One of the most contemptible stunts American conservatives have pulled over the past several decades is attempting to undermine the public school systems in the various states of the USA (which are expected to be open to and educate ALL children) and promote private schools which are designed to teach members of one specific religion. The results can be places of brainwashing instead of genuine education. Instead of merely teaching ABOUT religions, they often indoctrinate children with lies to justify religious bigotry.

This was shown clearly to me by this comment on another blog:
http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/01/12/no-my-diversity-doesnt-have-to-include-your-bigotry/#comment-189808

I spent first through fourth grades in a Roman Catholic private school. We were taught that the only people who were Christians and who were going to Heaven were Roman Catholics. Everyone else was damned. No one else believed in God.

The summer between fourth and fifth grades my parents bought a house and I was told I would be going to the public school. I was terrified because I was going to be associating with the damned.

On the very first day of fifth grade I had a crisis of faith because how did the school day start? One of the kids stood up in front of the classroom and read five verses from the Psalms. In four years of school at a RC private school, we never once read from the Bible.

In my public school there were Jews who believed in God, Methodists who believed in God, Presbyterians who believed in God, black people who believed in God, Asians who believed in God…

That was the beginning of my leave-taking from the Roman Catholic Church because those lay teachers, nuns, and priests had lied to me.

I find it hard to believe that the Roman Catholic Church would deny the Christianity of Protestants, of Eastern Orthodox believers, or of others. Then again, it is common for conservative Protestants to claim that Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, or even Seventh Day Adventists are not true Christians, but are “cults” instead. But from a Jewish perspective, Christianity clearly began as a cult breaking away from orthodox Judaism. A cult is merely a dogmatic religion that has not (yet) gotten very popular.

Which is why I said elsewhere, “It is easy to assume you have the only true faith when you have only that one faith in your community and do not know followers of other religions except through crude stereotypes. Once you get to know those followers as people, those stereotypes tend to break down. Exposure to those people breeds tolerance quite naturally.”

In places like Saudi Arabia, only Islam is tolerated and it is therefore like a cult there. In some other countries of South and Central America, Roman Catholicism may be the cult. In parts of Israel, Hasidic Judaism may be the cult. When the state directly supports ANY religion and excludes all others, the religion no longer becomes a healthy means of support for the community and instead becomes an instrument of oppression and thus EVIL!

Weren’t Christians persecuted by Romans before they came to dominate the Roman Empire later? Wasn’t the Prophet Muhammad and his first followers persecuted by their pagan neighbors? Weren’t the Puritans persecuted by the Anglicans before leaving England to found the colony of Massachusettes….only to oppress others who were not Puritans, even killing some suspected of being witches? And don’t get me started on Israel’s Jewish dominated government and its bigotry against Arabs and Muslims!

These things happened because people did not fight for religious FREEDOM for all, but only for the right of their own specific religion to take over and rule the society. And that is evil. Equating any religion with exclusive goodness and truth is to lie to people. Goodness and truth can only be determined by how it actually affects real people in the present time; it does not matter in the slightest what scriptures said in the past, because we are not living in the past!

We need to stop the lies in the USA, in the Middle East, and elsewhere in the world. We have to oppose and condemn private schools that are designed for one specific religion so that all children can be exposed to as much truth as possible.

Quite simply, I do not want children being taught only religious bullshit like what is recorded on these earlier blog entries without some sort of response from non-believers:

https://dalehusband.com/2011/03/09/insulting-and-libeling-unbelievers/

https://dalehusband.com/2009/10/12/lying-about-history-for-the-bible/

https://dalehusband.com/2017/03/12/lying-about-history-for-the-bible-round-2/

https://dalehusband.com/2010/09/14/the-book-of-mormon-is-a-p-o-s/

https://dalehusband.com/2011/01/05/how-to-lie-to-children-about-evolution/

https://dalehusband.com/2010/08/20/the-prophet-isaiah-did-not-predict-the-coming-of-jesus/

And it is not just religion I worry about. What if private schools teach nonsense like that from the “Health Ranger” Mike Adams and insist everything he says is true?  https://dalehusband.com/category/skepticism/natural-news/

Or the lunacy of Pamela Geller as if she is always correct:  https://dalehusband.com/2014/08/30/pamela-geller-pathological-liar-hypocrite-and-bigot/

Or how about these dogmas?

https://dalehusband.com/2017/03/16/responding-to-the-future-of-freedom-foundation/

Yes, I already said similar things here, but I think it is well worth repeating now.