Should religion be taught about in public schools?

Great Debates
61

Yeah it’s not so easy when you’re the ‘different’ one in a conservative Christian area to air out your beliefs, or to explain them, or to even expect to be treated with respect.

When on this forum, an extremely tolerant and socially liberal forum, we’ve had a thread called ‘Can America trust atheists?’, it puts into perspective what it’s like for an atheist to live in a heavily-Bibled area.

There was no setting anyone straight or putting my foot down as a kid or even in high school. And a class where we learned about religions would not have helped that.

62

I don’t believe that thread was intended to imply “we can’t trust atheists” It was in response to some article and much of the discussion was about the widespread misunderstanding about atheists from the believing public.

I can only imagine how hard it must be to be surrounded by people who fervently believe something you don’t and worse, they think everybody should believe as they do.

I would never expect to change the mind of die hard conservative Christians with a conversation or two, but sometimes an act of courage might plant a seed.
It’s a personal choice and I also can understand choosing silence too.

63

I had this kind of unit, but Christianity was not mentioned. We did Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, and Hinduism to a lesser degree. Islam was the most favored, as far as content. I’d have figured they would’ve mentioned Christianity, because I didn’t actually know anything about it. The class was either social studies or geography.

I must add that during my 12 years of public school, I had a unit on Greek ‘mythology’ 3 different times, in 3 different years.

64

When I was a high school teacher, I covered the “Big Twelve” in my world history class:

Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Zoroastrianism
Buddhism
Hinduism
Jainism
Sikhism
Confusionism
Taoism
Shintoism
Animism

with references to other movements (Bahai’ism, Mithraism, Gnosticism as a part of other groups). My students were required to read portions of many sacred texts from these beliefs. Many students (and parents) said it was their favorite part of the class.

So I’m all for it. (I also taught a Bible as Literature course).

65

I didn’t have any such class, and at least partially as a result of that I am an ignorant about religions. (Yes I know I could have done independent research; I didn’t; shut up.) I wouldn’t know a Shiite from a Sunni if they bit me in the butt; the same goes for the various forms of Christianity. (Jews are assumed to be Christans that occasionally dress distinctively, oh and they don’t do Jesus or the new testament either.) There some eastern religions and others, but I don’t know more than superfical trivia (Salior Mars is Shinto!) about any of them.

Am I offensively ignorant? Yes. Definitely. I just thank the FSM that my education wasn’t neglected this horribly about something important, like math or writing. A comparative course in modern religion (as the religions are now, with references to their evolution as appropriate) should be required, as a distinct and separate class at the very start of the social studies curriculum.

66

I learned about Hinduism and Buddhism in the 7th Grade, in the same year I learned about Gandhi’s independence movement. But that was as part of a course calls “SMCCS” or something – I forget what it stood for but it was pronounced “smik-iss” – a kind of combination English/history/social studies course that was probably the latest thing in experimental education in Maryland in the early '70s. I got a lot out of it – I have no idea whether such courses are still taught in public middle schools or they’ve gone back to old-fashioned divisions between courses.

67

What I said was, “Are you honestly telling me that the majority of fundamentalist Christians don’t understand the meaning of the word ‘worship’?” There’s a big difference between proving something is real and proving that someone worships it. The particular friend I was referring to is a pretty casual Wiccan. I’d be hard-pressed to demonstrate that she worships anything. Worship is a pretty strong word.

I’ll speak for myself here, because said friend isn’t here to answer. Some days I’m in the mood for a rigorous debate with people whose opinions, skills, and knowledge I respect. Other days I just feel like relaxing. I’m virtually never in the mood for a rigorous debate with willfully ignorant or overly dogmatic people. Let’s say I go to a party expecting to relax, kick back, and talk about World of Warcraft, Ivan Doig’s newest book, and that Chinese restaurant that just opened on Broadway. If I am cornered by a group of people wanting to convert me to their religion and convince me that I’m bound for Hell on the express train, it will ruin my evening. I can understand completely why she avoids the subject.

68

They weren’t doing anything like that when I was in middle school in Maryland in the mid-80s.

I took a comparative religions class as a senior in high school- it was an elective. We didn’t cover Wicca or satanism, but we did cover “humanist philosophies”. I was dating a pagan at the time, so I did my term paper on Wicca.

69

Sadly, for the most part, if we’re talking about the really hardcore fundies, yes. Most of them don’t care-Wiccanism is Satanic, no matter what you tell them.

:frowning:

70

Most of the responses on this thread illustrate just what is wrong with the idea of teaching about religion. Who decides which religions you will teach about and what you teach about each of them ?

You want to teach about all the major forms of religious opinion? Then what about atheism and agnosticism, one of the fastest-growing viewpoints in the world?

In some countries of Europe, atheism is the single largest religious affiliation reported on the census. Even in bible-thumping America, where religion is apparently NOT a question on the census, atheism is growing. In my country, Canada, almost 20% are now in the “no religion” category on the census (although I admit this category could include deists with no affiliation).

Would your courses about religion include a visit from American Atheists? See their website here Association.

I would love to go into the schools with some of their cool “Atheists in the Foxholes” T-shirts for the kids.

I would love to ask the kids: “If religion is necessary to make people good, why are the jails not full of atheists and agnostics? How do you explain that atheists generally have a lower crime rate than the general population?”

Or I would love to discuss this point with the kids: “Last week you heard that a couple of billion Christians believe Christ was the Son of God. Then the week before you heard about billions who say he wasn’t, including Jews and Muslims. Since both views could not be right at the same time, somewhere in this world there have to be billions of people believing and even dying for a false doctrine.”

