Somehow, Stalin and Hitler did not need this “tool” to help them kill millions and millions of people.
There are lots of things wrong with religion, but blaming all past evil actions and wars on religion is stupid. Evil people will find anything available in their culture/location/time to justify war and mass murder.
Of course, people like islamic extremists do make one think “maybe religion *is * a dangerous thing”, but then again, if it were not for islam, these people might have found something else to justify what they are doing. Islamic extremists want to impose strict islamic law on everyone in their country, but then again, the Nazis did impose a strict authoritarian state on everyone in their country, without utilizing religion.
I’m reminded of a thread on Libertarianism, and someone asked which had killed more people - the free market or government. Putting things like that - “which was used as a cause for the most evil” - is stupid. The free market, government, religion, and anything else is neutral, inherently. People can use it either way; just like you have to guard against evil government, or evil corporations, you have to guard against evil religions. But just like government or a company can be very good, productive, beneficial, and otherwise goody two shoes, so can religion. The vehemence that some atheists protest religion with reminds me of hardcore anarchists. I find the “religious people are stupid” argument as asinine as the “atheists are immoral” argument, and it sickens me to hear either here on the SDMB, because we’re generally smart folk.
All good intentions aside, considering all the touble schools have in getting students just to be proficient in basic skills, adding another subject to be studied and tested on would be adding more of as burden to an already crippled system.
Secondly, kids do not need to be debating the merits of different religious faiths. They should be debating what factor was most important in causing the Civil War, and discussing scientific theories. Schools are not the place to introduce spirituality. That’s what church is for, or even afterschool clubs.
Sadly, I don’t think so. I think you would have outraged parents screaming at school administrators for trying to “indoctrinate” their kids into Buddhism. For crying out loud, Harry Potter is enough to get them fired up, let alone exposing their offspring to differing points of view as regards religion.
