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.

FWIW, I have a good friend who genuinely believes in fairies, in 'The Fey'. I don't consider it remotely offensive to be compared to her in belief. We both hold to the existence of a non-corporeal world. Yeah, one of us is right, one is wrong (or maybe both! )

But then, very little actually offends me, so I might be an odd person to give an opinion on that.

I think that religion becomes dangerous when people lose their ablity to laugh at themselves. Prehaps comparing Christianity to gnomes, faires and pixies is reasonable. Aferall I believe that many Steiner followers believe in gnomes.

It would not surprise me if there is a more advanced alien race out there. Especially as I once heard that there are as many stars in the universe as there are atoms on earth. (I have no idea how true that is though...)

A massive chunk of the pagan community believe in other-worldly beings be they faeries, pixies, elves or otherwise.

KH, I think if all believers were as reasonable and non-offendable as you, we would all get along much better

That's the problem though, that the people I know who follow the mainstream reigions do not accept debate on the subject. And certainly never laugh at themselves!

Thinking about state schools, yes religion should be touched on in schools as it naturally occurs in politics/history/current affairs and other subjects where religion has shaped the way the world is.

I don't think religion should be taught as a whole subject in itself, as this gives it a credence which I think is inappropriate in an education setting.

I keep thinking of Lisa Simpson, when she said to Ned Flanders, I wouldn't come and teach science in church, keep religion out of our schoolrooms.

Not a very classy quote I know, but she had a very good point.

I think that giving RE a limited amount of space actually stops it taking over. Religion otherwise can end up in the science lessons, or in music lessons, or drama or art. Well taught Relgious education (NOT religious instruction makes it clear that Christianity is one viewpoint of many.)

In America there are certain groups who want Intelligent design taught in science lessons to counter act children being taught about evolution.

I don't think it should be compulsory as there are some people who don't believe in ANY god. I'm non-religious. Will never have DD christened or get married in a church so if it had been compulsory in school I think i'd have gone mad.

As you can prob tell I never read anything except OP

RE is complusory until keystage 4 at the moment unless your parents choose to opt you out of it.

I get the impression that many athetists on this thread do not want any religious debate. Like many religious fundermentalists they do not want hear other people's views or beliefs.

Religious education taught from a completely neutral standpoint will not indoctrinate people.

Funny how so many of the superstitous start off going on about tolerance on these threads and the next thing it's 'Waaaah! You won't take my imaginary friend seriously! How very dare you! Waaaah!'
Get a grip, the rational are under no obligation to treat anyone's superstitions with anything other than indifference and mild disdain.

Madamez answered that one, reallytired.

In any case we atheists are not trying to prevent you believing or even teaching your religion in church to those who want it. We just don't want you to teach it to those of us who don't want it.

For the record, "Allah" is the word for "God" in Arabic. It is the same deity as the Christian God. In fact, Quran talks in quite some length about Mohammad being the third prophet of the same God, Moses and Christ being the two previous ones.

I suppose that Greyriverside and Madamez show why I think that neutral RE lessons need to be complusory.

Otherwise their children will grow up to be as narrow minded as their mothers.

All the neutral RE lessons do is make sure that children understand why Hindus do not eat beef. Or why Muslims pray 5 times a day or sieks do not cut their hair.

There is a big difference between religious education and religious instruction. If you have a better understand of other faiths then you are less likely to offend people.

The UK is a multicultral country and its important to realise that other people have different ideas.

The only way RE lessons can be neutral is if a Christian RE teacher comes in for the bit on Christianity, a Muslim teaches Islam, etc.

Except it can't be the same God can it? Because Christians believe the whole point of him is to be Jesus's dad, and Muslims think he is childfree. You can't be both. And this 'same God' seems to shift his views according to who he is talking to, which seems odd.

I agree with madamez et al, btw.

'Narrow mindedness' is blindly believing in a set of myths with circular logic as the only intellectual tool allowed.

I couldn't have said so at the time, but I always came home from primary school a bit puzzled that we were taught Bible stories as gospel truth (ha ha) and yet studied the Egyptian and Roman belief systems as "this funny wacky stuff people used to believe centuries ago, and woo, they put up statues and had all these zany legends, wowzer!"

So it's not OK for the non-religious to 'insult' God, but perfectly OK for religious people to personally insult non-believers (who at least are real!). Hmm.

Scuse me, I'm an atheist. I do want neutral facts about a variety of religions and world views taught in schools. I want my child - and all others - to have the knowledge to make up her own mind. And, as you say, to understand her own culture and that of others.

