To think Religious education in schools should be replaced by AI education

[IsitRainin]

Looking at how quickly AI is advancing, our education system needs to be overhauled.
There's no benefit of subjects like Religious education in today's world and people can learn about it from their family. This should be replaced by AI studies and other STEM subjects which will prepare the Children to be ready and up to date with future advancement and at par with children from China, USA and rest of the world.

Even China has better education system than ours. People who are calling me troll are just so delusional that they can't accept that other countries have better education systems and better workforce than ours.

’Even China…!!!!’
Have you ever seen the Chinese curriculum @IsitRainin?
If you have an issue with religious education taking up space on the UK curriculum I wonder how you feel about compulsory modules on the principles of Marxism, fundamentals of socialism and military training? All examples of compulsory modules at their equivalent of FE colleges…

Learn about it from their family? I think you're confusing Religious Education with Religious Instruction or worship.

When today's year 7s and 8s get to pension age, it won't exist anymore.

Religious education isn’t about ‘shoving religion down children’s throats’ but giving them some background on beliefs of different people around the world. For a similar reason I wouldn’t be in favour of stopping MFL as suggested by another PP. In the UK we should be making more of an effort to learn other languages, not less.

Pupils / students already study ICT or computer studies (whatever it’s called now) so AI education would come under this. Personally I am quite concerned about the amount of power needed to generate and store AI, plus all the water used for cooling, often in areas where there are already droughts.

I think if AI is advancing like you believe (and I do too) it is absolutely imperative to teach RE and Philosophy. Also how will you ‘teach’ AI? What does that mean to you? Arguably AI will struggle with ethical questions. Science on the other hand, AI will do far better. So why replace RE? Why not replace science?

It shouldn’t be about replacing curriculum anyway, we should be looking at adapting the curriculum and incorporating AI across subjects.

Just came on the say this. I’m with the OP RE is so outdated, and it’s really individual choice now. So what is there to teach that the family can’t.

money, finance, mortgages, pensions, savings etc and AI how to mange life skills would be great.

Genuinely amazed anyone thinks that contemporary RE in schools is "shoving religion down children's throats" 😂As someone who actually is religious I think RE is taught from a very secular perspective - the underlying assumption is that these are the beliefs those other people over there have, which we should learn about but of course don't really agree with it. I'm not complaining about that - its inevitable in a fairly secular society. Personally I think children and young people need space and time to think through big questions of ethics, identity, personhood etc, with both religious and non-religious perspectives. They actually need this even more as technological change poses harder questions about humanness. The various religions remain massively important to billions of people globally and millions in the UK, and its impossible to really understand a number of other subjects (history, ethics, politics, much literature) without some grounding in them. And most people who would identify as 'non-religious' have at least some clearly religious or 'supernatural' beliefs, for example in some kind of afterlife, ghosts, fate, souls, Karma etc. As an aside, I'd put money on religion outliving AI rather than the other way round, and I would have said the same in my atheist academic historian days.

The latest stats show that it's in entry level STEM/tech fields that the job market has been worst hit by both AI and economic pressures, and also in financial services jobs that many STEM grads go into.

Arguably, humanities grads in subjects like RE, philosophy, ethics are better protected because their skills can't yet be replicated. To effectively use AI, you need to know how to ask good questions and refine lines of inquiry based on research results - both of which are core humanities skills.

Those things are already taught..though given how fast things change and how irrelevant they are to school age kids, it's value is less obvious than you might think.

As another atheist RE teacher said, I'm not sure what is outdated about giving children a place to consider the death penalty, our relationship with the natural world, abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, business ethics (eg whistleblowing, green washing, globalization, CSR), human rights, attitudes to sex and sexuality, beliefs about the afterlife, what 'I' means ..are we just chemicals and hormones or is there something "more"? Please do tell me what is unimportant or irrelevant about any of these?

Why can't rhose be taught as philosophy and ethics without religion?

