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.

Do read that link about cognitive dissonance. You might recognize some of it.

Nope, he's not talking to Himself, he's talking to His Father. We're going to have to get into the correct definition of the Trinity now, aren't we?

btw you haven't offended me. Why do people think they've offended me when I disagree?

I know what cognitive dissonance is, Cote. I don't have any misgivings about my beliefs, though, nor am I dealing with any uncomfortable feelings about discovering they're not true. Because, over time, I'm actually more convinced they are true.

Nice try, though. You could just call me deluded.

I think your definition of good and mine may be very different, KH! If find the idea of the great sky god condemning people for the various life choices considered so dreadful by religion really very chilling. I also don't see where the blood sacrifice of Jesus comes in, and how on earth nailing himself (in the person of his 'son') to a cross was 'justice' of any sort. So, God thinks, 'blimey these mortals are disobedient sods. I know, I'll smite them all and damn them to hell! Ha, that'll teach them to go around having sex with each other and all sorts. No, maybe that's a bit harsh. I really ought to be a bit more forgiving than that, being perfect and all. I know, I'll incarnate myself as a human being, live 33 years having fun, going to parties, performing the odd little miracle for a laugh, and then I'll get myself nailed to a cross, so I can forgive them. That should sort everything."
It really makes no sense at all to me.

I can well understand that it doesn't with that little explanation

Well, I'm not here to convince everyone, I'm just answering fair questions. The only thing I'd correct in your definition is the 'going around having sex' thing - I think I mentioned some fairly significant evils in my posts, and they didn't include anything to do with normative sexual behaviour.

The only other thing I'd mention is that you probably pitch the cross too lightly. I know Mel Gibson's horrid film majored on all the gore and violence, but that wasn't really the significant thing about the cross. In fact, Cote mentioned the significant scripture for that - it was the unseen suffering, the spiritual 'wrath' that Jesus experienced which made the cross significant.

and an hour later, now I'm going!

Well, to me it's honestly like me saying to my kids, 'You've done something very naughty. You deserve eternal punishment, but as I'd love to forgive you, in order to do that, I'm going to have to stab myself with this kitchen knife." I think I would be (rightly) sectioned!
See you later!

Kay - Cognitive dissonance is something we all do, at one time or another. It is taught in Marketing classes.

That you use it to make sense of your conflicting religious beliefs/tidbits of information doesn't make you 'fruitloop'. It makes you human.

lol ....

"I think I would be (rightly) sectioned!"
See you later! "

Yes, religion is a bit mad an illogical. Maybe Jesus should have been sectioned. Its a valid opinion.

What is interesting is to know why someone doesn't think Jesus should have been sectioned. Or Muhammad, Budda or any major religious figure.

There are areas of life that do not make sense. Growing up and making sense of the spirtual side of life is important. I think there is a lot of truth that man cannot live on bread alone.

What 'spiritual side of life'?

Ms Demeanor

Re the role of cognitive dissonance in religious belief:

By the time you are old enough to question religion, you already believe in it. You see conflicting verses and realize there are parts of religion that just don't make sense.

Rather than revising the initial premise ("What if it's all a pack of lies - God doesn't exist, religions is all a pile of bull...?"), you rationalise it all by selectively believing in parts of the Bible that uphold your views ("It says in some places that Jesus is God, nevermind the bits where it says he isn't") and otherwise convincing yourself that there is a meaning to it all.

(You = anyone. Not talking about you personally)

And this is exactly why there should be no RE before children are ready to intellectually question what they are told - 9? 10?

You don't have to carry on believing a religion that you were brought up in. Many people change religion for one reason or another or lose their faith all together.

What would be interesting is to put a load of athestists on a plane and tell them that the plane is going to crash while in the mid air. Would any of the athestist start praying? And if so to whom.

Spero - given the way the curriculum is squeezed, there is no way that the geography or history syllabus would be covered if an element of teaching religion was included as well.

If you look at a county like Cornwall, there are very few ethnic minorities and very few religions practised other than Christianity. If we don't educate the kids about what's out there, they will have a huge shock when they leave, and may unwittingly get themselves into all sorts of trouble through sheer ignorance. That is not acceptable.

