Gentle anti-religious instruction in school

I’ll keep this broad; without commenting on the merits of this as such, what kinds of anti-religious* information and general help towards encouraging rational thinking kids could be plausibly introdcued as part of schooling? In the UK we have assemblys at least every week where just a general prod to think ratnionally could be introduced, I’m not sure of the situation in the US as to whether there is any moral instruction at all, but I’m aware you do that saluting the flag thing in class every day.

(note: any US only constiutional challenges can call it ceremenoial atheism :D)

*when I use the word anti-religious I am basically getting at refuting religious claims, while not actually being against religions in the corporate sense (or against the religious)

In the U.S.? Hardly any at all. It’s hard as hell simply to get them to allow us to teach science…

In the ideal, “reasoning” would be taught. Problem solving. Project management, on a small scale. How to look at problems, how to break them down into parts, etc.

In the ideal, “independent thinking” would be taught, where exercises would encourage kids to figure out their own answers, rather than taking things on the basis of authority.

In the ideal, logical fallacies would be taught (as something to avoid!) and kids would be exposed to the really, really bad ways of thinking that get seen all too often here on the SDMB. A quick unit on conspiracy theories and urban legends would be helpful…and fun!

In the ideal, civics would be taught. And practical economics, like balancing a checkbook or perhaps a simulation of a credit card.

In the practical, ugly, ideal? There’s no budget for it, and a great many people object to these ideas. Religiously.

Comparative religion or religious history can break the spell. Once you see enough other religions and their silly beliefs and how their followers seriously believed them and how their popularity waxed and waned over time it’s hard to believe yours is so privileged.

Certainly. Which is why the believers tend to adamantly oppose comparative religion classes. They’d rather the kids remain ignorant, since ignorance serves to protect their religion.

This would be a great thread to point out that the Texas GOP opposes teaching students objective thinking skills:

That’s straight out of the education section of theTexas GOP’s 2012 platform.

So … you see the scope of the problem we have here.

I agree that rational thinking would be great, and plenty. Our district teaches comparative religion with no issues, but the way our district is most classes are living comparative religion lessons.

I do love the concept of ceremonial atheism, though!

Well, I don’t know what school assemblies are like in the UK now, but when I went to school here they always included a (half-assed) religious service, with a hymn and a prayer.

That worked great for turning people off religion.
Simple, are you trying to cause a religious revival or something?

Rational thinking? Oh, like Ayn Rand! She was always talking about how rational she was. :smiley:

Rational thinking can easily degenerate into agreeing with the teacher, because it’s hard to see your own blind spots: lots of people think they’re rational and people who disagree are irrational. I had a professor in college who was excellent at teaching rational thinking–by example, and he hardly ever let on his own point of view. There aren’t many teachers that good out there, and I doubt the public schools could afford them. A unit on logic and informal fallacies would be practical and very helpful, though. Or were you just talking about anti-religious indoctrination?

I’d love it if there were a class dedicated to skepticism in general. Religion is a touchy subject - our social values tell us that we are not allowed to examine religion with the same scrutiny we’d examine equally ridiculous claims. It would be impractical for schools to examine religious ideas critically.

However, you could make an interesting class based on the skills of skepticism - being aware of the limits of your own knowledge, the way your brain builds the world around you, cognitive biases, logical fallacies. And you could thoroughly examine less socially protected issues.

Examine issues that aren’t nearly so taboo and socially protected. Homeopathy, ghosts, psychics, the more ridiculous (and probably not hot button political) of the conspiracy theories - moon hoaxers for example. Try to attack a broad base of bullshit notions - but none of them that strike too deeply. By examining a wide base, you’re hopefully going to hit on something that someone was leaning towards believing, but never really thought about it. Once they have that eureka moment that something that seemed interesting or comfortable for them to believe was bullshit, and how they went wrong, they can now apply that introspection to other areas.

I’m not sure how much you can be taught skeptical values and critical thinking. I think at some point your personality dictates that you’re either credulous or you’re naturally skeptical. From there you can only really refine your bullshit detector.

