can make their own choices? Is there
some genetic characteristic that propels humans to try
to clone themselves and their views into their children?
Is this fair? Isn't this morally indefensible?

Why not give our children the facts on all religions, beliefs,
and non-beliefs, and let them know the facts of that which
it is to be human?

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Public Education

Let's take one mode of religious free education that has
worked, public schools.

Now, standards for public schools vary from state to
state, but by and large public schools do not teach
students about religions at an elementary school level
nor do they teach students about non-belief. Simply
put, that critical aspect of child-rearing is left up to the
parents, most of whom construct simple myth systems
that most children carry with them their entire lives.

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Simple Religious and Cultural Curriculum

Now, I ask you, how hard would it be to address simple
religious and cultural curriculum at an elementary school
level, without bias, resembling the curriculum in place for
teaching elementary school students about foreign culture,
simply teaching students the facts regarding the diversity
of cultures and religious belief and non-belief?

Professional curriculum designers should be able to con-
struct course curriculum that teaches students the broad
facts about beliefs and non-beliefs at an elementary school
level (IMO).

Simply put, the truth about belief and non-belief, would be
a tremendous asset to our children. The knowledge and
the whys and wherefores of different cultures and religions
would make our children stronger, smarter, and more toler-
ant of different people and different beliefs.

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Fear of Other Belief Systems?

Parents who are firm believers in their particular faith have
nothing to fear from other belief systems. I feel strongly that
parents have no right to deny their children the knowledge
of the entire world of belief and non-belief. To do so is to
impoverish them and deprive them of the ability to make
decisions on their own regarding their place in the world.

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The Big Questions

From a very young age, children wonder "Who am I?",
"Where did I come from?", "Where am I going?", "What's
it all about?".

To educate our children on all religions, beliefs, and non-
beliefs is to enrich them and empower them; it is to raise
them to a level far beyond the level most of us were able
to reach due to our exposure to one or two narrow views
of religion up to an age approximating the age at which
most children rebel against their upbringings, including
religion, and search for their identity.

Richer (in spirit), stronger, better educated, and more
tolerant of different peoples and views. That, to me, is
a noble goal. All it takes is the will of the people to
approach religion, belief, and non-belief as factual
entities in the real world, an understanding of which
is absolutely critical to our children and to a thriving
democracy.

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Religiously Impoverished

We (most of us) were religiously impoverished as children.

Our children deserve better.

.... the result of impoverishment (narrow points of view
regarding a single religion indoctrination) can be evidenced
via excerpts from a Dallas Morning News article from 1999
entitled "Death to the Schools":

"Leaders of religious right calling for a Christian exodus out
of public education:

Leaders of a rapidly growing movement of conservative
Christians are urging followers to withdraw their children
from public schools by next year in order to bring down
the government school system.

At least four organizations have sprung up around the
country in recent months to press parents to abandon
what fundraising letters describe as "atheistic" and
"unclean" public schools in favor of home schooling
and Christian academies.

The movement, which is just beginning to surface among
mainstream evangelicals, bills itself as a way to 'trump'
public education by offering strategies to 'thoroughly
supplant the corrupt government school system.'

This is dangerous hogwash, said Lee Berg, an expert
on the religious right at the National Education Association
in Washington."

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Consequences of Religious Impoverishment

A few comments: This is what happens when the public
school system takes a "hands off" policy regarding edu-
cation of our children on religions, beliefs, and non-beliefs.
Those children grow up with only the narrow myths of one
religion to rely on and make terrible mistakes, often costly
to society and perpetuating the harm to future generations.

A "hands off" policy is not working. A "hands on" policy
of truth regarding religion, belief, and non-belief is just as
valid as a "hands on" policy of truth regarding science,
literature, poetry, geography, biology, history, music,
language, foreign languages, reading, writing, and arith-
metic.

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No Indoctrination, Just Information
About All Beliefs and Disbelief

Separation of church and state does not mean silence by
the state regarding the church. It simply means the state
must not indoctrinate children into a church (a belief).

Facts are facts, whether they apply to religion, beliefs, or
non-beliefs. There is no reason whatsoever that a public
school should not be able to teach children the basic
facts regarding Christianity, Judaism, Islamism, Buddhism,
Christian Scientists, Mormons, Atheism, Agnosticism,
Freethinking, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism,
etc..

Power to the Children ... Power to the People.

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