Separate Schools

It really irks me that we allow separate schools in Canada. There should be only public schools where children of all faiths can come together and learn about each other. How better to promote understanding and acceptance?

In this city we have a Christian basketball league and also a Muslim one. Until recently the Muslim league was restricted to Muslims only. I have no idea who is allowed to join the Christian league. This sounds barbaric to me because religion is supposed to teach brotherly love and not "love your brother only if he practices the same religion that you do".

Wars are fought over religion. People who marry outside their faith are shunned. Isn't it time to bring people of all religions (or lack of) together outside of their church and stop this segregation that only causes misunderstanding and misconceptions? It makes me wonder how many more years or centuries or millenniums will pass beofre we are one people. Or will it never happen?

Religion is big business. It is to each religion's advantage to keep their followers separate because, if they're allowed to intermingle too much, they might get too many ideas. Intermingling just might make them open their minds and think for themselves. One of the things that turned me against organized religion was how you are encouraged to frown on any but your own.

I went to a public school as a child and if any of my classmates were other than Protestant, I didn't know or care. That's the way it should be and that's why we should not have separate schools. It only promotes further separation.

The Separate School Board in our city refused to allow their children to be bussed to school with public school children. It would have resulted in great monetary savings for the public tax payers because often children who lived on the same block were picked up by different buses. How frightening for children of different religions to be able to sit next to each other going to and from school!!

I've never understood the need for churches anyway. If you have a belief in god, why do you have to reach him through an intermediary? Is it the same god that is worshipped by religions other than your own? Why do we need separate religions if it is? And, if it is the same god, why do we need separate churches and separate schools? And why do different religions follow different rules? Could it be that each religion has been designed by man instead of god? A lot of questions, I know, but I'm not under the thumb of any religion and therefore my mind is open to wonder about inconsistencies.

I doubt very much that religion will lose it's power in the next few hundred years but the day will come, I hope, when we won't be separated by man made barriers and can co-habit with each other on equal footing. Church leaders are not going to make that easy.