I like that I may have to use that at some point

gonna transport this quote over to my facebook.. gonna steal it
::maniacal hand rubbing commences::

I like this but I wonder what we are innoculating them with

That is a nice quote!

Oh great quote...

i love it , may I share this?

@btroje innoculate them Scepticism. Teach thwm it's not what to think, but how to think.

@btroje inoculate them against brainwashing - if they see so many religions they have to realise they can't all be true, and that the one you believe in is almost certainly geographic.

@Funeralgirl

As a jr high social studies teacher, I do teach many religions from around the world to my students. I of course, can not advocate my personal beliefs, but I do enjoy that we compare and contrast them and they see the places they overlap and that there are many older than the one they have been taught here in the US. I try to be subtle but I point out the overlapping areas and hope it gets them thinking....

I love it!!! That one should go round the world!

I agree. History of religion and the origin of traditions as well as the common themes and motives should be a series of courses in schools.

That would mean that you would be teaching them 100s of religions, taking up massive amounts of time, on something that has no practical use. That would be a waste of an education, as it would be the only education that they would get.

Teaching as a cultural/political historical phenomenon rather than as a belief system makes sense to me.

@RobCampbell great way to put it. Agree

Innoculations cause autism!!!! /s

In a public school? What grade? Is it a world history class? Do the kids talk about their religion? @JenSelby

@Norie Public school, 6th and 7th grade, world history class. They can talk about their religion if they want to keep it brief, because we have lots of material to cover. It usually comes up when we are doing the comparisons.

@AKS74UPBS1 Don't act stupid. Do you think that the Dutch don't realize that? They are nót stupid. Isn't teaching them about the major religions enough too make them realize that if you want to be respected, you also have to give respect?

@AKS74UPBS1 Not teaching them 100s of religions but teaching them ABOUT 100s of religions. Most kids would surely then see that they all can't be true therfore none of them are likely to be true. I can't think of a better way to educate children.

Education is the key to many of or ills. People need to know about the option of no religion as well. I had a comment on facebook from a religious person who could not believe I have morals or a social conscience.

@DJVJ311 hahaha I just saw this lol

I agree in that it would be taught from in a anthropological, historical & sociological context.

I really like this! I think that teaching a variety of religions provides not only different value sets, but also entire different ways of thinking (especially in punishment, long term vs short term reward and punishment)

@bonobos48 100% yes

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.

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?

I would think if one was teaching religion as a class, astrology would be included. I think it would go under WICCA, but I think you're confusing educating a child on what the world religions teach. I don't think anyone one was suggesting that they be given a CCD class or a Bar Mitzvah, but just a general understanding of what each religion believes, the similarities and differences and how it has impacted culture.

@JeanLafitte45 there is no astrological charting in Wiicca

@AnneWimsey I was talking about zodiac Signs.
[wiccamovement.com]

@JeanLafitte45 that neither

@AnneWimsey apparently not all wiccans agree with you.

JeanLafitteetapas5 cults/ offshoots in any religion always have differences. True wiccans are basically nature worshipping "communities"

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.

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.

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.

That is already being taught... In India atleast. Not only that, but also the teachings of one particular man- Swami Vivekananda, who laid the foundation for the secular values of our constitution. Two of the most important were- "All Religions are different paths to the same destination" and "God is within man. Service to man is service to God". Though I believe there is no need for a god in the equation to serve mankind, it is a great way to teach secular and humane values.

Only in the USA, mostly. In Europe no one even considers teaching creationism "alongside" evolution. It sounds like teaching the earth centred world view or even flat earth alongside the ( locally) heliocentric view. Europe seem sto have a more grown up version of Christianity. Why I feel in Europe it would be easier from me to still be part of Christian life as opposed to totally secular. But I am not living in Europe, only come from there.

That's horrifying ! No that wouldn't happen in the UK - it would be laughed out of class.

@ZebZaman - I'm disappointed you still have a yearning to be "part of christian life". I find that very sad - not believing is fantastic!

