Is it that "God is being taken out of everything" or are bad parents to blame?

Question

We hear all the time that ever since "God was taken out of schools" (as some people view it) our world has gotten much worse. Daughter raised a good point in a previous question that perhaps people should stop blaming "God being taken out of everything" and actually take responsibility themselves for the way their kids turn out. Is it, in fact, a lessened emphasis on God in schools that's to blame or just not so great parenting? Would it be a problem that kids are not being exposed to God in schools if their parents actually did their job at home?

Personally, I think that "God has been taken out of everything" bit and the idea that we need God to learn morals is bollocks to begin with, but try to answer the question from the perspective from which it is written.

On another note, has our world really gotten worse?

Answer 1

I don't actually think our world has gotten that much worse, on balance. For every negative, there's a positive. (For example, there are children with diabetes who would not even have seen adulthood had they been born a few decades earlier, and maybe that nerdy girl in Calculus II gets picked on, but her mother wouldn't have been allowed to take that class.) I don't think problems come from "lack of God." Lack of free time, lack of opportunities for a child/teen to get active and use their imagination, lack of funding and oversight for funding, and asking the public school to do much too much might be problems, as well as craptacular parenting.

Answer 2

A worthy question.
I agree with you primarily that the parents and home influence are the most significant factor in child development, particularly the development of life values. If a child learns to love, share, care, be responsible, work, be kind, curteous, reverant, etc. in the home and family, with siblings and parents, then it is easy for them to carry those traits into the everyday life. We tend to treat our friends and colleagues better than we treat our families because we know that we only have to put up with the acquaintances for part of the day and that the way we treat them will determine how they treat us. We tend to take family for granted and think that we don't have to treat them nice. Such thinking is wrong. We should treat our family members the best that we can. We want to rely on family in time of need but if we have treated them poorly over the years, then we shouldn't be surprised if they don't want to help us when we need them. If we can treat our family members with love and respect, people that we were born into, not chosen, then we should be able to easily treat our acquaintances with love an respect, and thus be good citizens.
Does school and church play a part in this develpmental upbringing? Sure it does and exposure to good values in the external life beyond family can be invaluable to reinforce the lessons we gain from our family. However, if the family had not instilled those values in the first place, then the external influences are not going to have the same impact.
We should never abdicate our personal responsibility to teach our children proper life values and leave it up to church and school to do our job for us. They will not get the training that we want them to have if we rely upon others to do it for us. The saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child. I disagree, it takes a good home with parents and siblings to raise a child. The village can support the home, but the village cannot replace the home.
Having said that, I also agree that the influences of evil in this world are doing all that they can to eliminate Godly influences from our everyday lives. This is not good and we should actively try to stem this ungodly trend.

Answer 3

Adam was just as guilty as Eve was. He didn't have to eat the fruit just because she said so. As far as it being an apple there is no proof of that and is never mentioned, it's just called fruit. Them eating the fruit was about humans having free will. I'm not offended by what you wrote, you are entitled to your own thoughts and opinions just as I am, and I therefore also won't give you a lot of chapter and verse. And I totally agree with you that mankind could do with some parenting. It's sad that many people have children and then don't parent them themselves. Daycare and latchkey kids are becoming more prominent as the days go on.

Answer 4

Bad parenting or the lack of said parents and a support group is the problem.

Considering all the "wonderful" things that were being done int the US before it was decided that prayer is between a person and their God and that not the public school system nor the Federal government had the right to insist on it, for me it was a good thing we stopped the practice.

Folks want their kids to turn out as good human beings, they should try BEING parents in truth instead of in name only.

But to blame the ills of the world on `No force prayer in public schools' is a cop out. What's next, are the folks who believe that clap trap going to start blaming floods and droughts on lack of prayer? What will they do after that?, blame lack of prayer for, eclipses and meteor showers too?

Answer 5

Not to target anyone, but to the people who think public schools are bad because they're godless...there's religious private schools for that. *shrugs* It costs more, but what's more important...your children's morality and spiritual beliefs, or money?

Secondly, to answer the question...I think it's not because GOD has been taken out of schools and the like...but because corporal punishment has been removed! A few thwaps and the mild embarrassment for having been sent to the principal's office can make a lot of difference for some of the trouble makers.

It's practically illegal for parents to spank their own children. I'm not saying I'm pro-spanking, but I am pro-choice. The punishment is supposed to TEACH the child to behave on their own...so it has to be suited to the child AND to the crime.

Parents are so afraid that anything they do to reprimand their children will get them sent to jail. I'm 21, and my parents and everyone I knew got spanked. But any kids I know still in high school? Not a single one. Ever. Hmm.

Answer 6

Let's see. I am 52. I remember bible study in grade school.

So, I would indicate that this country has gone to hell since the early 60's. I do not buy it, sorry.

Also, religious people do not equate to high morals. In many instances, religious people justify their actions in the name of God.

Is polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, immoral, or prosecuted?

Morals can be learned form our parents and teachers. Morals can be learned from religion, but it is not a requirement.

Answer 7

Read Luke 11:24-26, Matthew 12:43-45, Matthew 13:24-43,
and Luke 12:41-46.

It is the Half-a-Time of the unbelievers.

Answer 8

I'm an American, and 50 years ago in my country, American citizens were shoved to the back of the bus and were denied service at certain hotels and restaurants because of their skin color. 100 years ago, the decision to allow women to vote was considered a massive controversy. 150 years ago, slavery was legal. No, we are not morally "worse" now than we were then. Parents have church on Sunday, summer vacation, and all sorts of time after school to raise their own children in their own manners. Blaming anybody else for the way your own kids turn out is cowardly and selfish.

Answer 9

I don't believe that God can be removed from anything, I think people move themselves further away from God by their actions. The children are precious and pure, and soak up their surroundings. They are a reflection of the world around them. They show us the condition of society.

Answer 10

It's bad parenting. Parents today are spending less time with their kids and know less about their kids lives than in generations past. To fill the void, the media has become a sort of third parent, and all it really teaches kids is superficiality, violence, sex and materialism.