Expert: Vincent M. Wales - 2/7/2006

Question
hello, i'm 15 and this year as part of course work we have to write a speech on whaever subject we choose. it's supposed to be for about three mins....the subject i chose to argue is 'religion is evil', or because it's such a huge area and not really approprate for three mins speech, i decided to be less general and speak about why children shouldn't study religion in schools, i've got ideas about this, but i am no exeprt, since i only became an atheist last year.
i know you're a writer, so i was wondering if you please could help me a bit with this speech thing, because it will be great to have the support and knoledge from a real atheist who knows a lot about his subject....
thanks a lot, i'm looking forward to you're answer.
            Tamar

Answer
Tamar:

Yeah, that's still a really big subject for such a short speech.  My honest opinion is that you should save something this big for a longer speech.  (I remember our final speech in high school had to be 15 minutes.)  

Consider that entire books have been written on this topic, and you'll see why I'm hesitant to suggest you continue with this one.

Now... one thing you might be able to pull off in a shorter speech is an argument as to why government and church need to be strictly separated.  I don't know where you live, or what the attitude is in your area about prayer or bible studies in PUBLIC schools, but I know in lots of places, it's seen as a good thing... and people don't even believe that the 1st Amendment guarantees freedom FROM religion as well as OF religion.

Now, that's something you might be able to do in 5 minutes.  

My two cents, anyway.