I see at least $9,057,513,000 reasons to stop.

I absolutely agree. Leaving cultural and religious awareness of others to the parents would be leaving the blind to the blind...or even worse, leaving it to people who think they know based on their own biases and prejudices toward a culture. This is senseless when most of the biases and prejudices out there are based on misinformation that was handed down from their own parents. The only way to break this cycle is to educate people of it.

It does not take an education on each and every culture to accomplish opening a child’s mind against bias and prejudice. Schools do not have to spend any time or resources at all really in order to break this cycle. When a student of another culture is introduced into a school, protecting that child from the prejudices they will be held to by the other students by educating the students about THAT child's culture, is enough make a child doubt and question for themselves when they hear other prejudice views concerning other cultures and beliefs. It's really that simple.

I know a teacher who happens to be a Buddhist. This knowledge entered his classroom through his outside activities…something he is entitled to. Now that it is common knowledge, if a child in his classroom is ever going to be affected or distracted by his religious beliefs, it will be because he is not allowed to explain the workings of Buddhism to his students and not because of his beliefs themselves. He hears rumors that the children believe that Buddha is a God or that Buddhist are Atheists. Since neither is correct, it pains him that his children are so misinformed. He does not wish to convert them, or make his classroom Buddhist friendly...he just wishes he could tell them truth so their speculation will not become a source of distraction to even one of them.

I don’t believe that because this school has a Buddhist teacher, that Buddhism should be worked into the cariculum. As I suggested concerning a child from another culture entering a classroom; I do believe they are entitled to hear the truth instead of beling left to their immaginations or their parents opinions. Who better to give them the bit of education they need than the very source of their curiosity. The parents of this teacher’s children were only able to tell them what they themselves think Buddhism is…which only confused them all the more.


Edit: Didn't have time to edit multiple punct. and sp. errors, so will apologize for them instead.

Well, I'm sorry that we are frustrating each other so much.

Looking at our conversations from a different angel I realize that we both want history taught in a true light, but we disagree on what exactly what it is.

I have something to have you consider in respect to religions being discussed or even taught in schools though.

I remember morning prayer over the intercom in my grade school. We had a little Asian boy in my class who did not pray, but was asked to lay his head down on his desk during our prayer time since he did not believe in our God. This head on desk position was the same "time out" position used for naughty kids through the rest of the day.

While I don't believe the teacher intended this to feel like a punishment, even a more appropriate form of exclusion is still exclusion and labels a child as “different” and unapproachable in the eyes of other children. They are uncertain about associating with a boy who must be strange or even evil if he doesn’t believe in God. But did removing prayer from school fix this?

While I do agree with the removal of prayer, if not just for my sympathy for this boy and others like him, I don’t believe removing prayer did all it was supposed to do, and even at that young age felt that even more would be required to make this child an equal to the other children.

This next story demonstrates this...

A girl from India joined our school in the 5th grade, and while she looked different, she seemed just like the rest of us once we got to know her. We no longer had morning prayer at this time, so she was not singled out as different…right? Wrong, because once the students saw her mother with a red jewel on her forehead, she became a strange and scary figure all the same. Rumors spread through our class and school that boys were not allowed to talk to her or her father might kill you! The girl had few friends after this and was always surrounded by rumors like that.

Had we been educated about the cultural and religious differences of these children from the beginning, we would have thought of them very differently. Though we may not fully understand their religious beliefs, we would have understood that there were no real reasons to fear those differences as we had. Understanding is what breeds equality, not just preventing the singling out of a religion.

This is not just something I happen to believe, but have witnessed quite clearly through the model put into practice by my own Mother. When I was in the 3rd grade, my parents had the privilege of sponsoring the family of a foreign dignitary taking refuge in America. I won’t say were the family was from, and certainly not who they were…it’s immaterial anyway. The children in this family had a great deal of trouble fitting into our school due to their cultural differences and even more so due to their religious differences. My Mother brought this to the attention of the school, who would not entertain the idea of educating the other children about their differences due to the rules and restrictions of the subjects involved. Period.

My Mother was the scout leader for a girls scouting troop at the time…again, which one is immaterial… but as most scouting associations do, they had a policy against bringing religious discussions into the subject matter of troop meetings. My mother fought the scouting administration at the risk of being banned from scouting.

