Is it bad to teach 10 commandments in school?

Question

Throughout the past 20 years school violence has become a mainstream debate, and for good reasons, our kids are screwed up, some of them at least. Most people argue that religion is bad in schools because it singles people out, but if it isn't religion then its clothes, or sports, or money, so they are actually only singleing out religion because they don't believe what the majority of people believe. Regardless of our founding fathers built this nation on religious beliefs, we still deny that our children learn anything about them in school.

So after my spew, I ask is teaching the 10 commandments bad? Is it bad to to teach "Thou shall not kill" or "Respect thy parents"? Ok, so teaching there is only 1 God can be alienating, but other than that, what about the other ones?

Answer 1

You are assuming that this would solve the problem. It is a fact that almost 90 percent of people in the U.S. believe in god, in one form or another. So, according to you, we should actually have one of the lowest crime rates in the developed world. Instead, we have the 24th highest crime rate among all countries, and none of those with worse crime rates are fully developed. If you don't want to accept this, simply do a Yahoo or Google search on "crime rate countries". The ten commandments are a problem, absolutely, since they are centered around the Christian god and tell you not to worship any other one. Besides, the most important ones are already laws. Ask parents to do a better job of instilling acceptable values in their children.

And by the way, our founding fathers built this nation to be free from religious influence.

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world"- Thomas Jefferson

Answer 2

I don't think "The 10 Commandments" should be taught in school simply because students such as myself who hate all the religious bullshit that gets pushed upon us from everywhere else will just tune out.

On the other hand, I think that the values in the 10 Commandments are already being taught, just not in a religious way. Respect is always asked for by teachers and all that, and the Commandments are learned (by anyone with half a brain) just by common sense and social interactions.

But to say our kids are screwed up is totally wrong. So one out of 2 Million goes berzerk and kills a bunch of people. That's no reflection of the REST of the kids anymore than Bush's intelligence is a reflection on anyone else's.

Sure, the founding fathers built the country on moral principles from their religious beliefs, but they ALSO provided for the separation of church and state, to escape the religious persecution recieved in England. You want to teach the 10 Commandments, you have to teach EVERY other religious base, and allow students who don't believe or want to learn about it go do something else.

Answer 3

Religion in public schools is wrong because the purpose of education should be to teach useful skills and train a child to think... reading, writing, math, science, history, geography, art, music, etc....

Our founding fathers were mostly deists, who believed that religion had no place in government and public institutions in a free and secular society.

Yes the 10 commandments are bad... first of all the god stuff is irrelevant... respecting your parents (or any other authority) should not be a given, respect should be earned... we already have laws against killing and stealing... you can't demand that anyone not 'want' something... and the whole adultery thing, children will learn relationship skills based on the relationships they live with and observe.

Most of the kids that are screwed up, are screwed up because the parents don't bother having a relationship with their kids, so they don't recognize the signs when something is wrong. Many parents also think of themselves as the authority and the rulemaker while the child is simply to obey... WRONG... kids are people too, and they do much better when you treat them as the unique individuals they are and encourage them to be themselves instead of instilling guilt and shame in them, as religion tends to do.

Whew..... rant over

Answer 4

To teach some of the parts of the ten commandments is not wrong. Thou shall not kill and thou shall not steal are perfectly ok to teach. However, teaching like a god will punish the kids for breaking is the government promoting religion. That is against the rules. The spirit of most of the ten commandments is mostly about how to live in society. However, it is not the job of the government or government ran schools to push any religion or religious icon onto the students.

Answer 5

I think so, but for different reasons, as I am a follower of Jesus.

First, state-enforced religion has always been ugly. It is actually impossible to follow Jesus' teachings into a situation like this, as he commands his followers not to take on the hierarchical leadership style of the gentiles. Through love, we serve one another.

