There are certain questions that every thoughtful human being asks, and most of us long to hear how other reflective people have answered them. To “educate” without addressing these questions is to engage in educational malpractice. It won't do to argue that such questions should be explored in religious institutions, not in public schools. In most religious institutions, students will hear only one set of answers and, although some people find such answers deeply satisfying, single answers – accepted unreflectively – are intellectually unsatisfactory. How would a person committed to one view respond if she or he heard another well-articulated view?

Then, of course, there are many students who have no formal religious education. For most of them, the great existential questions still arise but, met with silence, they remain unexplored. Students may even be embarrassed to admit that they have such questions. Asked by others whether they believe in God, they may answer that they do, because they have never heard a respectable opinion to the contrary.

Teachers in public schools should not give specific answers to these questions. The idea is certainly not to proselytize, and any attempts to convert students to a particular religious view are clearly unconstitutional. The idea is to introduce students to a rich and fascinating literature that addresses the great existential questions from a variety of perspectives.