Makes sense to teach the basics of most popular religions and those locally/culturally relevant. It's just useful information. Helps in understanding other people.
Here's how it goes down:
Do you want to teach various creation myths and explanatory myths? That stuff goes into cultural anthropology, or if there's enough of it, such as Hellenic mythology, then a literature class, but then it's cross referenced with the values of the age. No-one wants their modern religion taught as mythology right next to others that are regarded as ancient superstition.
Do you want to teach existential questions and morality? Awesome! We have entire school departments dedicated to philosophy. Typically 101 is an intro to existentialism and 102 is an intro into morality. And both of them move beyond religion in the very first chapter. The thing is, religions assert their positions on why are we here? and are property rights evil by mere assertion. Ministries say we have the authority, and you obey. and might even back their position up by scripture. But none of this really answers either why or how we know and even Descartes (a devout follower of the Church) couldn't find a sufficient answer to his own evil demon except to assume by God is good by default (rather than God being a construct by which a corrupt Church might manipulate their flock). Religion turns out to be a starting point for our purpose, the point of everything and right and wrong, but where we end up after the enlightenment is far beyond the apologists.
That’s how they did it at my college in the Netherlands, which has ‘Christian’ in the name but really isn’t religious at all.
You basically got a primer on the big religions as well as some of the fringes. This was part of my journalism degree. I am fully atheist but honestly didn’t mind since it was just factual information.
They also encouraged us to at least once visit a church, synagogue, mosque, etc. The ONLY one they didn’t want us touching was Scientology after they had some negative experiences in prior years.
okay but the problem with teaching pretty much anything in schools is that the kids don't care, they don't want to be there, they don't care about the subject matter, and how are you going to fit all of the world's religions into an elementary school class? And expect the kids to care or comprehend it?
I vaguely remember the Mormons briefly being mentioned in a history textbook in high school. maybe one paragraph in the whole textbook. It barely scratched the surface and I would not have remembered it at all if the Mormons hadn't sucked me in & warped my brain for a decade in my 20s.
Kids don't want to be there or learn most of the stuff being taught. Somehow we manage
In Quebec we have a course like that in grade 4 of high school (~15 years old). I certaintly didn’t care, hated everything religious back then. But now if you ask me what the Torah is, somehow I remember it’s the Jewish bible.
It wasn’t about “all the world’s religions” really, but only the big 5, which we’d spend a fifth of the school year on each. I’d say that’s acceptable and despite being an atheist, I’m still glad I got that course. Now if we could have had an economy course instead of poetry…
I demand all school children submit to Zeus.
How dare you?! It's Jupiter or nothing!
Spoiler, they're the same God. Kinda mirrors the trio of current religions we got going...
As a reformed 2nd caucus of 1297 latter day zeusian, how dare you lump me in with them.
"every religion is fake except mine"
Checkmate, Atheists
Where I live you can choose between a mainsteam religion or ethics class.
Since my parents didn't have to decide it I always choosed ethics, in order to don't have to deal with hyper religios teachers, who only belive in "the one true religion", in the end I had to deal with them anyway
Same here, but my parents chose that I go to Religion class until they had no say in that anymore (age of 14 where I live). Then I opted for ethics.
I think a course covering religion should be taught in schools. Roughly the way I would structure it is 2x a week for 12 weeks. 10 weeks on the 10 biggest religions of the world, 1 week on a religion that is not in the top ten globally but it locally important or historically important to the area, and 1 week teacher's choice.
Sounds like you want religious studies and not theology. It is taught many places but usually first appears in high school or you can get degrees in college. I can't speak for how they break down their study guide, I'm sure they all vary a bit.
would be good for cultural awareness if nothing else. You could mix and match the concepts you like from each religion so you take something away from it.
Those who want religious dogma taught as truth want their own doctrine taught. And just as they'll crab about Zarathustra, they'll complain about unitarianism. They'll proclaim univocality and literalism when scripture has neither of these properties according to the academic consensus.
Teaching religion as established truth is indoctrination, and religious ministries commonly have no qualms about it, admitting their own access to truth is only by assertion and fiat, and through no other authority than force.
Of course all religions. And they should also point out the ways people abused then as well as how the ideas may have been misinterpreted.
This is what happens in the UK. We have religious studies in high school, and all the main ones across the world religious are taught.
I really enjoyed RS GCSE. It was the thing that best equipped me to interact with the many, many other cultures I've encountered in the real world and in my industry.
I have almost nothing else nice to say about the British education system but they definitely got this right.
Only the mock ones.
Only the one true religion!!! ( Their's)
The education system is a system of the state and the state should be athiest to allay the fears of all incompetent morons who believe in imaginary friends.
All religions spend billions a year to make and maintain their own places of business (church/mosque/synagogue/etc), if they want to continue lying and manipulating their children they can do so on their own dime.
Everyone pays for the education system and the education system needs to remain objective and teach empirically researched FACTS.
If people want their religious texts read in school it can be done in a philosophy or fictional literature course.
All or none, there is no in between.
Sure there is. In fact let's do both. Start "none" because religion doesn't belong. At all. Anywhere.
Then let's do "All" under "history."
The only true God is Cloister the Stupid, who will lead us to Fushal, the Promised Land!
All. It is good to know the history of the world and have a basic grasp of spirituality
I think exceptions should be made for private schools. If you want to send your kid to a school that teaches your particular brand, go ahead. Publicly funded schools should be bound by the 1st amendment though.
The school still has to satisfy the standards of the state it is in. No "intelligent design" in biology class, for example. It can have additional classes though.
Also, no public money, like vouchers, should be accepted in such schools.
The problem is when private schools get government funding, say through subsidies or voucher systems.
The existence of private schools incentivizes religious government officials to defund public schools.
If public schools aren't going to teach what they want, they'll remove funding from them.
Yes. Only mine, which is none.
Sure, we can teach all of them. You know, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian...all types!
They'd just kill each other.
Just the correct one obviously!
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