Grew up Catholic - Catholicism has its problems, but death to non-Calthoics isn't one of them.

I did however, go to a Mormon church service when I was about 10 years old where they separated the kids (different age groups) from the adults. It was for a couple of hours if I remember correctly.

Once we were separated, there was a "Brother" who was preaching and indoctrinating us kids about various things, and one of them was the evils of Catholicism. I have no idea if he knew my sisters and I were Catholics. But it scared me to death (like I needed one more person telling me I was going to hell!) and left my sisters and me in tears. For fairness sakes, it could have been just that stake, and maybe not something that happens at every stake or even condoned by LDS as a whole (I've met some really nice Mormons in my time). But it was just flat out creepy.

Still, never did I ever hear one of them advocating for anyones death.

I commented about this the other day after I saw Bill O'Reilly's piece on it. I don't think word had gotten out yet about how in-depth this field trip went, though. I think if you're going to keep Christianity out of schools, all religions should be kept out. For instance, my son can't go to school in a T-Shirt that advertises a Christian rock band or says anything relating to Jesus. To discover it would be perfectly acceptable to visit a Muslim mosque, receive a lecture (under the guise of education), and even pray with them really burns me up. Kids should not have this stuff put upon them at such an impressionable age by school administrators. I grew up going to the Church of Christ every Sunday, but only because I was made to. As I grew up, I started questioning some of the teachings and made the decision as an informed adult to stop going. Field trips should be for stuff like the museum, observatories, etc, not church, Muslim or not.

there was a "Brother" who was preaching and indoctrinating us kids about various things, and one of them was the evils of Catholicism.

Awful, but still not the same as calling for others' death. And you, too, note that you didn't hear that, either.

When I was growing up, kids told me I would burn in hell (for being Jewish). Pretty terrible.

And right on, Jessica, on what field trips should be.

They didn't just visit mosques, they also visited other houses of worship. And no one was forced to participate, in fact, the vast majority didn't, only a few kids who decided to try it out for kicks or whatever. Should they have been forbidden? This wasn't a mosque curriculum, this was a "visit lots of religious places" curriculum, one of which was a mosque.

Do you think information about world religions should not be taught in school? We got the Bible as literature in our
(very liberal and progressive Massachusetts) high school... I don't see how you can understand the bulk of western literature without it. And I don't see how you can understand even basic high school history without some understanding of world religions... seems to me the curriculum ought to cover Christianity, (including the reformation and the Catholic/Protestant split), Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism at a minimum. And Greco-Roman mythology.

Jessica... may I ask where you live? If your brother wants to wear a Christian Rock T-shirt, that generally falls under free speech unless its obscene or something. If it is very important to you, and if you can find others at the school who it is important to, you may want to contact the ACLU or another such organization.

I guess what I'm getting at is there is a big difference between schools that try to teach a particular religion, and schools that teach -about- religions. I would agree that it is NOT appropriate to train kids how to be a religion... but learning about religion is crucial, since it is such a driving force in our world, in politics, art, literature, and even sometimes in science (though more often in the history of). It is important to learn about the beliefs of different people. Including the major branches of Christianity.

Does anyone REALLY think that any Wellesley teachers were trying to convert kids to Islam?

I meant son, not brother, Jessica, typo!

I grew up Mormon! I do not remember any lessons of kill the infidel. Actually I was taught more of tolerance and maybe the odd lesson that other religions where incorrect in their beliefs. Mormon Church for me was not Hellfire and Brimstone no preacher screaming about the wickedness of others and how we will al burn in hell acutally it more sappy and boring as a kid and teenager, also remember Mormons sort of do not believe in hell. I think for Feebie it was maybe the age I think for any kid who went some place and hears an adult say hey we think they are wrong will be confused and possibly scared. How would some little kid raised in a nice vgean household one days hears a teacher say that all vegans are crazy and silly. Hey just my opinion.

Kids raised in vegetarian households get used to being told they are crazy pretty quickly!!!

Islam is a malignant political philosophy masquerading as a religion. It is incompatible with any form of government I'd live under. It's the Aryan Supremacist Church, with better publicity.

I'm just an uppity infidel who will never submit.

They didn't just visit mosques, they also visited other houses of worship.

I'm guessing, in the other places of worship, the priest doesn't talk about throwing gays off buildings in between interfaith visits.

It would be unusual for a Priest in a Massachusetts church to say something like that, yes. But there are plenty of churches that want to kill gay people.

