Full disclosure, I do not wish for this to be a thread attacking any religion whatsoever. What are your thoughts on religion being taught within a school curriculum? Let me specify what I mean, though. I don't mean daily prayer or Bible/religious text study, I mean just a basic understanding of the major religions: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, etc. Introducing people to the fact that other religions exist. My own personal thoughts: In middle school, we learned a lot about ancient cultures in 7th grade Social Studies so we talked about Greek and Roman mythology and I believe we touched on Egyptian mythology and Hinduism then. After that we had a unit on the major religions of the world. We essentially learned what the major beliefs were. It wasn't simply a unit on religion, though. We learned about the Crusades and through learning about the Crusades, we learned about different religions. In high school, I had a world cultures class which looked at cultures from all over the world and religion would get encompassed in that. If it was pertinent to bring Hinduism in a discussion of India, we would. If we talked about the Middle East, you can bet we brought in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It wasn't attacking or anything, just understanding the involvement of religions within the scope of history. In a lot of contexts, I feel like if a specific religion plays a role in history, it should be included. There's such a disconnect if you try and teach events in history without including how certain religions are involved. Like, how can you talk about conflicts in Jerusalem without bringing up the reasoning for both Christianity and Islam to have a claim over the city.
I think that teaching about religion for its historic and cultural value is a great way to help students understand different cultures and appreciate diversity. I think it’s good for young people to see that how they were brought up to think and what they were taught to believe isn’t the only way to look at the world, and that others have related beliefs that are just as valid and deserving of respect as their own. When teaching about religion crosses into the realm of “this is the right way to behave and the right thing to believe”...that type of thing only serves to narrow thinking and divide us, and it has no business being a part of anyone’s “education”.
Should religion be taught in high school? In my opinion yes it should be... but tbh high school lacks the knowledge and doesn’t understand the bible and the Quran. First of all there are many bibles ranging from the old ones to the new ones. With the Quran there is only one Quran. Muslims believe the Quran is written by god (Allah) with prophet Mohamed as the messenger. The scary thing is here the Quran can’t be changed but the bible can. The bible has been changed in the west many times to make LGBT, women and other people feel comfortable but in the Middle East where homosexuality is illegal (majority Muslim countries) it will never change until a very long time. I would say it would be legal in 2100. But the answer to your question is yes because many people These day don’t understand religion.
I agree with what you said about the Bible and the Quran, that's why I stated that I'm not advocating or anything for religious text study. Studying the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, etc. should be something done in a solely religious setting (church, temple, mosque, etc.).
It would be a very broad and simple over view considering just how many religions there are. I think there are 4200 different denominations of "Christian". But yes a class that covers the major points and the history of them would be a good thing to see in an educational environment outside of college.
There is a marked difference between teaching religion and teaching about religion. Teaching religion is what parochial schools do; one of their goals is to ensure that their students understand the tenets of their faith. It has a message of "this is what we believe" (i.e. the teacher and the students). That is not the domain of a public school. Teaching about religion, however, is an innocuous means of enriching students' knowledge of an essential aspect of humanity and its history. Students can only benefit from learning about the worlds' religions (pragmatically this might only include the larger faiths, but lesser-known ones could be touched upon). I attended public school and remember learning about the major religions (covered under the umbrella of "social studies"). That is, we were taught about the traditions and history of those religions and what their followers believe. We were not told what to believe. It shouldn't be difficult for a secular survey of religions to maintain a neutral approach.
I agree! I feel like sometimes, though, the reason it doesn't come across neutral is because the teacher is rooted in their own faith (if they have one). I'm obviously not saying that teachers shouldn't have their own faith, but I believe that that may prevent them from approaching the topic neutrally. One thing I like about my English classes in college is that we can bring up religion, but it's in the scope of approaching a piece of writing. Like, I did a whole paper on how Beowulf can be seen as advocating for the expansion of Christianity into pagan cultures. I'm not religious at all, but it was interesting to approach of piece of writing that way. We discussed it in class with my professor, but she didn't lean any which way, she just kind of showed that religion can be a way to read a test.
