To think that religous education should be complusory for EVERYONE

[ReallyTired]

I think that everyone should learn about ALL the major relgions in the world, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Buddist, Hindu, or Athesist or agnostic.

However I think that religous education should be taught as "This is what Christians believe" rather than "This is what WE believe". Children should not be subjected to attempts to convert them to different relgions, but they need to understand and tolerate difference. Ie. Learn that there are times that we should agree to disagree.

A basic knowledge of the five world's major relgions helps children understand current affairs, history and avoid offending people from other cultures to themselves.

If parents want their children brought up as a Christian, Muslim, athesist or pagan then they can take their children to church/ Temple/ Mosque out of school hours.

I like the assemblies at the the special school I work at. They have no relgious songs, but the school has fun singing pop songs. Although the songs are non religous they have lyrics encouraging good behaviour.
All the children are included and gain from the experience.

It is taught that way all ready unless you are at a church school. I dont think it should be compulsory at all especially at KS4 and I'm an RE teacher.

YANBU as long as there is NO praying, NO hymns and as long as these religions are described as what they are -- myths held by different cultures.

I really can't make my mind up about this. Part of me agrees with you and part of me thinks that the world would be a much better place if there was much less public manifestation of religion and it was kept as a private matter. On balance I think you are right and less ignorance on all sides would be a good thing.

I'd agree, although I'd point out (slightly pedantically) that atheism is not a religion, any more than bald is a hair colour.

this is whats taught already

except in church/religious schools

its compulsoy until yr11 i think to have some form of religious eduction

Maybe you didn't mean that, reallytired. It's ambiguous. Sorry.

lolol at bald gag

ITA.

The standard RE curriculum in our area is supposed to do that, except it does not yet include agnostic/athiest. But there still seems to be a lot more christianity than anything else, and the assemblies do usually have hymns and prayers in which there is the explicit assumption that there is a god, that he created everything. And the implicit assumption that religion and faith are Good Things

I agree with GooseyLoosey. The world would be better I feel if there was less organised religion. Also school RE should be education rather than indoctrination (though I think officially that it is meant purely educational at the moment).

Would like to vote for the inclusion of Pastafarianism on the RE curriculum though

I think it's good for children to learn about religion and have it placed in a historical/cultural/geographic context, as long as it is taught as 'Here are the myths associated with this one, here are the rules of it' and not that any of it is true.
But I think you're on immediate dodgy ground with your identification of the 'five major religions': you have left out the Jews and the Sikhs as well as Shinto which is still fairly widespread in Japan, and atheism is not a religion as UQD says.

It really ought to be compulsory in religious schools too to learn about other religions (and 'world views') in as unbiased manner as possible.

What I meant that athesists should learn how other people's religious view points.

Children should be taught about world major religons, and I would include atheism in that list. Even if you do not consider it to be a religon its certainly an opinon that a lot of people have. Children need to know its OK to believe in God, its OK to believe in lots or gods or no god.

I would like my son to learn about lots of different relgions/ relgious view points. I do not want him to be told that they are myths as that would not be respectful to people of that faith.

I want him to be educated and make up his own mind.

Agree that all children need a religious education as a basis to understanding of the world and more importantly IMO as a basis for discussion of morality and how we treat one another.

I'd quite like Pastafarianism on the curriculum too. Worshipping the great god Pesto.

I think it would be better as Madamez says, to simply leave it as part of learning about history and culture.

whenever I have spoken with religious people they have emphasised that it is their faith that is important and that is not something that can be 'taught' in school.

I would favour trying to remove religion as much as possible from schools. Teach a child to read and he or she can find out for themselves.

Look at them all!!

It would be quite hard covering all these...

this may be the easiest way of doing it.

lol @ unquietdad...bald hair being a colour!

UnquietDad, what more is there left to say?

BTW whatever happenend to Jedis? I thought the rule was if 20,000 or so put it down as their religion in the Census it had to be accepted as such?

Lol at UnquietDad's link.

I would pick relgions that are covered based on the population of people who practice a particular religon.

I would agree that all religons are valid, but I would not want RE to take up huge amounts of school time. Prehaps realising there are loads of different relgions is more important than knowing the difference between Jedi and Jessuits.

The main message I think I want kids of backgrounds to get is that its OK to disagree. Rather than Christians (ie. George Bush) and Muslims throwing bombs at each other to learn to live in peace.

Prehaps that world would be a safer place if George Bush had learnt a bit about Islam at school.

Thing is Reallytired, not sure that I want my children to be taught that it is OK to believe in God or any God as in my view it is not. I would prefer religion to be presented as someone else's belief system rather that something which it is possible that the dcs might wish to adopt.

I will of course leave them to make up their own mind on this but I would much rather religion was only a small part of education about other cultures. Knowing that Italians like pasta, have a fantasic artistic and political heritage is probably more important in my mind than knowing that they are predominantly catholic and what that entails.

I would certainly not endorse religious teaching as a platform for discussing morality.

ReallyTired...as far as I am aware that si what is already happening...my sons are certainlty learning about all sorts of different religions...es in secondary and ms in receptionclass...and I don't think that the schools they are at are unusual in any way...

GooseyLoosey, Why do you object to people having a different opinon to you? Are there times where its OK to disagree.

At the moment parents with extreme views are allowed to pull their children out of RE lessons. Surely the children of staunch athesists or fundermentalist christians or muslims need well balanced RE lessons the most.

I would not want RE to take up any more school time than it does at the moment, but I think parents should lose the right to withdraw their kids from RE lessons.

Don't object to people having a different opinion to me at all. However, in my view religion is dangerous nonsense and whilst I would like the dcs to be aware of it so they can understand what is happening in the world, I do not want it to be presented in the abstract - as in "here's another nice religion for us to talk about". I want it to be put in its social and historic context so the dcs can really make up their own minds having been made aware of the consequences of a particular belief system.