@reversegear
"Just came on the say this. I’m with the OP RE is so outdated, and it’s really individual choice now. So what is there to teach that the family can’t"

That makes no sense. If a family is following a faith they will obviously teach about that faith at home - but the point of RE in school is to learn about different religions and beliefs.
The fact there are adults in the country that don't even seem to know that God and Allah are the same thing.
They don't know that a man wearing a turban is Sikh and not Muslim.
That Sikhism, Hindu and Islam are not the same thing.
People claim that the UK is "a Christian country" but barely seem to know anything about Christianity despite the fact it is a massive part of UK culture (the fact Christmas/Easter etc are national holidays) and it's a huge part of our history.
It's important to learn about religions and other beliefs because they have such an impact on laws, cultural events and traditions.
If we don't teach WHY certain things are the way they are then no one will understand the world we live in.
Unfortunately back in my school days (80s/90s) RE was always considered the doss lesson that no one took seriously. At secondary it was only compulsory for the first 3 years and was one lesson a week (40/50 minute lessons) so hardly a massive chunk of the curriculum.
That's probably why there is so much ignorance amongst adults about the basics of religions - and ignorance can often lead to hatred.

In our school the subject is called RPE. We do also teach what the six major world religions are based on, what is important to them, why if you have a Muslim, Hindu or Jewish friend they might not want X to eat or be doing Ramadan or can't play out on a Saturday morning or won't sneak off to drink cider with them or doesn't have a Christmas tree at home, what motivated Gandhi, MLK, the Buddhist monks who immolated themselves during the Vietnam War, why millions flock to the Ganges during Kumbh Mela and Mecca at Hajj, why they can't "just share" Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

Whether you like it or not religion is still a massive catalyst for many many things that our word leaders have to deal with, that our employers have to manage, that our communities and local councils have to understand. It's not just what someone does in a big fancy building once a week.

The reason behind many ethical issues will have roots due to religious beliefs.
How can you learn one without the other?

I am surprised that you haven’t used chatgpt to help you argue your case.

Ou school did a survey and asked the children what they subject they were most looking forward to next school year and so many of them said RE. I think it’s because it’s about ‘nice’ things eg kindness, generosity, gratitude etc and those things are good for children to learn about in this shitty world.

That's ridiculous

I nearly did a spit take with OPs assumption that USA's schools are less religious and therefore better 🤣 OP you clearly need more education in this area.

I agree AI needs to be taught more, however it needs to be alongside other subjects and especially with an increase in media literacy, ethics, and critical thinking. My 14yo DS is being targeted by misogynistic, racist videos at an alarming scale, all made and pushed by AI algorithms. We do a lot of work with our kids at home precisely because our politicians and society seem to have discarded any kind of ethics or regulation in the pursuit of progress.

The AI "race" does one thing and one thing only - allow us to create weapons without thought or restraint. The funny thing is the flawed belief that countries will control these weapons because they "invested". Nope, corporations will. Fun times ahead.

Easy. Loads of countries manage it. The UK is quite a outlier in having mandatory religious education.

I can see why someone who works in AI wouldn't want kids learning anything about ethics.

To paraphrase Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park "You were so busy thinking about whether you could, that you didn't stop to consider whether you should."

Probably because we’re quite unusual in having a state religion.

@TheLudditesWereRight I agree with you.
So many countries manage it just fine, why does UK need mandatory religious education for years.
We can teach ethics, philosophy and mortality without including the religion in education.
So many countries manage just fine without constantly going on and on about religion.
UK is a Christian country and it's important to learn about significance of Christmas and Easter etc, but constantly going on and on about various religions is absolute waste of time.

Perhaps that's why some countries (glances over at USA) make laws based on the rules and beliefs of just one religion.
Laws should not be based on one faith and one faith alone.
The "facts" spouted by some law makers are a load of nonsense based on crap their pastors told them.

In your opinion…

You think this is what RE does?! All the more reason RE is needed. It teaches respect, tolerance, critical thinking