I don't see that one discrete RE lesson a week, which covers religious belief and practise is a bad thing. No-one is asked to believe anything, I don't have a belief (I'm agnostic), so I don't expect the students to have one either. What I am trying to do is to educate them about the differences they will find in different points of view when they move away.

You have to remember that some of us live in rural locations without a huge ethnic mix and that these areas can be very inward looking. Some of the kids I taught thought that people from Devon were 'foreigners', so what hope for the rest of the UK population, and the etnic diversity it contains?

"By the time you are old enough to question religion, you already believe in it."

Couldn't agree more. But this is true of many beliefs/prejudices... not just religion.

Apologies for the spelling mistakes - I'v been marking and my brain is fuddled as is my eyesight as it's done on-line.

Kay - I applaud your articulation of your religion. How many other christians do you think could do as you have done? How many understand that the christian God is a triune god and if they don't understand the basic nature of their own deity, how can they be christian? If people accept that chritianity (and other religions) should be taught in schools, what should be taught? Telling children the Nativity and Easter stories does not exactly provide a cultural and historical understanding of the impact of christianity on the world and yet I suspect that many who would call themselves christian know little more.

cotedazur - I know what you mean, but I don't think your dice analogy quite stands up because, as others have said, of the limited variables.

Dawkins tackles the issue of agnosticism head-on, pointing out that nobody is ever 50-50 as an agnostic, and you must therefore have a foot more firmly in one camp than the other. He proposes a sliding scale from 1 to 7 of "utterly convinced" to "utterly unconvinced", and puts himself at 6.

"What would be interesting is to put a load of atheists on a plane and tell them that the plane is going to crash while in the mid air. Would any of the atheists start praying? And if so to whom?"

Ah, the old "there aren't any atheists in foxholes" claim. Dealt with here!

I actually dislike the term "atheist", even though I am usually forced, by default, to describe myself as one. There isn't a single word for a person who chooses not to believe in fairies, the casting of runes or the reading of tealeaves (except, possibly, "rationalist" or "s[c/k]eptic", both of which are imperfect).

My favourite quote from Sam Harris:

"It is worth noting that no one ever need identify himself as a non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words for people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines. Likewise, ?atheism? is a term that should not even exist. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma."

Teaching about the different religions in their geographical and sociocultural contexts is a MUST unless you want your kids to grow up as IGNORANTS.
At some point kids will have to be faced with the concept of God and will ask questions. When the time comes, dismissing God as a "delusion" is a little bit short-sighted, IMO.
I can recommend "An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion" by Brian Davies for a balanced view of the issue. It is not dawkins, and it is not Aquinas. It is pure philosophy and shows that it is equally reasonable to believe than to not believe.

But dismissing God as a delusion only seems short-sighted because we are culturally wired to think that way.

If you grew up on an island which had never heard of God, chances are you wouldn't need him, and people's belief in him probably would seem like a delusion. It would seem as daft as the Cargo Cults seem to us.

I used to have a sort of half-hearted belief in God - normal middle-England churchgoing family - and as i grew up I really struggled to fit the world around me into the box this made for my thinking. As soon as I decided not to bother trying to believe any more, the whole Universe with its nasty contradictions suddenly made a lot more sense. It was tremendously liberating. It didn't happen suddenly, but dawned on me over a period of years.

Ah, yes MsDemeanour, but you're not actually supposed to be your children's eternal judge, you're their parent.

Cote, yes, I do get it (but, as ReallyTired pointed out, not everyone grows up with a religious belief/background. I didn't). Do you honestly think that there are no reasonable people who follow some sort of religion? That the only possible way we can believe in Christianity and the bible is by unconsciously fooling ourselves?

Goosey, I know a few people who can articulate it reasonably well, but, to be fair, they're all academics and teachers (some of whom are bloggers too). But then, I'm not arguing for Christianity taught in schools, so I've got no real dog on this track, really. I think religion is personal and any learning about it schools should be on a cultural level, and I completely disagree with compulsory daily worship, state-funding for faith-selective schools too.

UQD, so I'm guessing that when we're talking about religious beliefs, I'll be the Theist, and you'll be the Reasonable Person

Ah, but the question is: Is there or will there be such a society where the concept of God will never exist? Is that possible at all?

I bet there are some remote places that don't have one.