The Disaster of the Absence of Moral and Religious Education in the American Public Schools: Controversies and Possible Solutions

"Thomas Aquinas, in his philosophy of religion, said that man is a
religious being (homo religiosus). By this he meant that man is a
being that naturally stretches to the beyond, to the unknown outside
of himself. He yearns and reaches out for an infinite peace, joy, and
happiness. He does all within his power to grasp an endless happiness,
a joy that knows no end. This has been his instinctive, conscious,
and unconscious aspiration. He tends to pursue and grab that which
captures his attention and wins his admiration. Many a time, he ends
up grabbing a shadow, an illusion of real happiness, an illusion of the
source of true and lasting happiness. When he grabs that shadow, he
settles to worship it as the ultimate source of an infinite happiness. It
will not be long before he discovers that it is all a mirage.
This ultimate joy and happiness is not found within man?s immediate
environment, because whatever he clings to seems to fail in providing
such ultimate joy, peace, and happiness, which men, by nature, tend to
yearn and long for. Man has always interpreted peace, joy, happiness,
and their sources differently. Thus, his beliefs and objects of worship,
devotion, and dedication vary one from another?hence the reason for
different world religions and creeds today (Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
Buddhism, atheism, etc.).
To say that man is a religious being implies that naturally man
always believes in and worships something. Hence, there can never
be an atheist in the real sense of it. Not to believe is to believe. For
example, not to believe in the existence of God is to believe that
God does not exist. Even though some people do not believe in the
existence of a personal God or god, they still believe in something,
which could be anything?money, freedom, wealth, riches, power,beauty, achievement, talent, name it. Just as our ancient fathers
believed in carved idols as gods and worshipped them, so do people
in the modern time hold on tenaciously to all kinds of idols in the form
of money, beauty, wealth, riches, power, achievement, talent, etc., and
worship them as gods and hope that someday these might give them
an endless peace and happiness, which have been the ultimate end of
man?s endeavor or pursuit on earth.
This false hope of man?s longing to achieve endless peace and
happiness from material possessions or natural endowment explains
itself in some ancient cultures whereby the dead are buried along with
some of their possessions, including gold, money, slaves, etc. The fact
that people of outstanding talents, riches, and wealth have committed
suicide has put a big question mark to this erroneous ideology that
happiness could be achieved through material possession. What
was wrong in the lives of those affluent and talented people who
killed themselves contrary to all instincts of self-preservation? What
was missing in their lives that none of their material acquisitions or
achievements could satiate or afford?
Man longs for lasting happiness. He has the capacity to conceive and
yearn for infinite happiness. Hence, he does not want to be happy today
and sad tomorrow. But how would he achieve that joy or happiness that has
no end, which has always remained man?s unrealized dream? No branch of
discipline or knowledge has been able to provide an answer and a remedy
to man?s natural longing for endless joy, lasting peace, and happiness, but
religion. Religion has an answer, a remedy, and a hope.
In this book, I will demonstrate how religion provides an answer, a
remedy, and a hope for man?s ultimate search and yearning for lasting
peace and happiness in his life and in the society in which he lives. I
will explore the idea that man is a spiritual as well as a religious being. I
will also delve into how his natural endowment with freedom, intellect,
and will enables him to express his religiosity.
I will further demonstrate how the misinterpretation and
misapplication of the idea of the separation of state and church, or
rel