She insisted that these children be allowed to openly answer questions during a meeting of their fellow scouts to dispel the fears and concerns the other girls had about them. Eventually she won and the girls were allowed to discuss their differences with the scouting troop, who were allowed to ask any cultural and religious questions they wished. There was not a girl in the troop without a question and they were thrilled to finally get some answers. These girls became normal kids and acceptable friends overnight…due to this education! Way to go Mom!

Public schools do teach this, and just as importantly, they also teach when a religious doctrine abuses power. They are two very different things.



This is not comparable at all. Hitler is one person. A religious doctrine that reigns over 6 countries for over 2,000 years was not being sustained by a small group of people. It was a religous belief accepted by the Catholic majority in Europe.



You are the only person I have ever heard of who took the idea of this seperation to mean that religious affiliations should be sticken from the books.

The purpose of seperation is not meant to cause us to ignore the differences between religions today, it's meant to make sure there are no religious requirements or restrictions to be a public school teacher or public office holder, to keep those teachers and public office holders from endorcement of a specific religious doctrine, and most of all to keep a leader who is of a specific religious belief from ruling our country with its doctrines.

Did it mention how she was reaching the breaks?

I was taught that the Crusades were a Catholic movement against the Muslim infidels…and don’t have a bad thought about the present Catholic Church because of it, and don’t know anyone else who does.

To blame one Pope for the Crusades would be to name a scapegoat for the belief system of more than half of Europe. The principals the Catholic Church taught was in practice long before that Pope was even born. There is no one person responsible for the Catholic Church’s belief that it was the Supreme authority under God and was in fact ordained by God to convert or destroy God’s enemies. This was the method in which the Church operated throughout most of history and we are all aware that the Catholic Church of old is not the Catholic Church of today.

I don't condone degrading religions in schools either...but talking about what religions taught and how they behaved in history does nothing to degrade what a religion teaches and practices today.

There is not one religion that has not changed in what they believed their duty to God is or how they practice and teach their doctrine. And there is not one religion that has not been responsible for shameful and sometimes violent behavior in the name of their God.

The transformations that different religions have gone through from the past to present IS history in ITSELF...and just as important to learn from, so that the knowledge of past transgressions of every church can continue to shape the growth of those churches in the future.

I think it’s difficult for men and women to be best friends even when no prior romantic relationship has ever existed due to the fact that if they enjoy each other’s company enough to be best friends, the likelihood of one ending up wishing for the relationship to take a romantic turn if pretty high.

Now add the memories of a romance to the mix and the odds decrease greatly.

I think the only chance of a best friendship with an ex working without one party ending up hurt in the end, is if the break up were completely mutual and neither is likely to end up wanting to re-kindle the romantic relationship down the road. Even then there are risks of one falling back in love with the other at a later time.

The same spontaneous type of personality typical of bad boys, is also the type of personality that produces a more passionate romantic type.

Passionate personalities are a double edged sword, though, as what goes up in a passion way...also comes down quite passionately too. By the time we realize we are dealing with a bad boy or worse... a heavy duty mmanic type, we are so hooked on the romantic passion that we try to deal with the bad side so we can keep getting our fix.

Can you two get a room please?

Very wise advice and very nicely stated!

I do believe that a sloven appearance is disrespectful where it is avoidable. But if God prefers patten leather shoes and fancy dresses on his worshipers, I would think that he would have put a stop to the thousands of years that his followers wore dirty sheets. The only specifics I recall in my studies of the Bible is about clenliness. And even this instruction allowed for washing oneself with sand if no water is available.

Personally, I don't possess dress clothes, as I belive God perfers I spend my 10% on charity as he requested, than on earthly adornments for myself.

Then I don't understand what you want not to be included, as most of history includes members of religion. So, do you just not want the people to say that it was mostly "Jews" exterminated in concentration camps? What do you want to call them?

I'm taking this to mean that you want Pope Urban II (and maybe his cohorts) to be blamed for the Crusades and not the Catholics of Europe in general? If so, then in this translation of history...what did Pope Urban II use (if not widely accepted religious doctrine) to motivate all the European armies to wage war on Muslims? You probably don't approve of my saying they attacked Muslims...but they did not attack all of Jerusalem, as there were Christians in Jerusalem too...so who do you want it to be said they attacked? Should we say followers of Muhammed? In this case do we bother to explain who they believed Muhammed was or why a large group of people followed and fought for him? I just don't understand what you want to happen here.



