1. The purpose of this article is to persuade the general public to become more educated in understanding the culture and principles of Christianity and other world religions.
2. This article does have a bias. Cathy Lynn Grossman believes that Americans have become deeply ignorant of religions including their own and should re-implement courses in religious studies for students to take.
3. In the newspaper article, “Americans Get an ‘F’ in Religion,” Grossman starts off by stating how “50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married,” clearly illustrating how Americans have become deeply ignorant to the religions, which is by no means a trivial issue. Because the majority of national and international conflicts revolve around religion, Americans need to grasp the basics and beliefs of other world
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One of the solutions provided requires students to take at least one course in religious studies during their college enrollment. Middle school students would be mandated to learn about world religions while high school students would become more educated on the Bible. The main reason why Bible reading was removed from schools was due to the 1963 Supreme Court decision, which “scarred schools so much they dropped it all.” While the reporter does make a valid, cogent argument, I oppose her intention to further educate society on the many religions around the world because taking the time to enlighten the general public about religion does not guarantee that they will retain it in their minds and because it should be up to the students to decide whether or not to enrich themselves with a broader array of knowledge.
Allocating money and resources to educate adults about other world religions will not guarantee any tangible
In order to focus on the foundation of religions, locations and time of events are limited to the minimum. It “does not attept to give a rounded view of the religions considered.” (p.2) It tried to do reasonable justice to several perspectives instead of attempting to catalogue many types. When he decides which view to present, the guideline
Perhaps, the most frightening aspect of this book is the ever-darkening depravity of American culture. Honestly, if a reader traces the opponents of fundamentalism through the work, they find a disturbing trend that explains why America is facing the problems she’s facing today. Slowly but surely, those who hold to fundamentalism are becoming fewer in number. Now, most well-educated people would not know what fundamentalism is or (more importantly) what it stands for. Small wonder America is going to Hell in a handbasket (pardon my
In his argument for the establishment of a public school system, Benjamin Rush does not waste any time addressing the obvious issue of taxpayer burden. While acknowledging this would warrant an initial investment, he insists that by establishing a system of public education in America would overtime cut taxes, and taxpayers would see a return on their initial investment [JEH1] [Rush, pg.678]. Rush maintains a position that as we acknowledge the benefits of learning spoken languages of the world, our youth would benefit as much learning the languages of finance and markets. To properly defend our liberties against the throes of tyranny, we must be aware of defending ourselves from economic tyranny. He establishes the potential merits of educating the youth in the matters of economics, arguing it provides “the best security
Report On Religious Literacy In the book Religious Literacy, Stephen Prothero’s main argument is that religious literacy is very important and it is important for youth to be religiously knowledgeable. Prothero starts off his book by talking about how “Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion” (1). Prothero says this because Americans go to church like and are religious yet know nothing about the basics of a religion. Then Prothero goes on to show some examples in which people being religiously knowledgeable would have helped a situation.
Faith is a relative concept to many people. Whether they see it as simply an action to participate in or a way of life, it dictates what they do. Through various literary devices, Meditation 17 by John Donne, How I Found Religion at a Baseball Game by Robert Fink, and An American Childhood by Annie Dillard all effect the reader and makes them think deeply about what the author is saying while utilizing various methods to do so. One similar aspect of the three essays is the author’s idea and opinion of God. Their views of God and their faith may have been different, but the main idea and concept of God remains the same.
Anti-Catholicism in America “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses”. (Lenny Bruce) In today’s modern society, religion is not look upon fondly. One religion seems to be in the media more often being criticized, Catholicism.
Horace Mann acknowledged many arguments made against common school reform during his tenth and twelfth annual reports to the Massachusetts Board of Education. Two of these oppositions included fear of religious division and concern of unwelcomed government involvement. In his advocacy for universal public education, Mann counteracted such disputes by insuring religion to be a private matter and government involvement to be a beneficial necessity for the common good. Resisters of common school reform accused supporters (including Mann) of introducing an “irreligious and anti-Christian” system and wanting to exclude religion from public education, while taking away religious authority and influence (Mann, 1848). Mann acknowledged these grave
Christian Persecution in the United States of America According to Dr. Carl S. Parnell’s article, “Growing Christian Persecution in America: Believe It or Not,” thousands of Christians all over the world have died for their beliefs in twentieth century; however, this anti-Christian ideology has quickly spread to the United States over the last five decades. Parnell goes on to say that the “seeds of persecution” present in the United States affect every part of American culture, and that Americans are failing to realize “religious freedom in America today pertains to every religion except Christianity.” The Reverend Billy Graham states in his “Prayer Letter to America,” that "Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone—except
“Religion itself dominates less a revealed doctrine than a commonly held opinion. I do, therefore, realize that, among Americans, political laws are such that the majority exercises sovereign power over society” (Page 501, Chapter 2, Democracy in America, Tocqueville). In this quote Tocqueville explains how Americans try to find answers to their everyday lives and challenges they encounter in religion. They need something to rely on when everything in their lives turns out wrong, and religion is usually their
Like most things that are society based, religion has evolved alongside our own culture. America is a melting pot of different ethnic backgrounds and cultures making it a perfect place for religion to adapt and flourish. For this analysis, I am drawing from “Civil Religion in America” by Robert N. Bellah (1967) on his ideas of American civil religion. In the text Bellah (1967) argues that civil religion is an important dimension that needs to be recognized in sociology. While Bellah focuses specifically on the United States of America, he still gives a valuable perspective on civil religion and how it plays a part in religion as a whole.
Over the past few years, anyone can tell you that religious importance in our country has become less, and less vital. Recent events like the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and the attacks on Paris, France, have made the freedom of religion harder and harder to come by. Having the free practice of religion has proved difficult. Christianity has suffered from these issues as the general acceptance of the religion has declined substantially in the few decades. A recent poll there was a sense of discrimination for the Islamic religion, as they have been responsible for the attacks, 8/10 Americans believe Christianity should be practiced freely, while only a mere 6/10 Americans think the Muslims should practice freely (Source #3).
Religion. It is a topic discussed throughout all of America as well as the rest of the world on a daily basis. There have been wars over it, political elections decided because of it, and millions of participants throughout the years. It is a part of several monumental pieces of history and carries on into the present day. Religion is what our nation is fundamentally built upon, all the way back to when the pilgrims came over on the Mayflower bringing their puritan based beliefs with them.
As more settlers came to the new world from Europe, they brought Christianity with them, and Christianity’s popularity from Europe continued on in the new world. European contact with Native Americans deteriorated the Natives’ religions while strengthening the Europeans’
The author Claude Geffre collected all the information possible about Christianity and the culture. Geffre had gone into great depth about the culture of this religion. Throughout history, we have seen Christianity grow and form many new expressions through faith and practice. It has said to be that the gospel has been translated into the everyday fabric of life to get that fulfillment of the universal mission. I found that there were no limitations featured in this article as Geffre did a great job explaining the history of our culture.
“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice, it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.” ― G.K. Chesterton Many occasions in the United States history have shown that religion has caused many controversial questions. These questions have brought the American Justice System to a running halt, leading society to begin to ponder about the importance of freedom of religion, true meanings of the free exercise and establishment clause, and if there should be limitations imposed on the free exercise of one’s religious beliefs.