But if there’s a way to sway people to skepticism, critical thinking, and science, this would be it. Once they have an awareness that their world view is flawed and deserves honest examination, everything else begins to fall into place. Once someone has the techniques for proper skeptical evaluation of their own beliefs, then only a willing disregard for them will allow them to continue to believe them.

Religion is a really easy one on the intellectual ladder. If you can encourage any sort of skeptical mindset on someone, it’s a tiny hurdle for them to be able to see religion for what it is. You neve have to touch religion directly. If you teach critical thinking meaningfully, it’ll be one of the first things swept aside by those willing to consider their worldview.

The Lemon test for legislation concerning religion, from Lemon v. Kurtzman, is as follows:

1.The government’s action must have a secular legislative purpose;
2.The government’s action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3.The government’s action must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion.

Bolding mine. Seems to me that anti-religious instruction is thus a non-starter. Critical thinking and logic would be a fine part of any curriculum, but I doubt you’d be able to address religion specifically. Such matters are outside the government’s purview, as they should be.

Hah, I get your point (in what I removed from this post) but I think that’s probably more a UK specific thing and was helped by the way all our parents (or most of them anwyay would have been saying to us don’t listen to that lot…

But on what I quote - I strongly feel it is essential to eradicate religion from society. But I refuse to do it through coercion, or state endorsement of any particular position or whatever - those would be even worse ideas. Put another way, I could never advocate removing the right to believe anything, but I don’t think that religious ideas should be given any respect and should probably be mocked/fought against. I have a perhaps naive belief that if intelligent thinking can be taught then after a few generations almost all smart people will be non religious (we already see this with those taught scientific traditions etc and perhaps the answer is just more science) and basically the stupid will then either fall into line through peer pressure or make up their own religion so silly that it will be respectable for the ruling classes to ignore it. Then again maybe this would mean there would no longer be intelligent principled people running religions so intelligent psychopaths would come in and take over, but let’s not dwell too much on that :frowning:

Get them all hooked on the Dope.

If it was me, I’d want to teach children not to be suckers in general. I’d want to immunise them as much against gambling addictions as religious credulity.

I think it’s quite fascinating that many (most?) European countries had state sponsored religion until the recent past, and quite a few of them still have some form of watered down version of it. Yet the percentage of agnostics and atheists seems to be significantly greater in Western Eropean countries there than in the US.

Perhaps the answer is more religion in government, since that seems to be succeeding better at producing skeptics than governments which are divorced from religion.

It might be better to word that proposal slightly differently though. :smiley:

With a few classroom demonstrations, it should not be hard to teach kids how every casino game is designed so the odds favor the house, that counting cards in blackjack is a whole lot harder than it looks, that you only see the queen when the three-card-monte dealer wants you to see it, that poker is really only fun when you play for matchsticks, etc.

Of course, then you’d have pressure-groups screaming, "You’re teaching the kids gambling!" (And they would be both wrong and right.)

And if you teach them how idiotic it is to play the state lottery . . . waitaminnit, the lottery funds schools . . . one see the problem?

With a few exceptions (which got overruled by courts) virtually all public schools teach science including evolution.

Hasn’t this been the dominant philosophy of education ever since John Dewey?

The stuff you mention have all been taught at my school (except a class on conspiracy theories/urban legends).

You do realize they were criticizing certain educational programs called “critical thinking skills” or whatnot, which they believed were not working?

While most people don’t know the exact odds of winning the lottery I think the vast majority of them are aware that a purchased ticket is essentially a pipe dream. So on what basis is purchasing a lottery ticket a sign of idiocy? I’ve never met anyone who viewed the lottery as a solid foundation for their financial security. Everyone I know who plays the lotto just has a bit of fun with a fantasy. It’s no more a waste than buying a ticket to see a movie.

Maybe we should teach the children that self-righteous douchebaggery in the form of condensation towards others for harmless activities isn’t a good idea.

The reason it is touchy is that if religious types did not have the ability to brainwash children in our society, religious belief would, if not die out, at least come close to it, within a generation.

Any belief or opinion would. If for example, the belief that democracy is a good form of government was not instilled in children, that would die out in a generation also.

Of course this is excluding the possibility of foreign influence (see the growth of Christianity in China as an example).