I agree that they probably should have done more research and picked a more moderate mosque. There's one in Cambridge they could have looked at, for example (which isn't to say it might not be objectionable). Or, failing that, they could have discussed the clips you posted in class before or after the visit. If they saw them before, they could have asked about them during the visit.

But I don't think that Wellesley was wrong to have the kids visit different houses of worship, or to teach about world religions.

Where are the classes on distinguishing fact from fiction? In this poor example, you can see people actively avoiding that.

"Those of you who grew up Christian, Catholic, etc., did your religious services include the leader standing up and telling you other people who didn't believe as you do are evil and should be slain, every last one of them? "

Uh, hell no? I've never been in a church service that taught anything like that.

I think there are churches that show a hostility(?) toward other sects (Catholic vs Protestant, this version of Lutheran vs that version of Lutheran, etc.), but they usually thought the other group was wrong or mistaken, not evil. That seems to me to be an aspect of being human, to be "tribal": my church, school, town, favorite TV show show is better than your church, school, town, favorite TV show.

Jessica wrote: "I think if you're going to keep Christianity out of schools, all religions should be kept out. For instance, my son can't go to school in a T-Shirt that advertises a Christian rock band or says anything relating to Jesus."
I think this is a view that gets pushed by school administrators to make their lives easier. The court decision to remove prayer from school was referring to school-imposed prayer religion. The student is free to express his religion or lack of religion, as long as it doesn't disrupt normal school activities. Students don't lose their rights when they go to school.

NicoleK wrote: "But there are plenty of churches that want to kill gay people." Really? Which ones? Even the vile, hate-spewing Fred Phelps doesn't teach that gays should be murdered. He teaches that they're going to hell (not my view, just to be clear), along with everyone else on the planet who doesn't follow Phelp's diseased little cult. I think some churches cross a line into preaching hatred of gays (in which case, i believe the churches themselves have committed a great wrong), but which ones actually preach that gay people should be killed, as Islam does?

It's an important distinction, because one can exist in a civil society and the other cannot. In a civil society, all sorts of people believe all sorts of different things about God, good and bad, right and wrong, but they accept that others have the same right of conscience. Islamic extremism denies this.

I think the issue that Amy and others have with the field trip is that the students were presented with an idealized view of Islam, with a distorted reading of history. Exposure to other views, other cultures is great; propaganda is bad.

From K-12 I attended Catholic schools. I believe I heard the story of the Prodigal Son every year. We were always taught the New Testament love your neighbor and Golden Rule stuff. I don't remember being taught much Old Testament God's wrath scripture.

Amy posts on Islam regularly and I still have a hard time believing what they teach and preach. Why do we accept this from Muslims? Well some people don't. Amy, Robert Spencer, Theo Van Gogh, and Ayan Hirsi Ali to name a few. As for others I don't think there's any one answer, but fear and belief in multiculturism are two.

For an example of how world religions should & should not be taught in school, look here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/back-to-school.html

These passages may have been cherry-picked to make a point, but there's no excuse for presenting religious belief & dogma as historical fact in textbooks aimed at schoolkids.

"I think for Feebie it was maybe the age I think for any kid who went some place and hears an adult say hey we think they are wrong will be confused and possibly scared. "

Ya, that going to hell part was definitely my interpretation of what he said. But he did slam the Pope and Catholicism. I never personally experienced anyone in my Catholic upbringing saying anything cross about other religions. There are those, I am sure, who do. I just never heard it personally. Like I said, I don't know for a fact that LDS does this as a practice, that is just what I heard and saw.

And as far as Catholics and tolerance...I know many who are very judgmental but many who aren't. My grandmother who is not dogmatic but spiritual and personal with her faith brought food every month for 9 years to a local hospital treating HIV/AIDs patients who were mostly gay. Most lady's from her senior center would bring in Lasagna or Tamale pie casseroles. (My grandmother doesn't believe in Casseroles!)

She would spend three days making homemade Prosciutto and Fontina Sorrentinos (which I've never seen in a restaurant, but they serve a lot in Italy) in two different sauces - Béchamel and homemade marinara.

http://zucchinepeperoni.blogspot.com/2008/09/sorrentino-com-copa-gorgonzola-e-molho.htm'

She would make enough to feed the whole floor - patients and nurses. They loved seeing my grandmother! Considering the Catholic Church's views on homosexuality (which she did not take as her own) and their hypocrisy, I would say that she is a stellar person and more than tolerant Catholic.

