Can Religion Be Taught In Schools

Is it ok for students to express religious beliefs in class discussions, or through assignments? If you were Brittany Settle you would probably answer “No”. Settle v. Dickson County School Board, 53 F. 3d 152 (6th Cir. 1995), Brittany’s assignment was a research paper and her topic was drama approved by her teacher, which she later changed, without approval, to “The Life of Jesus”. The teacher refused her paper and Brittany received a zero. The teacher gave six reasons why she refused Brittany’s paper. Court ruled that Brittany’s free speech was not violated, by having to abide by a teacher's curriculum, and the teacher has control over the curriculum and classroom.

Many people have thought that religion is one of the most important aspects of our lives and that it is a structure for how we must carry ourselves. Some believe that a life without faith or religion is no life worth living at all because that is what allows them to give meaning or purpose to life. Many would agree that there are great stories about morals and traditions that each provides and we could learn a great amount of wisdom and understanding from them. As a result of this they also believe that it should be taught alongside our everyday classroom lessons such as math, reading, and writing. In fact, the Catholic Church had such a strong presence in Cincinnati during the 1800s

A human being is described as being a creature capable of questioning concepts such as “who am I” and “why am I here” in order to give meaning to their existence. (Creech Ph.D., 2015)

Today, many Americans believe the expression, “separation of church and state”, comes directly from the U.S. Constitution; however, this is false. The expression actually traces back to a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 (Pearson). In his letter, Jefferson states that religion is “a matter which lies solely between Man and his God,” and the government should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state” (Pearson). For years, this dogma has caused major controversy within the United States public school system. One of the most heavily debated of these controversial topics deals with evolution, a scientific theory that has

“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.” - Charles Darwin (5). Natural selection is the process by which organisms that possess favorable traits tend to survive and produce more offspring, passing down the favorable traits. Evolution and natural selection change the allele (a variant of a gene) frequencies in a population, and the organisms with the most favorable traits survive to reproduce. Over time the organisms become better adapted for the changing

Evolution is “the process of which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms at the beginning of time.” At the time most naturalists believed that in the beginning the species were there and they have not changed over time or that the species were created over the course of natural history, they believed that they stayed the same throughout time. Darwin noticed great similarities in different types of animals that linked each other together. This led Darwin to believe that these animals evolve over time and will eventually turn into the species with similar actions and characteristics as their early ancestors. Darwin then began to believe that all species survive through a process called “natural selection” which is when the species that adapt well to the environment live, but if they don’t adapt, they will die. Mentioned in Darwin’s book the “Origin of Species” darwin mentions this quote “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning

Darwin believed all plants and animals had changed from past families by natural selection. An example of natural selection would be the different coloration between beetles (Understanding Evolution, 2008). There are two different colored beetles, one is brown and the other is green. Since the environment cannot have an overpopulation, the green beetles will get consumed by birds and not be able to survive and reproduce as much as the brown beetles. The brown beetles have offspring because the trait has a genetic basis. When they produce more offspring, they become more common in the environment and if this process continues, the population of beetles will be mostly brown. Certain characteristics are innate within a species which help them reproduce and survive more than other species with no such inborn characteristics. These species will become more favorable and most common in the population. Darwin’s theory of natural selection favors organisms that are prone to adapting well to the environment, it makes it easy to pass on their genes stabilizing the population and making it stronger. Species begin to die out according to, what Darwin calls, survival of the fittest.

On the other hand, in the American culture both males and females can attend school to get an education and earn a degree. The American culture does not teach about religion in their schools unless is a private and/or religious institution. In public schools the classroom are integrated males and females, there is no segregation based on gender, and they all learn the same educational subjects. The students have a choice to further their education if they desire after they have completed high school. Attending public school is free and mandatory for children ages 6 to 18 years old. Both genders have the same opportunities to learn and once they reached the 18 years of age, both males and females can marry if they desire.

