In Matt 23 alone, Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites 7 times.
In today's society, at least here in the US I am struck by the hypocrisy.
We are told to "coexist" (no hyphen in their spelling of it).
Yet they take prayer out of schools, take references of God out of our pledge of allegiance, and remove the 10 commandments from our court rooms.
The separation of Church and State in the US wasn't created so the church wouldn't tell the government what to do. It was created so the government wouldn't tell the church what to do, and yet they are more and more.
Society says save the whales, save the owls, support PETA (these aren't necessarily bad things) but it's OK to give up human life and have abortions. Almost six times as much money is spent on saving the animals as saving the humans. Which life is more important?
Society says we weren't created, we evolved, the strongest species will survive. If you really believe that, why are you trying to save the endangered species? (Again, not a bad thing, but where are your priorities?)
Sometimes we Christians are also accused of being hypocrites, and sometimes we are. The good news is, we are forgiven in spite of it.
There is a difference that needs to be noted here.
Removing influence of faith in public schools:
This removes required events from public schools that have direct influence from a religion. Most common would be the pledge. What if our Gods name (which is God), was replaced with Allah? Would you say it then? Would you sit there and refuse to say the pledge altogether? Keep in mind that you are not allowed to walk out, but you do have to sit there every single day and listen to all other classmates do it. What if a school requires students to take 10 minutes every day out for prayer time? Not only is this prayer time in general, but is boasted as Christian prayer time. Now switch it around, what if it was Islamic prayer time a few times a day? How would that make you or your fellow Christians feel?
An all out ban:
This would be banning it all. If a student is caught praying, they are punished and urged not to do so. If you are talking about any faith outside of the actual curriculum and research sake (you know what I mean, not for personal research but for school research), you are punished. If a teacher isn't equal when it comes to teaching about religions of history, they are punished. This is when everything is banned, no religion is allowed in sight at all.
It's obvious enough to me that the fair option is situation one. The influence, and not the freedom should be removed from public schools. School is a place to learn, express yourself freely, and to witness and exercise your freedom. It is not a place for religious wars and persecution.
Religion and faith should not be banned, but the influence should be removed out of fairness alone. This is encouragement to co-exist, banning encourages lack of freedom.
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The separation of church and state was created to do just that. It has grown into not letting each faction influence the other. Take for example the bill that required companies and organizations to pay for birth control for their employees. This bill was actually passed I believe. However, churches could actually opt out of this requirement. The catholic church does not need to provide birth control for their employees. Public schools belong to the state. Separation of church and state will be enforced properly if the influence was removed. However, there are times when the church and state do clash. I won't deny that at all.
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I can explain why we focus on wildlife so much! When a species dies out, the whole system actually does mess up and is forced to rearrange itself. This can cause a whole lot of unseen chaos, and maybe even wipe out another species or two down the line. We ARE effected by a species dying out, even if it's just some spider somewhere. It might not be a HUGE difference, but it is a difference. If we lose too much, we could actually be wiped out sooner than we expect.
However, when it comes to abortions I agree with you. I am pro-life, but my vision on it becomes a bit more grey when it comes to rape victims. Won't get too much into that, there is a whole thread about it elsewhere lol. It's a personal struggle is all, nothing to argue. Instead of saying "let them do what they want", why doesn't the government reach out to save the life of the adorable babies? Pay the mother to go through with the pregnancy and to give her baby to a welcoming home! Doesn't that sound much better? Much more logical? That's actually a wonderful idea, I honestly can't believe I thought of it on my own lol.
LIFE is important, whether it be a baby panda in asia or a baby human in england. We are humanity, we have built and created things that were impossible to imagine 200 hundred years ago. We CAN save and protect all life on this planet. It is far from impossible. We are not helpless.
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I assume you are talking about society as a whole. If not feel free to correct me.
I haven't heard society or the majority scream that we were not created. I am still fairly sure most US citizens are religious in some way, if not Christian. I have heard evolution here and there though, but very rarely as an excuse to not be a creationist. This is only personal experience though, I can't exactly speak for everyone.