“On the other hand, kids, think about this. They can’t all be right but they could all be wrong. Maybe God has no Son because there is no God.”

Can’t you just see fundie parents in the bible-thumping deep south taking me out to the lynching tree? :smiley:

71

Chiming in as a First Grade teacher.
No, there isn’t a course in my elementary school that deals exclusively with religion.
However, I do my best to sneak some references in when no one is watching… :slight_smile:

After discussing Thanksgiving and the Pilgrim’s search for religious freedom, we did touch upon agnostics and atheists. Freedom of religion can also mean freedom from religion.

We’ve discussed Ramadan and Eid al Fitr (thanks to my little girl from Bangledesh).
I also have some very simple books that discuss Islam, Hinduism, Taoist beliefs, etc. We’ve talked about the similarities between Jainism and Orthodox Judiaism (I brought in an article that discussed similar water filters some members of both religions used, to filter out even the smallest of bugs).

Sadly, I seem to be the only one in my school that wants to expose the children to other beliefs and cultures. Shame…

 -Wallet-
72

A nit to pick, if I may:

Atheism is not a religious affiliation. I agree with pretty much everything else you said, but that one just sticks in my craw.

73

I disagree with the word “can” in that sentence. Please substitute “does.” Thank you.

74

perhaps the only things that should be taught in schools are things that are not debated? Are there many of those kinds of things?

75

You are right that the word “affiliation” is not perfectly appropriate here. It may be an affiliation if you choose to belong to a group like* American Atheists*, with whom you choose to affiliate yourself. However, I must insist that it is at the very least a religious opinion or conviction.

The point that we cannot ever seem to get through to believers is that Atheism is an opinion as deserving of respect and equal treatment in the state as Roman Catholicism, Protestantism Islam or any other “organized” religion. Just because atheists do not have a formal organization they all belong to (American Atheists notwithstanding) does not mean that their opinion is less deserving of respect. Things like “In God We Tust” or “One nation under God” are disrespectful of the rights of millions of Americans who are atheists or agnostics.

Religious believers often use the specious argument that removing these references to God from the public space would be “reverse discrimination” and would be catering to atheism at the expense of the believing majority.

This argument is ridiculous. It would be reverse discrimination if the state were to remove “In God we Trust” and replace it with “God does not exist” on American currency.

Simply removing these references from the public place would NOT discriminate against believers. It would confirm the fact that citizenship and religious belief, as well as church and state, are separate realms and that the state has NO OPINION on whether or not God exists, just as it has no opinion on which religion is right.

I find it very hard to believe that in present-day America, where the believing majority does not understand this simple fact, any teaching ABOUT religion in public schools would do justice to the opinions of atheists and agnostics.

Once again I ask: who decides what would be taught ABOUT religion?

Would A&A representatives be allowed to come into the schools and lay out the arguments in support of their viewpoint? Or would there be just a sentence in the textbook that mentions that some people do not believe in God at all?

Perhaps high school, college or university courses can teach comparative religion as part of social studies, and as long as it is an option.

But in the present climate of the religious right rampaging across the political landscape in America, I firmly believe that any proposal to teach ABOUT religion in public schools would be a Trojan Horse in which religion would sneak back into the schools.

76

You make some excellent points, Valteron, but how much can you really teach about atheism? You could fill a library with books explaining and debating what Judaism is (just to pick a religion for an example), but I’d be hard-pressed to write a book specifically describing what atheism is.

“Atheists don’t believe in the Christian God, or Zeus, or Cthulu, or …” It just turns into a list. One single sentence pretty well sums up atheism.

To give atheism “equal time,” you’d end up discussing all of the other religious convictions and why they’re wrong, not discussing atheism itself.

77

Valteron, I think you are confusing teaching something about something with advocacy. I think that neither anyone from a church or from AA should be allowed in a school to advocate.

I don’t remember if my daughter’s book mentioned atheism or not. It should have. More than just “atheists don’t believe” would be appropriate though, including some reasons why atheists don’t believe, and some famous atheists. That would be good. But no T-shirts - a religion fair is not appropriate for public schools.

78

I agree it should have mentioned it, but “reasons why”? Two objections to that:

(1) If you give reasons why atheists don’t believe, wouldn’t you also have to give reasons why Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. do believe what they believe? Could you do this without preaching for/against religion rather than just teaching about it?

(2) How can you speak for all atheists? Don’t different people have different reasons why they don’t believe? What can you say that applies to atheism or atheists as a group, other than they don’t believe in God?
Frankly, at least one of Valteron’s previous posts struck me as the atheist version of an evangelist saying “If you just give me five minutes to present the gospel message, I know I can bring them to Jesus.”

79

In my comparative religions class, we did discuss atheism, in the section on “humanist philosophies”. I don’t remember it that well (it was, after all, fourteen years ago), but I think we discussed things like what a possible basis for a system of ethics could be if your beliefs don’t include gods, the history of philosophies that don’t include gods, and so on. I don’t remember it being all that different from the sections on other major religions.

80

Sure. Saying Christians believe that Christ was the son of God, and that there is salvation only through him, and that he got resurrected seems to be required to have the slightest understanding of Christianity. For atheists something similar might be that atheists don’t see evidence of a god, the problem of evil, and who knows what else. The difference is that you give the pro arguments for each area, not the con for others.

Granted. But you wouldn’t cover all varieties of anyone else’s belief either. In my blurb on Christianity I didn’t mention faith vs. works at all. School is all about leaving stuff out and pointing kids to where they can get the rest of the story.

I wonder if he’s tried it? If he were really good he should be able to convert, say polycarp in minutes flat. :slight_smile: