Even if it were true that the Church and religion are somehow correlated to individual morality, that is not what we're discussing in this thread. What this teacher is apparently showcasing is a form of politeness, which is amoral. The Church may have played all sorts of roles in my life as a child, but it sure had nothing to do with me learning to say please and thank you, speak respectfully to my elders, get up on the subway when a visibly pregnant woman is standing, or help an older person who is struggling with walking or standing up, etc. These are things that were in the ambit of parenting and I don't believe have a rational connection to any sort of Church life. In other words, if I wasn't polite before I showed up to Mass, I sure wasn't going to learn it while the priest delivered the homily.
True. The church, or any religious organization, can and does help many people, just as purpleoscar pointed out. Addiction counseling, etc, though all of those services can be obtained in the secular world as well. Religion can do alot for those willing to accept the premise of their religion and build a spiritual foundation on it.
The church, however is not inherently good. I am from Boston where the sex abuse scandal was the most widespread and got the most attention. Rest assured, the church destroyed many lives forever, drove many to depression, despair, even suicide. Religion has motivated some pretty dangerous things in the past- one need only look at 9/11. Religion is all about how you use it and whether you are capable of keeping your independent, reasoning mind in tact so that it may over rule something justifying suicide bombings or protecting pedophile priests. Religions are made up of fallible, flawed human beings.
So you are right, manners and etiquette are taught early on and in every day life, not once per week at church. I have seen many parents bring their kids to church and they yell and scream and play with toys(what the hell are the parents doing bringing toys to church??) the entire time. I know plenty of people who are just overall jerks and even criminals and they go to church every week. They would walk out of church without holding the door and then go and cut off the next 10 people on the road. On the other hand, I know plenty of perfectly polite, classy people who never go to church.
The parents teach it, as my parents taught me: "Please," "thank you," hold the door, as you get older, respect everyone but especially, respect and look out for girls, etc. This should be reinforced in schools. I would be much more interested in beefing up math, science, technology and economics lessons before adding an etiquette class. I think we all agree here that parents should be teaching these lessons and that the classroom should be conducted in a manner that introduces these concepts to those lacking in them(Kindergarten-2nd grade maybe) and then reinforces them throughout.
Is this guy going too far? There is nothing wrong or offensive about it, he is not anti woman, but yes, he is going further than is needed when we are getting our asses kicked in basic knowledge by other countries. If he notices lack of politeness or etiquette, he can bring it up and tell everyone how it would really be a nicer environment and help down the road with life skills(job interviews, work skills, etc) if you were polite and respected the feelings of others.
It goes the other way too- people can take "etiquette" way too far and waste time creating a whole cottage industry devoted to it. I remember in a college sociology class, we spent 3 class periods discussing the women's lacrosse team that all showed up in flip flops to visit the White House. The Professor was saying they are always bad and show a lack of respect, no one wants to look at dirty feet, people have no respect these days, etc.
1.)He was saying this at a college summer class, it is almost a requirement that you wear flip flops. I had mine on all summer and held plenty of doors and said thank you as I recall.
2.)If you are looking at the bottoms of someone's feet, then you have a serious problem.
3.)No one ever in the 3 day discussion suggested that anyone should wear flip flops to meet the President. I certainly never would. (I could only find it appropriate if the President were Mitt Romney, but that would never happen!)
No need to reinvent the wheel, just reinforce basic human decency. That is always a timely lesson, whether 1955 or 2010. I don't think it is a "kids today" thing all the time. When I see the "thug look" alot more prevalent now than before, I tend to think so. But then again, an older French-Canadian Catholic teacher I had in high school in 2003 would always remark how many less fights and how much more holding the doors and saying thank you there was then in the 1980s.