Life Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness Research Paper

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Three rights that the United States Declaration of Independence mentions as unalienable rights endowed to them. Many people know these rights, many people have heard of them; what many people don’t realize is that the Declaration of Independence says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (United States Congress).” This document is the foundation of our country and in order to completely remove religion from schools then accurately teaching the history of our country would have to be taken out as well. Christianity is the only
religion taken into consideration in this example, countless other religions would have to be removed too. Science, social studies, and history classes are just a few classes that would have to be altered in order to remove religion from them. The arguments for why religion should be removed are biases that come from anti-religious groups, especially anti-Christian extremists. There is no logical reasoning to remove religion from schools. Before getting too in depth in this topic there is a need to clear up some key terms used in this argument.
Religion means any kind of religious belief such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Atheism just to name a few. Teaching in terms of school is an authority figure providing educational lectures, homeworks, etc. to students. Public schools are schools that are available to the general public through funding provided by government programs and taxes. Moral is the distinction between right and wrong, also known as ethics. Values are relative worth or merit to each individual. Lastly, a principle is an accepted rule or
conduct. Some intelligent arguers from debate.org feel that religion should not be allowed in school(MewxVenus). Members of this organization claim that their should be no religious education, the only things being taught in school should be hard solid facts. The negative also claims that religion should be separated from all core classes like history and science but then goes on a step further saying that there is no budget in the school to offer any classes on religion. The primary argument against having religion in schools is fairness. The claims that are constituted as unfair are religious biases being taught by teachers, students feeling the need to comply to a certain religion in order to succeed in school, it puts unnecessary pressure on students, creates hostility between religions, and make students without a religion feel unimportant. Another argument is separation of church and state, and the meaning behind it. Those against religion in schools claim that public school is considered a member of the state and that allowing religion to take place in public school, in fact, disallows the separation of church and state. ABCNews did a report on a hot debate that took place in Texas on whether or not religion should be allowed in schools (Friedman). The affirmative in this case is a Christian minister who doesn’t feel Christianity gets enough credit for founding this country and not only should religion stay in schools, but they argue that it should increase. They argue that history classes need to put an emphasis on religion in order to accurately educate students. In the argument from the site, debate.org, the affirmative had some counterclaims to the negative (MewxVenus). The affirmative makes three key points. First is student values, the claim is that religion teaches key morals, values, and ethics that are beneficial to the children. They also claim that religion is a huge part of our world and our culture so not educating students on religion doesn’t fully prepare them for life after school. The second main point is fairness in the opposite direction of the negative. We live in a primarily Christian culture so if any students are going to hear of any religion through other sources it will most likely be Christianity, also the Pledge of Allegiance states “one nation, under God.” In order to create fairness to all religions there should be education on all religions in school. In fact the affirmative goes a step further suggesting that there should be electives available to students allowing them to take classes on religions. The third point stems from the second point and that point is jobs. The affirmative claims that providing these electives to students will create more jobs for teachers of these religious electives. So the major issues at hand in this debate are our Constitutional freedoms.
Some interpretations of the First Amendment and the idea of not establishing a religion means removing it from schools when in actuality it seems more logical that all religions be taught, not just Christianity. Just like in formal debates we shouldn’t insult our children by attempting to avoid all contact with religion and hope that they never have to address it, but instead we should present children with all the religions and what they teach allowing the child to decide for or against religions his or herself. In the ABCnews report the reporter states that a big concern for why religion shouldn’t be allowed in public schools is that many publishing companies would have to change their textbooks and some may or may not be able to be sold to some schools (2009). This was a huge factor, which if the amount of money made by a publishing company is more of a concern than the actual education, there is an issue. Laslty, you can’t take the education of religions out and still teach certain lessons in relation to religion in other classes. Each subject would have to be gone through and remove any mention of any religion in order to accurately remove religion from schools. My main claim is when people want to remove religion from schools they do not realize the gravity of how much material is actually removed, hindering the education of
children. Works Cited
Friedman, Emily. Texas Curriculum Review Sparks Debate About Religion. News . Dallas: ABC
News, 2009. Internet.
MewxVenus. Debate.org. 2 March 2009. Debate. 10 September 2013.
United States Congress. "Declaration of Independance." 4 July 1776. Charters of Freedom.
Document. 10 September 2013.