@Agnostic1 no reason to be disappointed. I'm not going to be part of any service soon. I guess what I'm saying would take longer to elaborate, I'm no atheist. But there isn't much in terms of together celebration of anything that I feel totally at home or at ease with. But some of european Christian expression to me is a lot less hideous than what I've seen from some of these tele-mega-churches in the US. I sit or walk in nature and breathe. That's my "church" service. Among all other stuff I do. My idea of God isn't that far removed from what atheists simply call "reality". ( not if you get deeper into it... what exactly IS real?) I think in our day and time being an atheist is a perfectly valid way to be. But I'm pretty happy with my take on reality.

"As long as these values are constructively evaluated and not excepted without question".

"If these constructs were adapted without all the fiction there could be advantages. In short, if they could take the religion out and keep the good bits I would be for it"

Maybe I'm having a brain fart trying to understand these, your post all together even. But it seems to me the upper sentence over rides the bottom sentence. I like the top sentence and agree. But then you really lose me with the second. If you take out the fiction, I'm assuming contradictions and hypocrisies, within the process of teaching, then what value is left for the student towards constructive evaluation in the learning? As one who has read the bible, the contradictions and hypocrisies within were as important as the socialized, as I saw them, messages within. Which provide the very essence for students to fundamentally develop questions to what they are trying to learn and place importance on. Then to apply that to life as a value or valueless. Taking those values to other religious teachings and concentrating the more valuable together.

@William_Mary, Many of the basic laws of our society are outlined in the Ten Commandments, no stealing or killing. Many of the other rules have gone by the wayside and do not fit in in our present society. I am sure many other religions have parts to offer that also are enshrined in how we live with an equal amount of unnecessary outmoded BS. What I am saying, is, can't we just concentrate on the useful parts that include and harmonise our society rather than concentrate on the divisive bs that causes trouble?

@ColinSC Most here are likely to agree that religion was developed as a means of controlling the masses with generally sensible rules and a large amount of fantasy.

What about sport? Sport is very important in many cultures ...

@PontifexMarximus sports are widely available in schools

@Tinyhouset I know ... Unfortunately many sports show similarities with religions.

The religions make people stupid.

I agree.

I agree.

we should, sounds good.

Species.

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

Well said

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

solid point

pardon, could you please explain what you mean by "comparative religion courses"

Comparative religion means teaching all religions, not just one. None as the true religion. I think the suggestion that it should be taught as a history course is a good one, but I also don't see any harm as it being taught simply as a comparative religion course. I tried to protect my children from religion. I didn't take them to church. But when they got to middle school, their teachers began to complain that they didn't know the religious stories. And their friends were shocked that they didn't go to Sunday School. Well-meaning adults began to proselytize. So I joined the most liberal church I could find and took them to Sunday School every Sunday until they got tired of it. (It didn't take very long.) I also enrolled them in comparative religion courses in their middle schools and high schools as a "vaccine" against the religious fanaticism of my family and the Bible belt where I lived. It only worked with two of them, however, the one is less prone to extreme fanaticism and more likely to to be able to use critical thinking than her in-laws and friends. A vacuum i
gets filled with something, be sure its filled with the ability to think critically with the scientific method rather than superstition and fear.

Very nice suggestion. We need to live as one

I agree. It is fascinating to note that the roots of monotheism, specifically christianity, go back 5000 years or more and shares eerie similarities with ancient Assyrian and other religions.

Religion is the antithesis of education.

LOL

Totally concur!

My grandson loves mythology. He doesn't really understand it is myth, because he is in special ed. The only thing that bothers me about that, is he sees god as capricious.

All of them?

only time you get lean anything about religion in schools now is at chrismas

@clementsjt which is not really about religion.

We have RE in schools here in England. I used to be against it, but now as a supply teacher I see the effect it has on the kids. And they're usually bored by it and it usually turns them off. Which is exactly what we want! I have to admit to planting a few atheist seeds when I cover those RE lessons though - great fun!

Too true. I'm British and there is nothing more that will put someone off than having to sit through endless church services, normally cold and miserable, but being told "God loves you". You can't help but think if he really loved you he would get you out of the church and back home!

Religions should be discussed in classes on history, psychology, sociology, anthropology - it's an important part of societies. Religion per se should not be taught.

I agree it shld be taught but not in schools as a formal subject. Religious subjects are to he like story books. Or more like folk tales or nothin more that Harry Potter. Giving religion a strong leg in our educational system is what got us all into the mess of religious brainwash and terrorism to start with.