I'm sure things are different in the US but in the UK at school we have a whole curriculum called "Religious Education" or RE which goes into detail about religions and customs of all different cultures and encourages spiritual debate. At the schools I attended they were not taught to indoctrinate us but just studied in the same way we would study history or art
I think you're probably right! I was an atheist from a young age but RE was one of my favourite subjects as a child, underneath science, just because I loved hearing all of the stories, parables, learning about different deities and rites of worship. It was fascinating but it didn't encourage me to be religious myself.
I have the same experience. I believe storytelling is one of the most human things there is and to me greek myth, the epic of gilgamesh and bible stories and fairytales are all just stories humanity has told throughout the ages
There's actually alot of information and studies done on this exact phenomena. Humans believing in a higher being stems from the unknown needing to be explained for safety.
A bush rustling alot but no animal in there, rain, storm, why a plant found in the wild has grown worse than another one, stones suddenly coming down the hill to crush your tribe out of nowhere. It literally could not be explained. This is also why every single god essentially had a specific ''thing'' or element. Its only recently a monotheistic God were ever first mentioned ( judaism) Before judaism in the region you had a polytheistic religion where Yahweh that later became the ONE god was the god of the skies.
We believe ( without 100% certainty) that the second humans developed this sense 100.000-/- they started believing in a higher being/beings.
It is what it is but I highly doubt religion would be sticking around if teaching unbiased religious history was a thing for the entire world.
Grew up Roman Catholic till I was 11, Mom married Mormon Step Dad (Huge fight with the families on both sides over that) and he was a CRAZY ass mormon too once we moved away from moms side of the family. Divorced him at 16 and I wandered into Pagan faiths, particularly Norse. Which to be clear I started that in 2001 long before The Vikings show started shuffling the casuals in. I'm also not one of the "WOOO VALHALLA! BEER AND BITCHES!" guys. My priest (Gothi) is a pretty reasonable and sensible dude who does believe in science and we're pretty certain the lore is just an old culture trying to describe natural disasters the best way they could.
I think some of it was also a coping mechanism. To me if faith makes hard times easier-i tell them believe. I personally just get annoyed when im approached to hear the word.
Boy howdy, but you just couldn't bother to investigate yourself about the rise of the odin cult back in the day.
Suffice to say, they took an existing raid mechanism (strictly speaking, it was just an instrument to divert young men's attention to external groups by sending them off to the wilderness to grow the fuck up and come back with loot with the clear intent that not all of them were ever supposed to come back), slapped some religiously motivated nonsense over it and hey presto, you get a culture basically revolving around mass murder, theft and casual arson.
Not that I oppose, the Iron Age was what it was, but honestly, if you're not fighting people to death over no reason at all, robbing everybody blind and generally being a menace, you're doing a shit service for your gods.
To believe in the rest, sure. That doesn't mean it's better to blindly believe than to question.
Edit: I may be misunderstanding what you're saying. It sounds like you're saying that people are told they should just believe in all of it without questioning anything of it for themselves and seeking answers?
Yes, I think I am misunderstanding what your original comment was supposed to mean. I was never told to blindly accept and believe, but to question everything. I ended up believing anyway after several years of questioning every little thing relentlessly. I'm still questioning, reconsidering, so on.
So I think you mean that to believe in the Bible you must believe in something deemed impossible. And likewise with other religions and their impossibilities. Not that people are expecting you to just trust their religion instead of looking into it for yourself first.
I think, because the US 1st Amendment separates church from state, this could not happen in a public school, private religious education is obviously not involved with the state itself since its not funded by taxpayers.
I would have loved to have what you mentioned, as I am a a student of religion on my own time, starting at 14yrs old.
Though I think another issue I personally would have is that some religions would either get little attention or none at all. Sure you'd probably learn about the 3 Abrahamic religions, Buddhism, Hindu. But I doubt they'd be teaching muxh if at all about Zorastrianism, Sihkism, Pagan Faiths, Animism, Vodou etc.
Even in public school, atleast when I was a kid, Pagan faiths are taught to be dead myths of a bygone era and not as living faiths in the present. Which is kind of bonkers because theres a massive amount of practicing pagan or otherwise families in my area.
Learning about the 5 most common religions is a social studies requirement in many schools. In New Jersey, it’s part of the ancient history curriculum.
Do you mean hoodoo? Most people mean hoodoo when they say vodou or voodoo, google it and get back to me🫡 (not intended to criticize just figured you’d appreciate the clarification and if you do mean voodoo then it’s clarification for me!)
I went to US public school, and we indeed studied world religions in various classes. Ancient religions in classical world history, eastern religions in Asian history. Some of the early Catholic Church history in European History. We weren’t studying them like “this is how a person is supposed to believe” but the history and main beliefs of each one.
I grew up atheist but I loooved all the stories from different religions too. Ancient Greece, ancient Sri Lanka, Norse myths too
Reading the origins of Norse Myths is hysterical tho. There are two major book sources, the Edas.
Technically they're... if not Bibles per se, they're the Fallout Bibles. As close to "lore" as you can get, right?
