Greg Lukianoff: evaluation

Transcript context

…It’d be interesting to ask, is there a tension between the study of religious texts or the following of religion and just believing in God and following the various aspects of religion with freedom of speech? In the First Amendment, we have something that we call the religion clause. I’ve never liked calling it just that because it’s two brilliant things right next to each other. The state may not establish an official religion, but it cannot interfere with your right to practice your religion. Beautiful, two things at the same time, and I think they’re both exactly right. I think sometimes the right gets very excited of the free exercise clause and the Left gets very excited about establishment. I like the fact that we have both of them together. Now, how does this relate to freedom of speech and how does it relate to the curriculum like we were talking about. I actually think it would be great if public schools could teach the Bible in the sense of read it as a historical document. Back when I was at the ACLU, every time I saw people trying this, it always turned into them actually advocating for a Catholic or a Protestant or some or Orthodox even read on religion. If you actually make it into something advocating for a particular view on religion, then it crosses into the establishment clause side. Americans haven’t figured out a way to actually teach it, so it’s probably better that you learn outside of a public school class. Do you think it’s possible to teach religion from world religions course without disrespecting the religions?…

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