I'm of two minds about religions in schools. In theory, I think religion should be thought in schools: it's a topic, a body of knowledge, just like any other, and a part of society and "real life". I never really studied religion in school, and so now I'm very religiously ignorant. I got into a debate with someone, and really embarrassed myself when I revealed to the other person that I had no idea until then that there was a difference between Christianity and Catholicism, for example. In practice, I don't think there's it's feasible to teach religion without running into large problems, and so the lesser of all evils is to simply not address religion at all.

It is important to note that, in theory, it should be possible to teach about a topic, without agreeing or supporting that topic. For example, the holocaust, Nazism, and so on, are topics which everybody should know about to some minimal degree. Therefore, these topics should be taught in school. That does not mean that the teachers should tell the children that nazism is "good", or "the correct code of ethics towards which all individuals should lead their lives" or anything like that. Similarly, it should be possible to teach about Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, Paganism, Satanism, Atheism, and so on, without the teacher implying that any particular one of these religions is "correct" or "the best" or anything like that.

So if we were to teach religion in schools, with the actual intent of teaching, and no indoctrinating, then I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, there exists a group of individuals who seem to be gaining power in America and who do wish to indoctrinate. They're typically referred to as "the religious right". I have little respect for these people, as they seem to have no problem telling insiduous lies and manipulating the public to gain what they want.

For example, recently, the religious right were campaigning to allow for the distribution of religious materials and advertisement in "backpack mail" in public schools. With backpack mail, a person who wishes to distribute materials to parents can do so by handing the materials to the teacher, who will then distribute the it to the students to carry home in their backpacks to their parents. The system was intended to notify parents about optional extra curricular activities such as camps, sporting events, theatre plays, etc. that the parents and children may be interested in. Previously, certain things were not allowed to be distributed via backpack mail, such as pamphlets pertaining to religious or political causes. However, the Jerry Falwell's Liberty Counsel argued that banning religious material did not "ensure the requisite viewpoint neutrality" that public schools are intended to uphold.

Remember the part about insidious lies? I think a lot of people realized that the JFLC really wasn't interested in promoting viewpoint neutrality, but rather they wanted to promote their own particular religion (whether that be Christianity or Catholicism or something else, I have no clue). But nobody really had the guts to come out and say that, and when you take the advocacy of "viewpoint neutrality" at face value, it's a pretty reasonable thing to advocate. And so they won - in the Albemarle School District, anyway. I think that's somewhere in America.

So now the backpack mail system in Albemarle is allow to carry religious material, which meant that kids were carrying home pamphlets promoting Christianity (or is it Catholicism?). If you're one of those skeptics who were forced to take JFLC's claims at face value despite knowing their insidious, lying ways, what could you do? The solution turned out to be to take the claims at face value: assume that they really do want the backpack mail system to promote viewpoint neutrality, and use it to promote other religions.

One parent had the children bring home a pamphlet advertising the celebration of a Pagan holiday. The religious right got pissed. "A pagan ritual is an educational experience my children don't need," one mother said. "It's outrageous to force teachers to distribute these fliers," said a father. That's some tough shit you got yourself into there...

So let's say you're a member of the religious right, and you don't like the idea of people indoctrinating all sorts of weird, crazy religions into your child's head. What can you do? You should probably get together with the atheists, the agnostics, and the secular, because they've all experienced the same problem as you. Maybe you can team up and ban the distribution of religious materials from schools. That way, every parent will be able to control exactly what religious teachings their kids receive. It sort of sucks, 'cause it's supposed to be the teacher's job to teach your kids stuff, but religion seems to be one of those topics where people have trouble staying unbiased, and may present a religion that you don't agree with as being objective reality. Not having religion at all in schools is the lesser of all evils.