I'm Irish but lived in England until I was 9. Went to catholic schools the whole way. We would be walked to church quite a distance for kids in my school in England. Occasionally have mass said at the school. We had a learned prayer every morning, at lunch and before we left. We learned hymns and I still remember some I haven't sung since. My first school in Ireland was in a tiny village too small for a shop and across the road from the church. Again we went to mass the choir was all religious songs and my whole class become altar servers. My second school was across the road from the convent which was behind the church with the girls secondary next to it. Church was mandatory the rest of my school years, religion was ingrained in us, some teachers would stop class to say the angelus at noon every day. The Irish tv station and radio station play church bells at six for the angelus. Religion was huge in this country but I don't think it belongs in schools. Almost every school is Catholic unless it specifies it's Protestant. We have a few multi denominational schools but religion is everywhere.
What an interesting thread. I think learning about all religions would be a good idea. I attended parochial school from 1st through 12th grade. So I was taught a very limited view of other faiths. They pretty much only taught us the basics about Greek and Roman gods/goddesses when we learned mythology. We learned nothing about Egyptian faith except for Pharaohs being viewed as gods and that they had some sort of afterlife. What we did learn of other branches of Christianity and Judiasm, was basic information that only connected them to our faith and/or history lessons (i.e. Lutherans splitting from the Catholic Church to create Protestantism, King Henry VIII creating Anglicanism/Church of England after the Pope refused to allow him to divorce, early Jewish/Christian history in the Old Testament, Crusades, etc.). Because of this, I've started asking questions to friends who are other Christian denominations as well as Jewish friends how their faiths work, customs, etc. Hell, one of my dearest friends is even a practitioner of paganism/Wicca. I've had several interesting conversations with her about her beliefs and how her faith works, because I'm genuinely curious about it. Yet I still don't know much about all these other faiths. I also had a classmate in grade school who was raised a Buddhist, yet never really got to ask her much about it because we weren't that close. It must have been an experience for her learning about Catholicism for 8-12 years though. I think it'd be a very good idea to have a course that can dive deeper into other faiths/religions. It would help everyone understand each other more and open us up to having more discussions about all of it.
It’s quite common where I live for schools, especially faith schools, to offer comparative religious studies - usually with an emphasis on Abrahamic religions. It astonishes me that religious education isn’t very common - too many people are unable to explain the Sunni-Shi’ia split or the Great Schism and the Reformation. These shape fundamental historical, political and cultural knowledge, yet somehow aren’t treated as necessary elements of education.
I think it should be taught as part of history and cultural studies. But one religion being taught as the "correct" one, or whole schools founded on the idea that the students who go there only follow one faith? No I don't think those should exist. To me faith is personal, and no one should feel they have to have a certain faith or any faith at all.
I think it should be taught in schools theoretically, but I just don't think the USA is built to be able to teach these type of topics in schools. For example, just trying to choose the right textbook for the course would be a major headache. Teaching history alone so many textbooks in the south teach about slavery like its this beautiful necessary evil that happened instead of the actual truth of it all. If we can't get basic american history right, I shiver at the thought of trying to teach Hinduism, Islam and let alone religions like Wicaa or paganism
If there is no separate religious studies course, an outline of these momentous religious movements could at least be covered in history classes (as they were at the public schools I attended). Religious history is integral to understanding any other form of history.
Hmm... This is a really interesting conversation! If I could throw my hat in the ring... My school kinda took a similar stance where the religions were taught about in a historical sense, not really in a spiritual sense. I 100% agree with that. However, I kinda wish they offered us the chance to delve into the spiritual side with certain classes or at least gave us resources to search for ourselves. I think education should be more up to what the student wants to learn rather than it being up to a forced curriculum (although I know that probably won't happen for a long time yet). That way, it gives the kids that aren't interested in that sort of stuff a chance to open themselves up to other possibilities beside what religion they're already aware of. But, it also allows the kids that aren't interested in that the ability to not partake. Although, there's the issue of separating religion from education/educational institutions. There's always the chance that, if more religious content is taught in a public school, that it can be exploited by teachers with their own ends. This topic could be debated about for a very long time and, for me, there isn't really a definitive answer, although I seem to have a few different viewpoints on the subject. Good job on having a civil discussion. I love that we can do that!
In France we do learn about all kind of religions as part of the History program. We learn about religions from a cultural point of view but it's completely prohibited for teachers or students to exhibit or promote any specific religion in public schools (Any cross are to be hidden, kipa and burka can't be worned) and I like that approach so we learn about all type of religions in a neutral environment.
I like the sociology of religion. It talks about the function of religion in society both in theory and how it's played out (over time and space). I think it is quite secular as it talks about religions without going heavy into religious teachings. It also encourages people to talk about their own beliefs and why they think the way they do.
As a historical/cultural studies elective-type class? Sure. But don't use it as a means to push religion on students.
