Doug Henwood wrote:
> On the one hand you (rightly) say the U.S. is one of the most
> professedly religious countries in the world. On the other, you say
> we're profoundly ignorant of religion. Either ignorance breeds faith,
> or the religions themselves are doing a very bad job of educating
> their congregants. Which is it?
I have a query. What is the evidence that schools *used* to teach religion and no longer do? From 1935-1947 I attended first a rural grade school, then a small town high school. I received no "religious" instruction, I never experienced school prayer or a moment of silence, and no one ever challenged the correctness of evolution. And at a small regional teachers college (Western Michigan) in the late '40s among both staff and students the assumption tended to be that being a Christian was something to be ashamed of. (In polling terms a majority of course were Christians, but they still felt themselves intellectually isolated; atheists and agnostics felt themselves as more central.)
Was my experience all that rare? What is the evidence for religion in the schools and colleges 1930-1955? What is the evidence that it is more excluded now than then?
Carrol