Another reason why a variety of religions should be taught in schools is because it educates students so they can have a right to choose their religion. Many people tend to stick to their family religion because they are not educated about other religions and so they do not have the same flexibility as others when it comes to choosing a religion for themselves. If schools teach students a variety of religions, students will have an understanding of a wider range of religions and by having this knowledge, they are able to choose what type of faith they would like to believe in. Instead of teaching only one religion, a whole range of religions should be taught, in order for people to select a religion that they truly believe in. A fair amount

Charles Darwin broached the theory of natural selection in his book the Origin of Species, which has been considered the basis of evolutionary biology to this day. Natural selection is when populations of a species evolve over the course of many generations. Darwin believed that species were not created separately, but instead, species were derived from one another. In other words, the evolution of species creates many variations among creatures, and this is because all of those species came from a common ancestor, and characteristics changed to increase the species chance of survival.

To begin religion plays a key role in history, literature, and current events. Religions and ideologies are a key part too many individuals lives all across the world, many of these people live their lives according to their own religious belief teachings and even ideologies. I believe religions and ideologies should be taught at all school levels, because at a young age it helps open our minds and be more accepting to other religions and their own religious beliefs, In many paper I will be focusing on the most popular religions in the world Christianity and Islam. I will be discussing the negative and positive reasons as to why religions should be taught at school level, also the similarities between these two religions and differences, in

Should it? Should it? It depends on what the religion itself imparts. If it imparts morals that can relate to success in your future life. Words of spiritual leaders can motivate the people. You need to know some elementary wisdoms of the 5 major world religions. And I’m going to get a lot of disapproval for this. We’ll go principal to slightest.

Darwin first presented his theory of evolution by natural selection through his book called ‘On the Origin of Species’. The book was released in 1859 and it explained the process of how organisms changed over time through the result of changes in heritable physical or behavioural traits. These changes allow an organism to adapt to the environment that it inhabits so that the organism’s chances of survival improve and produce more offspring (Than, 2015). However, biological evolution does not simply mean a change over time. It is believed that the central idea of biological evolution is that all organisms on Earth share a common ancestor (Understanding Evolution, 2015). Darwin’s theory ‘presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) ‘descent with modification’’ (All About Science, 2015). Mutations that aid the survival of an organism are preserved and that is a process called natural selection. The beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation and over time, the beneficial mutations accumulate and the result is variation between organisms (All About Science, 2015). The fact that there are numerous species that are living and extinct shows that there must have been a reason why one organism had the ability to survive and the other did not. Their survival depended on their adaptability to their environment (American Museum of Natural History, 2015).

Charles Robert Darwin, the creator of the theory of evolution that has changed the way that we perceive the world as we know it. The naturalists think that we are all our own separate beings but the theory of evolution goes against what the naturalists think. Darwin believes that every species that exists today is just an evolution of their ancestor where we needed to adapt to different geological environments and living conditions to survive. This principle is called “Survival of the fittest” and links to the idea of natural selection which is the basic concept of evolution. The concept of natural selection is when given when a species changes to accommodate its environment to be able to survive, it can be weather conditions or even to be able to escape predators but eventually because of this the species evolves differently to be able to stay alive. Charles Darwin is the father of evolution who has shed light upon many things that help us to understand who we are and how we came to be today. In this paper I will be talking about his theory and how it works. The different view points about it which could be negative depending on what you believe in and further develop the concept of natural selection also evolution within itself and how different species had to evolve to adapt to the environmental conditions.

Religion is different for all people although a variety of them have different beliefs and practices than others. All public schools accept the diversity of students in which some differ from race/ethnicity or religion. Although most people have believed that religion should be banned from public schools because each person has their own right to believe in what they desire. As for the First Amendment of the Constitution provides freedom of speech, religion, and press. Therefore, if public schools are teaching religion in classes that means that they are violating the First Amendment. If the students are taking a religion class, it’s a different thing and excluded from teachers who are generally talking about religion in another class which is not correct. They weren’t notified that religion was going to be taught in that course they may feel disturbed. Religion plays a role in what students can express themselves as a human individual.