The Raging Rev has a post a few days ago about morality and God.  Does all morality come from religion?  What kind of morality would society have if religion didn’t exist?  There’s a pretty good debate going on over at his blog and I thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

Not only do I believe that morality exsits outside of religion, I beleive that morality and all humankind would be better off without religion.  Religious extremests certainly cause more problems than they solve.  Does this mean that I’m not against all religion, just those who take it overboard?  No.  It does not.

I don’t believe in childhood indoctrination.  The definition of brainwashing is:

Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person’s basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs.

I don’t believe that brainwashing is moral and brainwashing is the basis  of most religions.  Get people to believe in something that defies logic and tell them that their disbelief (that thing that the brain naturally does) is going to send them to eternal damnation.

Scaring a child by way of indoctrination is not moral.  Neither is putting their health in jeopardy because of your religious beliefs (abstinence only education ). For those who believe this is the only way to have moral teens, check your statistics.

You might be surprised.

Today, boys and girls, we are going to have a  lesson about love.  Love and music.

Lovegodsway.org says this:

“One of the most dangerous ways homosexuality invades family life is through popular music. Parents should keep careful watch over their children’s listening habits, especially in this Internet Age of MP3 piracy. “

Bands to watch out for:

• The Spores (endorse suicide)

• Scissor Sisters
• Rufus Wainwright
• Merzbau
• Ravi Shankar
• Wilco
• Bjork
• Tech N9ne
• Ghostface Killah

• Bobby Conn
• Morton Subotnik

• Cole Porter
• The String Cheese Incident
• Eagles of Death Metal

• Polyphonic Spree
• The Faint
• Interpol
• Tegan and Sara
• Erasure
• The Grateful Dead (AIDS)
• Le Tigre
• Marilyn Manson (dark gay)
• The Gossip
• The Magnetic Fields
• The Doors
• Phish
• Queen

• The Strokes
• Sufjan Stevens
• Morrissey(?questionable?)

• The Pet Shop Boys

• Metallica
• Judas Priest
• The Village People
• The Secret Handshake
• The Rolling Stones
• David Bowie
• Frankie Goes to Hollywood
• Man or Astroman
• Richard Cheese
• Jay-Z
• Depeche Mode
• Kansas
• Ani DiFranco
• Fischerspooner

• John Mayer
• George Michael (texan)
• Angel Eyes
• The Indigo Girls
• Velvet Underground

• Madonna
• Elton John
• Barry Manilow
• Indigo Girls
• Melissa Etheridge
• Eminmen
• Nirvana
• Boy George*
• The Killers
• Lou Reed
• Lil’ Wayne
• Motorhead
• Jill Sobule
• Wilson Phillips
• DMX
• Lisa Loeb
• Ted Nugent (loincloth)
• Dogstar
• Thirty Seconds to Mars
• Lil’ Kim
• kd lang

• Frank Sinatra
• Hinder
• Nickleback
• Justus Kohncke
• Bob Mould
• Clay Aiken
• Arcade Fire
• Bright Eyes
• Corinne Bailey Rae
• Audioslave
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Panic at the Disco
• Elton John(really gay)

Ok, first of all, George Michael?  Texan?  Also note the mention of Cole Porter.  Although Ted Nugent may be scary, the fact that he sometimes wears a loincloth is beside the fact.

Notice: there is no country music on this list.  However, on this site, you can write in and let mister Donnie D. know what other bands endorse gayness.

Meanwhile, I’ll have a side of the Marilyn Manson (dark gay) please, sir.

I have learned this week that an announcement was made at West Monroe High School that skulls are now banned from any article of clothing worn by students.

Hm.

Is this what we are spending our time on in the school board meetings? Banning the image of an x-ray’d human head?

My son has a skull shirt from a local clothing company called Mojos.  Instead of teaching the idea of promoting local business in his free enterprise class, apparently the idea is to teach, “you are what you wear and skulls are scary to us normal folks”.

Only once has anyone said anything to him about his clothes.  He was wearing a t-shirt which was vaguly flame-ish and a teacher told him that he shouldn’t be wearing demonic clothes to school.  To which he pointed at the kid next to him and replied, “Hey, don’t look at me, that guy’s wearing a Jesus shirt.”

I love my son.

There was no reason given for this absurd ban.  Possibly, they just didn’t like the connotation that the image of the skull conjures up.

Two words here.  Johnny Reb. The school mascot is a confederate soldier.

Another student theory being passed around is that “they” don’t want anyone banding together as gangs and using the skull as a symbol.  As we already know, even just simple colors and strips of fabric can be used to identify gangs, so really, what’s the problem here?

I’m not sure when Jolly Roger became such a bad thing.  The whole idea is just silly.

So, please, West Monroe High School, maintain some sort of sense of humor here.

After all, I maintained mine when you spend $200,000 on asto-turf.

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control has found that one in four teenage girls has an STD. Over the last 8 years the abstinence only programs in the U.S. have been spreading like wildfire…or…like chlamydia. Clearly they are not working. These findings are disturbing, especially in the U.S. where STD’s can be easily prevented.

Not only is telling a teenager not to have sex before marriage like telling an asthmatic patient to hold his breath for the next 5 years, it’s also alarmingly self righteous. Concerned citizens who are pushing abstinence only education are fooling themselves, and I would place all my money in the bank on the fact that most of these abstinence pushers had sex before marriage themselves.

Living in north Louisiana, I live in what is considered to be the “buckle” of the Bible Belt. I see everyday the harm that childhood indoctrination is doing to our children and teenagers. They are taught daily to have so much guilt that their shame of being a sinner comes between them and their physical health. They would rather silently suffer the consequences of having a disease than to admit to their parents that they have had sex before marriage and failed in the eyes of God.

Teenagers have had sex since the beginning of time and there’s no way that they are stopping now. Had these teenagers been taught the proper way to use a condom, these diseases would not be so widespread. Teens need to have a safe and confidential way to purchase birth control and be tested regularly for STD’s, while not feeling ashamed for trying to protect their own health. Teaching them that the only safe way to avoid an STD is abstinence is akin to telling a person that the only cure for their disease is on the planet Mars. The cure exists, but the chances of reaching it are nearly hopeless.

There ARE ways to prevent STD’s. But the emphasis is not on teaching how to prevent, but in teaching morality in the forms of guilt and shame. Parents who advocate abstinence only sex education are putting their own rights of childhood indoctrination over the physical and mental well being of their own children.