Hi Chris,

>>Dunno really. I don't see why not. I mean change the words:
>>
>>"Do not lie"
>>"Do not steal"
>>
>>etc..
>>
>>What's wrong with those?
>>
>>The presence of something like that doesn't cause me any gas. Why hide the rich cultural information from children?
>>
>>Is the presence of a Marlboro 'forcing' people to smoke? Take the logic and applt it elsewhere.
>
>Because it goes past the boundry of rich cultural information to the establishment of religion. I don't think most people think of the Ten Commandments in anything other than a religious sense.

Well, isn't that 'line' kind of what we're discussion here?

>
>If the Ten Commandments are allowed, then what follows? Basically, anything that someone says is their "rich cultural heritage". Satan worshiper? Come on in and post what you believe. You say you have a historical document from your religion that proposes to sacrifice a virgin at the beginning of the harvest? Come on in and post it. (But good luck finding a virgin *g*)

Sure, I understand that folks can go too far in just about any direction. No doubt about it we're on that proverbial 'slippery slope' just about no matter what direction we go.

>
>In other words, what do we include, and what do we exclude?


I honestly do not know Chris. I do know that since we removed prayer from our public schools in '62-62 that we've seen a huge increase in stuff like drug use, violence, out-of-wedlock births and a whole bunch of other things. Again, I do think there is a direct correlation between the notion of people thinking they will ultimately be responsible to God and their behaior.

What was the classic definition of integrity? "Doing what is right even when no one is watching." Think about this for a minute.. If we teach our kids that they are nothing but animals why are we surprised that they act like animals? If we teach them that they are more than animals then at least we can have the expectation that they behave like more than animals.

Not to be preachy.. <g> It really is just good common sense and I guess I am more than a little surprised to find so few folks who 'get it'. *shrug*

It's the whole notion of instilling in kids the sense of responsibility that I think is bad.

Where or how you draw that line I don't really know but I think we've gone too far in one direction..