Second, even if I believed some kind of nationally embraced curriculum would spread my faith, I think teaching the law would be a bad idea. Jesus and Paul used the law to bring people to an understanding of personal sin. This was in order to bring them into a spiritual relationship with God. A spiritual relationship can't be known or measured through outward means, although adherence to rules can. Even in faith community, leaning too hard toward visible behaviors will result in less people "breaking the mold" as hope and love find no vent for expression.

But if the 10 commandments were talked about in school but not held up as the life we all must live, then I think it could be positive.

Answer 6

Is teaching the 10 commandments bad?
The answer is all around you, people who do not live by God's commandments do not know what sin is, this is why you have school shootings, murder, rape, incest, adultery, fornication, kids not respecting their parents or any authority, same sex marriages, abortions, and the list just goes on and on.
I lived in the Soviet Union when it still existed, it was an atheist nation that had wadded God up and threw him in the trash can. I guess God got the last laugh on that one since the Soviet Union is the one that ended up in the trash heap.
My point is, is that down through history strong societies such as the Soviet and Roman Empires collapsed from within due to their immorality and the chaos that insued.
America is at that point now, and as long as people choose to sin against God's Holy Law then they must be prepared to suffer the consequences of this transgression.
Unfortunately there will always be collateral damage, innocent Americans are being hurt by this disobedience to God's Law and, our own Civil Law which is mostly based on the Judeo-Christian principle.
The founding fathers saw that these standards were important to live by and these standards have gotten us to this point in our history; too bad so many americans are choosing to think otherwise today.
Men are simply foolish to think that there is no God and that they control their destiny. The Bible says, 'it is appointed once for a man to die and then the judgement'. 10 out of 10 die, no man escapes the death sentence God has put on humanity.
The only escape is to repent (turn away) from your sins and put your faith in Jesus; he has paid the fine for the sins of humanity and if we put our faith in Him we can be set free from our sinful offenses to God and have everlasting life.
Please read your Bible and study it, I guarentee you that you will see the truth in its words.

Answer 7

Jorge, your founding fathers built your nation entirely on slavery, not religious belief.

You should include George Washington who kept and traded slaves.

In those times, all men were born equal as long as they where white, everyone else was considered either as property or a nuisance

Americans (quite rightly) did not wish to relinquish their hard earned taxes (and sovereignty) to a foreign colonial power (King of England).

As for the 10 commandments as preached by the older generation, the kids see that older folks do not live by the commandments and are at a loss to see why they should be treated any differently.

Answer 8

Yes it is bad. It opens up a gigantic can of worms with a never ending supply of worms allow me to explain.

If we teach the 10 commandments we must also teach every other main moral princple from every other religion that exists. It would have to be an entire ciriculum. Your child would have to be taught everything from scientology to Chirstianity to FSM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster.

We cannot teach the 10 commandments because that would be saying that Christianity is superior to all other religions and that just pisses on the freedom of religion.

Thou shalt not covet the neighbors wife can be taught but along with that teaching Leviticus 20: 10 " 'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death." has to be taught.

Answer 9

A few schools are actually starting to teach the Bible as "literature" just because the youth of our nation are so uneducated about it and a basic Biblical knowledge is necessary to understanding so many of the great literary works in history! I am excited about this because I am sure that a few will come to Christ due to this introduction of the Bible.

I think the real problem in our nation is that too many parents aren't taking responsibility for raising up their children responsibly. If parents want their kids to know this valuable stuff they've got to teach it themselves!

I was a high school teacher for several years and during conferences parents were routinely astounded when I told them that their kids were always able to respond to any idea with what their parents had said about the subject!

Your kids are listening! Make sure you are talking!

Answer 10

I would think that those things, along with good behavior, would be taught at home.

If anything, Christians are failing in their own households.

Teaching only one God in a public school would be the equivalent of the government establishing that one God as THE religion, which is unconstitutional. We need to teach parents how to be parents, NOT teach teachers how to make up for the shortcomings of parents.