The Simpsons and Super Nintendo Chalmers had it right decades ago …
I used to work for a software development company in Louisiana. At company meetings the CEO would always close with a prayer to Jesus, which was certainly the only time in my programming career I had to deal with that. Maybe 80% of the company were Christians but the rest of us were Jews, Muslims, Hindus and atheists (just me) and it was always weird to be looking around at each other while everybody else had their heads bowed. Unfortunately, this company was pretty much the only game in town for programmers so nobody was willing to call the CEO out for this shit.
Unfortunately, most people are emotional creatures first. Sometimes only. So facts don’t really matter because they’re engaging on the emotional level of “christian stuff feels good and safe, but other stuff feels dangerous and foreign”. We all do this to some extent. There’s no solution.
People mostly change their mind because stuff coming from their in-group, or horrible trauma.
There IS a solution to this particular problem, namely don’t use schools as a vector for spreading religion.
That’s true for this specific thing, but won’t solve the underlying problem of “things I’m comfortable with are good, and abstract things like facts and fairness don’t matter”
I grew up poor. We never got to go to the christian summer camp like all our friends. The upside is that we never got sexually assaulted like all our friends.
You just got lucky. Poor kids get sexually assaulted in the pastor’s private office instead.
Public non religious schooling helped. I had sorted things out pretty early on that being alone with any adult was not beneficial. I was a nervous and frightened child and I honestly believe that it saved me on many occasions. My best friend whom I have known since I was four did not have such luck.
