Crosses in the classroom
 

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/eu...ly.crucifixes/

The woman who took part in getting the law case about the crosses in classrooms in Italy going is of Finnish origin, has an Italian nationality though. Wasn't there similar debate in the US about the ten commandments in classrooms?

Yes.

They had that debate in 1999, but the courts ruled that schools were not allowed to post them or any other sacred religious tenants inside. They can teach about them if it's relevant to the curriculum, but otherwise it's prohibited by Separation of Church & State.

Well IMO that's a good decision. The Americans don't know how lucky they are to have at least a pretty clear distinction between the church and the state. In Italy it's not as clear and even the leftist parties are against removing the crosses from the classrooms.

Oh well.

Well aside from that, there's no reason to have it in public schools to begin with that isn't influenced by a person's beliefs. You go to school to learn, church to pray. Attempts the cross the two always turn up underlying motives of religious dogma.

Not this again...

I can garuntee you there are no freakin crosses in classrooms around here.

Much adoo about nothing.

Comparable situation in Bavaria, like in Italy. Bavaria is in Germany what Texas is in the US, strong economy, conservative, patriotic (for Bavaria first, Germany only second), and sometimes quite excentric :) . The German Constitutional High Court has banned crucifixes in the whole German republic. In Bavaria they released then a law in reply, making them mandatory in Bavaria - in explicit violation of the German constitution.

Meanwhile, in Berlin a Muhammedan family has won a court case that makes it mandatory for the school to offer their son a separate room for prayers. That's what he does there now - together with some friends that he made converting to Islam. The school on its part voluntarily already allowed it to him before, but they wanted to make it a mandatory thing, so that there is no way back and serves as a precedence at other schools. The senate in Berlin is a coalition of SPD-Socialists and SED-Communists who have banned Christian religious classes from school and replaced it with general classes on morals, which I think in principal is a good thing (I am against relgious classes at public, state-run schools in general, no matter what religion). But it is now thought about allowing Muslim religious classes nevertheless, also adding them to public schools in all Germany, not just Berlin.

We are considered to be a secular country with a separation of religion and politics, church and state.

Any questions...? :doh:

No, just a couple of headshakes :nope:

It's still beyond me how that thing in Bavaria could get through. I'm not afraid that the current de facto status (unconstitutional as it is) will lead to rampant indoctrination, but I'm really somewhat concerned that it offers a pretext for all sorts of shady religious indoctrination in the name of religious freedom or equality. Religious freedom also means the right to be free from religion.

I really appreciate that European court set matters straight so unanimously, but the last word isn't spoken yet.

Not in the public schools anyway. :03:

I used to rejoice at the separation of church and state but my experience is telling me that in parts of the world where I lived and now live the state seems eager to control the church instead.:nope:

But it's much better here than the place where I used to live still. Despite the bad governance I believe this place called Indonesia could very well be the beacon of Asia's true democracy, I could even see us becoming more democratic than the US in the not too distant future. No it's not the government who made this possible but the people who are courageous, idealistic and critical to what's going on around them. Of course all it needs is a blood bath reminiscent to the 60s to put it all to stop. A ruthless traitor to democracy in power would put all this air of freedom to stop.

I would refer you to my signature quote.