Religion In Public Schools

The Expression of Religion in Public Schools Today Students and teachers have tip toed over the subject of religion in public schools for many years now. Many students don’t understand why they feel as if they cannot fully express their religious values in public schools, when in fact freedom of religion is a civil right to all citizens. In addition, some students who attend public schools want to get the chance to learn about religious ideals, history, and concepts. The expression of religion in public schools has changed over the years from being specifically used to teach religion to not allowing teachers to speak and making students uncomfortable about their own religious beliefs, a change that is not best for the students.

History Behind

According to An Outline History of Religion in American Schools, schools were first created in order for children to learn about religion and the word of God. The very first people that came to the United States were Pilgrims, who made it a priority to teach their children the Bible and Christian faith. Schools used to be required to have Bible readings and there used to be Bible based textbooks in schools (Steele, 2012). Mary Wisniewski noted in her 2011 article, “Even early state-funded public schools in Massachusetts had devotional Bible readings and prayers....” After the Civil War, Blaine Amendments were passed in many states to ban religious schools from receiving public funding (Wisniewski, 2011). The Blaine amendment eventually failed, but since then states have added provisions in their Constitutions much like the Blaine amendments. The American Educational History: A Hypertext Timeline discusses how the Bill Of Rights doesn’t contain any amendment talking about education. On the other hand, the Constitution says that any power not delegated to the federal government is the state's power via the tenth amendment. Therefore, the state governments hold

Atheists also widely support these theories, much like Christians support the Biblical theory of creation. Mark Looy noted, in his 2017 article, that atheism is in fact a religion. To prove atheism is a religion, Looy states “Atheists hold a worldview that fits this definition well, for they have a cause to promote, embrace a naturalistic system of beliefs, and hold them with ardor and faith.” Looy went on to discuss that when science teachers explain the universe and all of life, they usually ignore the theory of God and go right to the “scientific rationale that supports atheistic humanism.” If atheism is a religion, then the argument of religious views being restricted from schools will no longer suffice (Looy, 2017). Children attending public schools are being purely influenced by atheistic beliefs that support the theory of evolution which is being taught in almost every public school. Therefore, it can be considered unjust that the theory of evolution is allowed to be taught in schools, while the theory of how God created the world is still not taught in