to think that RS/ RE is in fact, not a doss subject?

[EdgarAleNPie]

and is very definitely one of the Humanities. It's about people - what is it if not a humanity?

I think ks1, 2 and 3 should be "this is what different people believe and why", and ks 3 and 4 should be more focused on philosophy etc.

I never cease to be shocked an irritated that people don't know that Judaism branched off to become Islam and Christianity - that they all LITERALLY and theologically stem from Abraham!

I often wonder if teaching the major world religions side by side (comparatively, iyswim?) rather than one after the other would give a deeper understanding of the similarities (and differences) between them.

When I was about thirteen, a couple of Muslim people came in to our school to talk to us about being Muslim. At least one of them was a white convert, but they still gave out those lovely basboosa type sweets - which annoys me now. Those were nothing to do with being Muslim!

Probably didn't help that our RE teacher was a geography teacher being made to teach RE.

Depends on the school and it's attitude tbh. Mine was utter bullshit at this, I learned very little while doing RE (despite being an athiest I'm very interested in religion/theology)

When I was at school our teacher asked the class:

Teacher "So, how many of you believe in God?"
Class: "......."
Teacher "Nobody???"
Class "....."

I put my hand up at this point, as did one other girl in the class. I wasn't a Christian, and I felt the need to tell her, as she was so adamant that we needed a fucking label.

In my 12yo mind I felt this very unjust, complained, and she actually didn't teach there for much longer...

erm..

"I never cease to be shocked an irritated that people don't know that Judaism branched off to become Islam and Christianity - that they all LITERALLY and theologically stem from Abraham!"

I once had a massive argument with a woman who insisted that "banging on about Christmas" was insulting to Muslims who don't "believe" in Jesus- as in, she refused to accept that Muslims even refer to him ever and she thought that he was basically Mohammed's arch-nemesis.

lol at Jeus v Mohammed!

I apologise for my lollage. It's late. I meant obviously

Lmao Mrs Weasley. You have actually just made my life by differentiating between "religious crap" and "faith", even if it wasn't deliberate. It'd a distinction that doesn't get enough press IMO.

One of the best moments of my life was tipsily (it was quite late in the evening) wandering past a shop and doing a double take upon seeing that they had purple sparkly Jesus money boxes. Naturally, I purchased one.

Unfortunately, all of the ones on display seemed to be slightly chipped, so one of the shop assistants went into the back to see if she could find an unchipped one.

The woman behind me asked if she could step ahead of me to the till. I replied "sure, I'm just waiting for Jesus to come back".

True story. Nearly WET myself laughing when I realised what I'd said.

I imagine Jesus and Mohammed facing off like those boxing pens (you pull the little lever and their arms stick out). Jesus is naturally purple and sparkly. Mohammed is green and also sparkly. It's a fight to the death.

I agree PocketMouse, I was lucky enough to have moved schools a lot and IME, a teacher who has to teach RE three hours a week is generally SHITE, because they didn't choose it and don't want to do it. Someone who WAS an RE teacher (rather than a geoggers teacher being forced to teach RE) and enjoyed it made it a very interesting subject.

One other thing that really does my nut in... Christians in particular but also Jews and Muslims are supposed to be evangelic for their faiths - all of these religions think that someone converting to their religion is a good thing.

So why are almost ALL of the most evangelical 'believers' atheist? Does my nut in. I wouldn't say I'm anything in particular, but Atheists can be insanely bigoted and ill-informed - just like the religions they claim to loathe!

..well that was the situation in the community college i went to - that it was taught by humanities teachers (either history or geography) and it wan't highly-rated at the school - the head was an old style socialist who looked at religion with contempt and didn't feel we needed to know much about it, evidently.

then i did A levels at a diff. school and the teachers were specialists and made it all v. challenging.