The religions make people stupid.

I agree.

I agree.

yes

even worse, people are going crazy with their religion believes.

we should, sounds good.

Species.

I hate communicating through text because so much of communicating is with body language and the nuance and meaning can be easily misinterpreted. I am not criticising your view, but rather, tossing out another aspect that you may not be considering.
If the question were "Should religion be promoted in schools," I would agree but the study of theology isn't a subject that should be left off the curriculum, and it isn't a question of church-state separation. If you disagree with this point, I would very much like to hear your views.

I agree

I agree with that, Church and state SHOULD be kept separate. It stops society from being too heavily influenced by one singular Religion, and stops things like mandatory Religious belief. BUT I think it should be taught in schools. Religion is a big part of society, and has a heavy variety. Teaching students about the various religions can help prepare them for the inevitable day that they meet someone with an varying viewpoint. The trick is that they should ALL be at least introduced, make it its own separate class. Don't teach math or science or english from a religious standpoint, but rather teach Religion from an unbiased one.

And yet in the US you have much more religious extremism (mainly christian) than we do here in the UK, where religion is taught in all schools. How do you explain that?

The goal would be not to teach religion of any sort, but the impact religion has had on human societal development. Religion, like it or not, has had a huge impact on this planet. Ensuring an unbiased presentation might be difficult.

why bother?

No issue teaching religion in schools? You do not have an idea what takes place teaching young kids religions. It is BRAINWASH plant ideas and believes in the young minds. AND THE MIND CONTROL CONTINUE going to church, Christmas is here every year Easter every year the religious holidays the stores selling cards Happy Christmas and the brainwash continue deeper and deeper, trust me. once you hear something can not either remember it But when you hear it again and again over and over, becomes your believe, hope you understand me since I am not an American.

Learning about theology isn't the same as brainwashing kids. I studied theology myself in high school, and I can tell you that brainwashing was the last thing on my teacher's mind. I learned more about how religion affects us, both in positive and negative ways. Learning how mythology takes root in societies, the conditions that will propel a surge in religiosity and things that diminish religiosity. Prosperity, science, and education are the best ways of reducing faith and poverty, ignorance and war tend to increase the levels of religiosity in society. Trust me when I say I'm the least likely person to promote any form of indoctrination. I will do everything I can to champion education including free evolution and geology tutoring for kids and adults.

you should have an issue.
You want to bet?
Learning theology means learning lies.
You do not know anything about brainwash.
What makes you think brainwash have not take place? please tell me.
I know it took place without been there. When someone is brainwash another, is not going to tell him, this is what I am doing to you. Do you have an idea how brainwash happens? I doubt. I am not calling you stupid , you just do not know.

tonia, I'm telling you I wasn't brainwashed. Have you looked into what theology teaches? Theology isn't saying religion is correct it's simply a history class on different religions around the world. It talks about Buddism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and a bunch more but it isn't telling you that you should believe, it is, in fact, educating you on the concepts. Education is not about hiding the facts; it's about understanding them. What good can is served by hiding the understanding of world religions?

I'll be as dogmatic as I can be on this subject. The people posting here, saying no don't teach religion, are genuinely intelligent people but they are entirely wrong on this issue. There are issues worth being dogmatic over and this for me is one of those times. The origin of positive societal change is education, and if you want people to begin to change their views, you're never going to get there by hiding. I'm not saying I want indoctrinational religion taught I'm saying I want theology taught.

no way I ever going to support brainwash the kids with religion in schools.
I agree with you. It is the worse thing you can do, to young minds.

I think we had it lucky our religious studies tutor actually gave us the ability to debate our views. I remember watching the life of Brian in class and actually having an open discussion of how we thought then we watched the documentary about how it was viewed as blasphemous and had a further debate, one of my favourite memories of school

I think it is a waist of time

Well, maybe calling it a theory is a bit more than I would credit religion with but hypothesis might be a better word.

Even hypothesis is a stretch; though it's closer, it implies that the claim is falsifiable, which of course it isn't. There's nothing scientific about it, and we shouldn't give it more credence then it deserves by labeling it with scientific terminology.

Shouldn't be taught in the science classroom at all. Work it in somewhere with social studies, history (not biblical history but history of origins) but yes alongside many other religions and ideas but not as a fact. Philosophy would also have a lot of valid use for religion.

I'm a supply teacher, and when I have to teach R.E. I always preface my remarks with "some people believe that....." and then whatever I'm supposed to be teaching them. And I always finish with "so what do you think?". And depending on how ludicrous the story/religion is I might even say "Can you actually believe that some people think that's true????????" and burst into laughter. Serves them right.

Well said

Religion it is not politics. It is not history, it is bullshit

solid point

YES

agree with you

That is without a doubt the best response I've read so far. Thank you.

What do you mean by "the three main" ? To me that would be Buddhism, Hinduism and the "religion of the Book", or Abrahamic, which includes Jewish, Christian and Moslem. Or, if you count the Abrahamic as three, then I count more than three main ones...?

@ZebZaman if you're going on numbers of followers (in millions), the big 3 are:

Christianity 2,430, Islam 1,800, Hinduism 1,150. Buddhism is 520, just above Folk religions 400.

Hindu, Buddism and what was the third?

NO, it is the worse thing to do. teaching none sense is wrong, no matter where take place.

@tonia - there are ways to teach it, so that children's minds are opened to the possibilities of judging for themselves whether it's nonsense. Your idea just makes kids easier to indoctrinate when they go to church/mosque/synagogue.

@GoldenDoll children and young people who are ignorant to the major religions, their customs, history, and current impact are... Ignorant! Ignorance, deliberate ignorance is not the way to raise young people. Knowledge of the common world religions will help a young person in many aspects of adulthood, including understanding politics and social policy, the world stage, business dealings, inter personal interactions, all sorts of areas where to be ignorant is to be at a disadvantage.

@KayAllDay I think your comment needs to be directed to @tonia

@GoldenDoll thank you Goldendoll. Having a working knowledge of what these religions are is far different than indoctrination. I recall learning about Greek mythology in school, but wasn’t forced to believe in it. Education is the key to understanding why theists believe what they do.

I do not agree with you 100%
you tell your kids your believes, you brainwash them, without knowing it. It is not the teachers job, either the parents. Just let the kids be.Tell them what is right and what is wrong, but religion? no way.

Also, when I was in college, I was required to take a 'Religion' class. I took Intro to the New Testament because it fit into my schedule. I was afraid that it was going to be all preachy like going to church, but it was taught like a literature class, analyzing the text like any other literary work, and I actually learned a few things. And after actually reading the new testament I came out of the class more of an atheist than when it started!