I was raised Southern Baptist, and the most threatening thing we were taught to do for gay people, Catholics, or anyone else was to pray. A lot.

I went to Lutheran school K-8. In that time I never heard anyone officially call for the death of any sinners. We were told that God would handle that end of things.

Sinners included everyone who disobeyed God’s laws. I don’t even remember homosexuals being singled out; anyone who had any type of sex outside of Holy Matrimony was considered equally sinful in God’s eyes.

I watched both videos. In the link, the Moslem woman teaching the class talked about how all things Moslems do are in service to God. In the imbeded clip, the Imam sounds like he is giving God orders on who to punish and kill.

It seems to me that any believers in any religion should trust their all-wise, all-knowing God to decide who gets punished. Humans should not even be allowed to make suggestions. This is why I went agnostic.

We put up with it because we lack the formost virtue: courage.

We(teachers) put up with it in the name of diversity. I'm against this for sure, but I do believe in examining racism and classism in our schools and not just pretending we are all the same and have all had the same opportunities. This obviously has gone too far and no reference to any religion should be made in a public school. Many have written on the subject and the separation of church and state is a controversial matter when it comes to curriculum to be sure. However as the law stands today this should never have happened.

There were recently a few articles about the evangelical churches in Africa that want to kill the gays, who have received funding from American evangelical churches. This article talks about Uganda:

http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/how_american_evangelicals_are_killing_gay_people_in_africa

We've all got our crazies.

Martin, thanks for the link. If indeed that is how the book is written, I agree it is problematic. Unless of course, the bits about Islam are prefaced with, "Muslims believe the following:" or "The Tale of Mohammed" or something like that. Having said that, if disclaimers are used for both, I see no problem with teaching world religions. In general, I think Americans need to learn MORE about the cultures of the world, not less.

Gspotted, how can you discuss the Inquisition, Henry the VIII, the Conquistadors, the two Popes, the Reformation, Zionism, the conflicts in Ireland and the Middle East, or the crusades without referring to religion?

Again, Gspotted, the teachers were not proselytizing. They were not teaching the kids -how to be- Muslim. They weren't making them participate in Muslim prayers. They were observing different religions. Wellesley, MA ain't exactly a hotbed of Islam (though I'm sure the good people of Wellesley would be perfectly polite and correct to any Muslim that settled in their midst).

There is a HUGE difference between teachers who try to impose their religious beliefs on students, and get them to be a certain religion, and teachers who just tell students about different religions. Do you not see the difference?

First off, to all atheists, you're [believing] a lie. God exists. It's impossible to deny Him without committing intellectual dishonesty. The best proof of this I've been able to come across is Life itself. The most basic unit of life (the cell) is amazingly complex, more so than the most sophisticated computer that we have. The sheer number of components it requires to function AT ALL is astronomical in number, and it's it's a mathematical impossibility that it all just somehow HAPPENED. I have a degree in Biochem, and it was during my studies of the intricate and co-dependent workings of that science that I came to realize we aren't dealing with a puddle of goo, here, as Darwinian believers assert. We're dealing with the most advanced, most sophisticated sort of nanotechnology ever concieved, let alone built. And stacks of them, working together, exchanging pre-arranged chemical signals, form multicellular organisms that exist independently of their own horribly complex components.
It cannot be denied, not with any sort of integrity in the scientific process, that Life itself was designed and created. It simply could not have happened by happenstance. It would be considerably less absurd to expect a brand new Lexus SUV to materialize, parked in my driveway, having created itself from available metals and carbons in my neighborhood.
I submit that those of you who claim to be atheists simply haven't done the research to support your belief. Otherwise, how could you believe, totally, in your heart that there is no such thing as a God?
The issues of what He or She wants from us is debatable (and I believe, the chief hang-up of people who say there is no God). However, I would venture several basic assumptions.
God wants us to love and be kind to each other. God wants us to pay attention to Him.
God wants us to work and be creative, as He is creative. After all, He gave each of us our very own personal mark to put on our creations, with the tools He gave us for creating. As each fingerprint is unique, so are your abilities.

Life is complex . .

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Explain the purpose of cancer, of biologically drivin sociopathy, alzimers, cystic fibrosis, bad eyesight.

Explain the myrid of fossils showing the evolution of mankind.

Explain why life fails.

Explain gods grand design, you claim you have the proof - so prove it allready