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The removal of religion from schools is one of the best things that ever happened in the history of education.

For the first time, children were exposed to objective, empirical truth, untainted by parochial influences or ancient dogmas.

For the first time, children of different religious beliefs could meet and interact in a safe, enriching environment, and learn about each other in ways less limited by hatred and bias.

For the first time, they could learn science, without it being dulled and decapitated by the assertion that a particular book (be it the Bible, the Qur'an, or whatever) written centuries ago was the ultimate source of truth in the universe.

For the first time, *curiosity* became a value that education took seriously-or at least more seriously than it had-and learning meant something more than indoctrination into whatever the community felt was most popular.

To my critics who would say that removing religion removed morality, I ask: what sort of morality do you really find in religion? In the Bible I see Abraham nearly committing filicide; I see Lot eagerly offering his daughters to a crowd of rapists. I see women bartered as property and sold into slavery. I see men being executed simply because they were gay, and children being stoned because they were rebellious. I see the Apostles abandoning their families, Jesus insulting the dead. In the Qur'an and the Torah I see essentially the same.

The morality of holy books is a sick and twisted morality, one that espouses hatred and violence, and demands obedience at any cost. It lacks all the reason and compassion of really genuine morality. I *wish* removing religion from schools had removed religious morality from society; it would have made the world a vastly better place.

Learn more about this author, Patrick Julius.
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