Reply #40: "Religion and philosophy only enter the equation when you teach... [View All]

...those fields"

I agree with everything else you said, but the statement I quoted is unsupported.

Religion and philosophy enter into the equation any time secular education contradicts the belief system of a religion and/or philosphy.

How can it not enter the equation?

For the sake of argument, let's say a child learns from his/her minister that the world is flat. Next day in school, the teacher is saying the world is an ellipsoid. To keep religion and secular education from influencing one another, the child is required to compartmentalize the information so that if asked in church the child says "flat" and if asked in school the child says "ellipsoid".

Already the child is being taught that "truth" is context-sensitive, in contradiction to their religious training that "truth" is absolute.

How do you avoid the conflict between religion and secular education in this case?

How do you fail the child who answers a test question by saying "the world is flat because my religion tells me so"? Do you tell him/her directly that his/her religious beliefs are wrong? Irrelevant? How does this not represent a conflict between religion and the state?