The all new, totally accepted, bigotry thread - "Blame a Christian"

[Traitorfish]

It is, because it is about people's faith, it is another topic that people get too excited about... There are a lot of topics you just don't force on people.

People get excited about politics, too, but they still teach that.

 

[kochman]

The teach civics in America, they don't teach you what to support, they teach you how an observable, wordly sysytem operates.
I imagine that is the same in most of the West.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, yes, that's the point: that RE isn't about what you should or should not believe, but about the practices and beliefs of various world religions.

 

[kochman]

As interpreted by?

As we've seen here, we all seem to have pretty different interpretations of how these religions function... it's too subjective.

Anyhow, still, the point remains... we seem to be doing ok in the USA without mandatory religion training. I say, teach more math or something instead.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

This is common in Europe, I understand...
I don't agree with it though, because there are many religions, so who decides which make it into the curriculum? What's the criteria?
And, what is a religion? Buddhism, for example, could be considered less of a religion and just a personal philosophy...
And, how can we ensure that each religion gets an "equal" treatment from all the many individual teachers? This part is pretty much impossible...

In my case it wasn't unlike being taught history. There was hardly any thing about what a religion preaches, but rather the background of the emergence and the historical impact of them. Of course to make it less dry some stories were used to illustrate but that's about it. It's impossible to teach children what Christianity is all about when Christians themselves are still pondering that one and hardly agree on their findings. But you can talk about the impact a religion has had for instance.

Judging the way people view that which is unknown to them, perfectly illustrated by how the west regards Islam, and how the middle-east regards Christianity, I do think it is important to at least familiarise students with what's what in an educational environment. Otherwise chances are people will find out about a religion in other ways and that subjective experience colours their whole outlook on that religion. And I don't have to explain to any one how ones ill-conceived notions about a certain religion have a way of re-establishing themselves by means of selective observation once that image is firmly in place.

 

[Traitorfish]

As interpreted by?

As we've seen here, we all seem to have pretty different interpretations of how these religions function... it's too subjective.

So you don't think that schools should teach history, geography or sociology, either? They're no more or less "subjective" subjects than religious studies , nor in many cases less contentious- in part because they all overlap so heavily with each other- so their doesn't seem to be much sense in opposing the teaching of the one without similarly opposing the teaching of the others.

 

[kochman]

Ummm, yeah, TF, that's what I think. I'm clearly a zealous Rick Sanatorium fan who wants to bring us back into the stone ages because I don't think mandated religious education is a huge benefit as compared to other subjects the time could be spent on, like underwater basketweaving.

 

[Traitorfish]

Then could you perhaps explain to me why you make a distinction between religious studies on the one hand, and the other social sciences on the other?

 

[kochman]

But, I can't... I'm a stone age zealot. You got me dead to rights... I want nothing but the Bible to be taught, period.

 

[Traitorfish]

Would it kill you act your age?

 

[kochman]

If I did... your next step will be to twist my words and foist some absurd conclusion out of what I was saying, and force me to react to utter rubbish, rather than continue a meaningful conversation on the actual topic...

 

[Arakhor]

You know, Kochman, it takes two to have a silly argument.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

To put this clearly, the absence of education on religion leads to people wearing shirts that say "All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11"

 

[Arakhor]

To put this clearly, the absence of education on religion leads to people wearing shirts that say "All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11"

I agree, but religious education has to be impartial, especially education about Christianity.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

I agree, but religious education has to be impartial, especially education about Christianity.

I'm fine with that, it shouldn't be biased for or against any religion.

 

[Arakhor]

I managed three years of compulsory religious education, being taught "this is what Roman Catholics believes", "this is what Sunni Muslims believe" etc. It certainly aided in my education.

 

[Quackers]

Kochman, British "RE" just focuses on the beliefs and customs of different world religons. The cirriculum isn't designed to innoculate faith into the students or teach them to hate other religons.

 

[Racsoviale]

The same here. Except for the part where I turned into an IslamoChristHinJew fundamentalist,

 

[Lord Gay]

I managed three years of compulsory religious education, being taught "this is what Roman Catholics believes", "this is what Sunni Muslims believe" etc. It certainly aided in my education.

I'm curious, was atheism discussed at all in the courses?

 

[W|M]

The cirriculum isn't designed to innoculate faith into the students or teach them to hate other religons.

It is if you go to a Catholic school.