I started out as an atheist (as far back as I remember) and then refined my thoughts to agnosticism (because there is no proof that God doesn't exist either) so I am not saying the following because I believe any of it:

It is entirely possible that there is only one God and it is this God who sent Christ and Mohammad as his messengers. Yes, the message is somewhat different, but that can be due to interpretation and the thousands of years of very unreliable record keeping in between.

Re your example - Jesus Christ did not start out as the son of God. This was decided on way after his death - yes, that was one thing "Da Vinci Code" was right about.

CoteDAzur, I won't argue the Allah example, but what about the Hindu gods then? are they all really your god under a different name? Will you bow down to Hanuman?

ReallyTired, if it was completely neutral it wouldn't need a seperate lesson, but would be covered by history, geography etc.

As for learning other faiths to avoid offending people that is impossible as well as being a waste of time better spent on serious matters.

A) because there are far too many
b) because they are mostly rather ridiculous

If B) offends again then tell me you want kids to learn the ways of fairies (see above for genuine believers) in order not to offend those who believe in them. Also witchcraft (there are plenty of believers in that). mormans?, moonies?, islam, hinduism and jainism.
You want ritual cannibilism taught in schools? It's still practiced in certain areas of africa and catholic churches. Snake worship? we going to include that too?

Of course I'm sure that most of those "are not proper religions" so they don't count.

What christians usually mean when speaking of religious freedom is the right to teach their religion because it's the only true word of god.

But religion in schools simply isn't taught neutrally. The underlying message is that religion is good. That's not neutral at all. Look at the curriculum guidelines if you don't believe me. They also do things like link up with churches and invite religious people in to tell kids how wonderful their particular superstition is.

Thing is, there's no proof the Giant Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist either. At some point you have to make a sensible, rational, intelligent decision that you're not just going to suspend judgement on everything for which there is no proof.

Everyone has their point at which they say, "oh, come on, that's just too silly for words." Some just have the bar lower than others.

Dawkins is very good on this - it's not about proof, it's about likelihood, backed up with evidence.

CoteDAzur, pardon me. I took what you said the wrong way.

Sure, the curriculum should be beefed up to be more objective and not, implicitly or explicitly, give the message that its a good thing to have some sort of 'faith'.

Fascinating debate ladies, and as I've only just got my head out of examining GCSE RE papers, I'd like to contribute.

I am an RE teacher, and I believe it should be taught in schools, so that all students leave at KS4 with some degree of religious literacy. I approach the subject as an academic one. I am an agnostic, so I don't present any religion out of the big six as right or wrong. I try to examine points of similarity as well as differences.

I started teaching just as 9/11 happened, so spent much time that term trying to convince my students that Muslim students were just as upset and horrified by these events as they were.

I moved on to teach at a comp in Cornwall, where some students were evangelical Christians, or hardly ever went out of the county. If these students weren't being taught about different beliefs and cultures through RE, where were they going to learn this? The thought of these kids leaving school and going on to uni and getting into trouble because they hadn't been taught about other religions makes me shiver.

The timetable at my school allowed for 1 hour a week RE in KS3, and also at KS4 for the short course GCSE, so there was no 'bleed' as someone put it into other subjects. The syllabus had to be covered in that time. It did come in at KS3 history when we did Henry VIII and his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, but it is pretty damn difficult to teach that without mentioning the break with Rome and the establishment of the Church of England.

Besides the nuts and bolts of religious practice of the various religions and what they believe, I also taught some ethical issues at KS4 in line with the GCSE syllabus. These were mainly abortion, euthanasia, just war, genetic engineering, the environment, crime and punishment to name but a few. These were taught from the secular point of view (which is where many of the students start from) and then we looked at what the specific religions being studied said about them.

I do not see why so many people are wound up about the facts of religions being taught in schools. The job of the RE teacher is to educate, NOT indoctrinate...we TEACH, not PREACH, and yes, I am shouting as people do not listen to this. A good RE teacher does not proselytise, they present the facts, answer questions, and leave the students to make up their own minds about religion.

I teach RE and am going to do my MA in World Religions because I find it fascinating how religion has such an effect on peoples' lives and opinions. We all engage with religion whether we realise it or not...all those on here who have slated those who believe must have at least considered belief (or what the imaginary friend was like) in order to reject it.

For me the bottom line is that we live in a multicultural, religiously pluralistic society and to make that work, we need to be informed about the beliefs of others. RE does that.

I think that some of you need to go and sit in on an RE lesson to see what is taught these days, you might change your mind, or at least engage with the teachers about what they're teaching. Closed minds lead to intolerance on all sides and we have ample evidence from last century and this one, where that takes us.