Should the US with it's financial problems and it's declining economic standing in the world, support a greater focus on better public school education in science?
Teaching outdated forms of thought and unrealistic ideas based on religious mythology never advanced any nation. While greater autonomy for Tibet maybe a perfect way to poke a pointed stick into the official eye of the PRC, a good part of the world know by now, China would not have progressed and advanced the way they have over the last few years, using the Tibetan socio-economic model.
Maybe it is time we come to see religious education globally as less desirable and more as the reduction of a child's mental potential which amounts to child abuse resulting in the debilitation of the mind of minors.
Franto Hruz
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As somebody with no religious connections I have tried to appeal to logic in discussions of religion matters and I have discovered that the area is too emotionally supercharged to apply pragmatic insight. It's a hopeless cause.
Religion is part of the cultural identity of us all. I don't have 'religious connections', neither, as sand put, but I grew up in a Roman Catholic environment and this defines a great part of my knowledge, values and actions. What is going to be left of Tibet without Buddhism ?
Public schools in my area of the USA don't do any teaching in religion--you've also pointedly implied that religion and science don't agree. I presume you're speaking about creation vs. evolution, because that's about the only area where the teachings sometimes agree. Ironically, I'm a Roman Catholic and we believe in evolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Roman_Catholic_Church
Yes, I can understand that some religious teachings elsewhere in the world may present an impediment to "progress" but I think in this case you could just chalk the failure of 'progress' in that society leading to the failure of a culture, to evolution. The dumb cultures don't make it. Conversly, some of the religious rituals cultures have implemented historically may have contributed to their survival and 'progress', for instance the kosher laws of Jewish people may have resulted in their food being more antiseptic.
I believe in freedom and one of the reasons that people came to the New World was freedom of religion. Let people teach what they want. If they teach stupidity, they're progeny are less likely to survive. It's not your concern. They might feel the same way about what you're teaching your kids. History will decide.