If we can't learn how not to repeat the same mistakes in history, then we have learned nothing from history at all...I fully agree with you here. I just believe that the most truthful and detailed light given historical events are required to really learn these lessons.

I urge anyone who believes that we are somehow protecting our children by covering up the contribution that religious differences had on historical atrocities in our past, to consider that one of the main reasons the masses allowed these atrocities to occur under their noses and even took up arms to commit them themselves was directly due to very similar restrictions imposed on education at the time.

That would be the part where Obamacare targets the ONLY industry that already has the heaviest insurance mandate burden with a 5 employee requirement for healthcare coverage instead of the 50 employee requirement imposed on ALL other industries.

Ours is an industry where 5% profit is typical, due to the current insurance mandates imposed on us. Unless insurance premiums go down drastically, healthcare coverage for my 31 employees will cost me 6%-8% of company profit….that’s 1%-3% more than we have the ability to cover....even if I don't make a dime myself.

The typical response to this is..."You will simply have to raise our prices"...basic business 101…right? I'll go ahead and cover this as you don't know the inner workings of our industry...so here is how it really works: The larger corporations in this industry will not raise prices because they have the leverage to absorb the added cost through backroom deals with the suppliers who can’t afford to lose their business. Mid-sized to smaller companies do not have that pull, so will not be able to raise thier prices and remain competative.

This formula spells disaster for small to middle-sized companies in the labor industry….and though it is not solely due to Obamacare, as the bloodsucking 40% payroll insurance mandates were already a hardship….but the added Obamacare mandates are the final backbreakers.

So which part don't you believe...that there are labor contractors who already have to pay $40 on the $100 in mandated insurance already, or that labor contractors are going to be required to carry health insurance on 5 employees or more.

Or is it that you don't believe that the combination of the two will can put a business out of business?

I'd like to see what the President would say about someone who rode their bike to the White House to keep a meeting with him.

I'm not promoting Herman Cain, I only said that there is only one I've heard address the issues with small businesses and how important they are in our ecomony...it just happened to be Herman Cain. This is how little small businesses are being thought of in this economy or as having a role in possible solutions.

If you are interested in seeing a video of what Herman Cain has to say about small businesses, I can try to find it...but like I said...not promoting him and don't necessarily believe he has any real answers.

Your friend is obviously in a business where he is not mandated to pay $40 on the $100 for insurance already. And he is probably not in the only business catagory that is going to be required to carry health insurance for as few as 5 employees.

For someone who hates big corporations so much due to their greed, an oportunistic ways,I'm a little surprised you are not a little more sympathetic to the smaller businesses who are not driven by greed, and care individually about their employees. I'm surprised to get such a cool reply from you of all people.

I think the effort you made in riding your bike to worship shows more respect for your God, chruch and it's members than anything you could possibly wear could.

It’s really sad to me that a Canadian knows more about American economy and politics than most Americas. BTW...that is not a slight to anyone debating our Canadian friend in this thread, but was aimed at American citizens in general.

That being said, I’m not here to engage in the debate going on here, but just to make a general comment on the topic of the relation of jobs and Obamacare.

I’m in the same boat as most middle class, small business owners right now…maybe more so because I’m engaged in a business that is not as necessary as other services these days. Everyone on my staff has taken pay cuts over the last couple of years to ensure that none of our workers jobs are cut.

We already pay as much as $40 in liability and workman’s comp insurance per $100 in salary on our workforce. My accountant and I have crunched the numbers 20 different ways, but the bottom line of each spells the same failure…if I have to provide health insurance or pay fines for being unable, there will be 31 more people looking for jobs…32 including myself. I am not independently wealthy, so there is not a thing I'll be able to do about it.

As far as I can see, Herman Cain is the only one really giving much attention to the issues facing small businesses. People seem to forget that small businesses are an important part of our economy and could be a ready resource toward the creation of jobs. Forget about us and we will simply be swallowed up or fade away.

I feel that way myself about most of them.