Expert: Vincent M. Wales - 2/9/2006

Question
hello!
i do apologize, really, maybe you did send me an answer but the computer said 'i've already answered this quwstion for you before', so i got a bit confused.

yeah you were right about the last thing, what i'm aiming my speech about, is to point out that schools shouldn't poison young children's minds at such age when they can't think for themsleves, but follow blindly what adults tell them.
i don't however agree with you, much bigger points have been raised in class, and i just want to deliver my point of view, because that's what i'm marked at.
i know i didn't specify a certain question, but i did tell you that i only became an atheist last year, therefore i'll be very thankfull for some opinion and points on my subject, since you're an expert.
thank you again,
         Tamar





Followup To
Question -
why didn't u answer my questions? i thought u aught to answer anything people ask u!
Answer -
Tamar:

You didn't exactly ask any questions.  Here's the post I received from you:

"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."

So there's really not a specific question in there.  You're asking for some sort of general guidance for your speech, and I gave you my honest opinion: I think the subject matter you chose is simply too big for such a short speech.  "Why children shouldn't study religion in schools" is how you narrowed it down.  You didn't specify whether you meant public schools or private schools.

If you meant public schools, it's a very simple answer: because it's in violation of the First Amendment.  If you meant private schools... well... I can't help you with that.  Because private schools are free to teach whatever they want.  I'd never dream of suggesting that they shouldn't be allowed to.

What it SOUNDS to me like you're really meaning (and I could be wrong) is that you don't think children should be exposed to religion, period.  Because, as you said, "religion is evil."  Well, that's where it gets to be too broad.  As I said, entire books have been written on this subject, so trying to summarize all the reasons why you think kids shouldn't study religion in a 3-5 minute speech is only going to end with a very superficial speech that no one's going to really relate to.  You'd be trying to cram so much information into it that it would just be a mess.

But again... it's hard for me to give you much of an answer when you don't spell out a specific question.  If you have a specific question, go ahead and shoot it off to me and I'll be happy to answer.

Answer
The reason your computer told you that is because I actually got two different queries from you... same question, but maybe slightly different language.  I answered one.  Then I clicked the "this is a duplicate question" on the second one.  

Anyway...

What you're asking of me is pretty broad, so I'm going to take the easy way out.  Go to http://www.bee.net/cardigan/attic/

This is The Atheist Attic, a collection of atheistic essays I've written over the past... well, 8 years or so.  There's even a search engine on the site, so you can browse on a particular topic.  There are over 200 articles on there, and almost certainly, there will be information you can use in your speech.  (Note that there are also a couple dozen articles by guests to the site.)

Feel free to browse through that site and use anything you like.  And you may also email me privately if you want to discuss any of them in further detail.  But don't use the email address on that webpage (I only check it about once a week).  Use this one:  mail@vincentmwales.com.

Hope this helps.