Religion in public schools.

Let me rephrase. To practice a religion is to bind your ethical values to a predetermined structure.

To practice religion is to strengthen the bond between yourself and whatever it is that you call "God". In this sense, philosophy is my religion. Philosophy is understanding the nature of the universe, and to me, the natural order of things is God.



What is spirituality?

Well, I found this one.

The state, quality, manner, or fact, of being concerned with, or affecting the soul.

Philosophy was once my "religion" and I became severely nihilistic.

Oh, I'm sorry
I was once nihilistic, too. Although existence does indeed lack objective meaning, nihilism is confused about the essence of meaning. I tend to be optimistic, and I see life as a series of experiences that collectively give a meaning to your existence.

I think we should have multi-cultural religion classes for all young kids, from 6th to 12th grade. I think this would ignite ideas about the world in the students. I also think that it would show repeatedly the normal values spread from everywhere, in hopes that they will make their own moral and ethical structure for themselves. And be able to use it to tell what is right and wrong throughout their young lives, until they can expand their ethical and moral spectrum's in college.

Perhaps, as an object of study, without preaching any particular doctrine. But only if logic is also made mandatory (as I think it should be in any case).

I disagree, I was thinking more of a survey class, to analyze different moral/spiritual/ethical structures and how they might of came to be around the world. Its highly improbable to want and highly unnecessary to ask children to learn logic when there are already many subjects they are required to do which they won't and don't care about.

Well, it is certainly true that children of that age generally don't care much about what they are required to study, but why do you (apparently) suppose they will care more than the usual amount about the class you recommend? And why not a course on how to think, and reason, and argue, and analyze positions before throwing various religious ideas at them? I don't propose teaching them symbolic logic; more the Aristotelian version. It is one of my regrets that I had no formal courses in logic until college.

Because instead of making them sort through the moral and ethical structures in that way, they can use their own reasoning with the assistance of the teacher to understand the principals. They can figure out what is fair and right without ever learning logic, I'd rather have them hone those skills before they are put into anything as formal as logic. Logic is tedious and it would be disinteresting enough for them to completely ignore the survey class.

Remember, sadly, these days, children don't want to learn most of what school feeds them. It is about selling them something practical, beneficial, and interesting. Fighting the whole "When can I ever use this", the class can promote them to have fun while basic writing papers on things (no tests) that have more effect on the world then any other normal subject.

I figure they would be ecstatic to have something that interesting, with videos they can watch, and some basic essays they can write arguing against or for different ethical disputes. It would not just prepare them for college thinking, it would prepare them to be the kind of people we want living around us, rational people.

As many may well already know there is much talk about making a legal obligation for public schools systems to teach creationism along side evolutionary theory. The over-all argument for this is to offer student's "every theory", and to let them decide which one they choose to believe in for themselves. Yet, in my opinion, there lay the problem. Creationism is a religious theory, not a scientific theory. If public schools are going to be obligated to teach religion in schools so that students have "all the possibilities" (assuming they have not yet heard themselves) why, if they are so truly concerned about student getting every angle, despite the theories being entirely off topic of the class itself, would they propose that only their own religious theory be included?
As many may also know, Sarah Palin, the Alaskan Governor, and current Vice Presidential nominee is one somewhat infamous example of one whom fully supports creationism in public schools due to certain religious obligations-as well as ideas such as abstinence-only education for students.
As well regarding our first Amendment:

There seems to be somewhat of a contradiction. What do you think?

Religion is what man practices in order to address his spiritual needs.

What did you imagine the man was practicing but his religion?

I understand the urge to distinguish between spirituality and religion, but I'm not sure that is possible. The Baha'i and Buddhist religions are both pretty clear on the point that there does not exist one true path; they assert that every one's path is necessarily unique. We can also find the same assertion in certain circles among other world religions, too, like Christianity and Islam.

What, then, is a religion as distinct from spirituality? Where is the distinction if everyone's path is necessarily unique?

What, then, is a religion as distinct from spirituality? Where is the distinction if everyone's path is necessarily unique?

I'm saying there can be a distinction. Where that distinction lies is dependent upon the path.

If the spiritual path is not influenced by a known religion, I tend to call that path spiritual rather than religious, for my own sake of clarity. It just wouldn't make any sense to me to call myself religious if I had never been involved, or simply denied religion altogether, and yet was still on a spiritual path. Additionally, as I mentioned, I feel the term "religion" is very misunderstood, so I often refrain from using it whilst describing my own journey (of course, I understand, this is just my perspective).

I think that the terms Religion and Spirituality deal with different things. Spirituality is vital in following a Religious path whereas Religion is not necessary in following a Spiritual path. We can see this from the massive diversity of different spiritual paths followed within a particular Religion (I would also argue that all serious Spiritual paths followed within a Religion are unique.) Religion simply refers to whether the inspiration for the following of a Spiritual path is a traditional mass preached doctrine, in which case it can be easily categorized, or something more subjective, where it is refered to simply as Spiritual.

If we understand someone's religion to be what he/she practices to address spiritual needs, to reject religion is impossible for the spiritual person. The spiritual person might reject X, Y, and Z conceptions of religion, yet embrace his personal religion, his personal path.