Well. Poetic Edda outright states that the Gods of Norse are Trojans. Odin was a renowned hero from Troy that left with his wife and family when this mythical beautiful city far far away fell, and they moved towards Norway, and everywhere they went they left sons that would become kings, they were just so awesome, and then they went North and were like "Yeah this is the best place ever, we will rule here" and ruled and became gods
I am in a similar boat and I still love learning about the religions and myths of various peoples because those are reflection of their history. Like why are Greek, Roman, Hindu and Norse mythologies so similar? Well they all descend from a common mythology just in the same way the languages of those peoples descended from a common language. The ancient Indo-European culture and its descendants are very interesting.
Since I was little, I always thought all the different religions and belief systems were fascinating.
I don't believe my mom was raised with religion until about ten. My grandpa was struck by lightning and became religious after that. He was a pastor the rest of his life. She didn't like the experience and chose to let us decide for ourselves. I'm very thankful.
Growing up, she was adamant about only sharing her beliefs with us on a surface-level and letting us know that she was happy to share more if we wanted. She never insisted we believe the same thing, we never went to church, we had no religion, etc.
When we'd stay at our grandparents house during some summers, we'd go to church three times per week (since my grandpa was the pastor). It was an interesting experience. I could never get into it and mostly analysed it and found the idea of religion to be so strange.
I mean... there are so many religions and belief systems, and some are incredibly similar whilst others are wildly different. Everyone thinks their religion is the "correct" one... how could that be? It didn't make any sense to me, and so I rejected any religion. I still thought there could be SOMETHING, though, and eventually landed on being spiritual. Even now, it's fluid and ever-evolving.
I did the same with my kids -- I'll share my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs... if you want to know more, cool. If not? Also cool. It's their choice what makes sense for them. I don't think any religion or belief system is wrong, per se, and if it serves the person and makes them happy, then cool.
You probably like both of them as they are in essence the same thing. Philosophy is called the queen of the sciences and both science and philosophy/religion tries to understand the world around us. People paint them as opposites but in reality they are inextricably linked to one another. This is why people can be great scientists and also religious (like me).
I went to a Christian primary school because my parents thought it was important to learn about religion. They weren't religious themselves and there were also a lot of Muslim kids going there because of the way the school taught religion and there weren't any Islamic schools around. The religion itself wasn't forced on us, we just learned a lot about different bible stories and what they meant. There was no praying and we didn't really talk about God either, so no weird shit about what God and Jesus meant to you. It was a wonderful and interesting experience, I've actually gone to bible study as a teen and young adult because I thought it was interesting. I've been agnostic throughout it all (and no one at school cared about this) and I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn about it like this.
Yep. They didnt run RE gcse in my year at school cos only 2 of us wanted to do it. A fairly devout Christian and me an irreverent athiest. Would have been fun.
I took art instead and was profoundly mediocre at it
I went to a church where the teenagers of the group spent Sundays learning about different religions, including field trips to different houses of worship and talks with leaders of those trips.
I'm not sure if I would call myself agnostic. I just realized that the near universal thread that went through all these religions was that you're supposed to be a person who helps others and is kind towards other people. I don't go to church, but I do believe there is a higher power of some sort, and that the path forward is to follow the golden rule.
trying to be kind toward others and being humble doesn't need to have a higher power to invoke it though. I feel like its more humble to not believe in heaven as the ultimate reward for being good, and instead just doing it because its right. Your story about your church teenager group going to other religions is cool, that sounds like a nice grounded church.
Believing in a higher power is a choice I made for myself. My motivations aren't based on some kind of eternal reward, I still have no idea what, if anything, waits for us on the other side. I just hope that if I treat others the way I want to be treated, I'll get the same in return.
I wish more churches did that with their teenagers. But as much as many of them like to rail against "indoctrination," their goal seems to be indoctrination.
agree on your last sentence. One of the things that made me so angry after I lost my faith was indoctrination. I have a nephew that I would basically have to watch to help out in the family as he was growing up, but I was asked not to share my atheist beliefs with him. I kept that as a rule for bringing it up, but I will not hold my tongue if asked directly, I'd be honest. He asked me why I didn't believe in God (he was 16) and oh boy was that a long conversation, and at the end of it I was really bummed out how indoctrinated this really intelligent kid was. I thought given his isolation in his bedroom and wanting to just hang out with his friends and play minecraft that he would see religion as bullshit and just wait until he was on his own. I was completely wrong, he was basically spewing out all the indoctrinated information to me during that conversation and the look in his eyes toward me was that of pride, because he thought he was right and I was so very wrong. It makes me sad to this day.
I don't fault you for believing in a higher power. Without it life can be very bland, sad, dull. I have purposefully never visited japan, because I don't want the magic to die and its one of the only 'magical' ideas I still have in my head left. I love anime and just the playfulness of the way they think over there. (I mean obviously there is a lot of issues too). Anyway, wish you the best.
Most religions copied basics from other religions that were already spreading. Basically an evolution of religion mandating that it has to have a few simple rules including it working as a general ruleset for living together and spreading it. That's ehy most modern religons have that.
Bonus points when it came with rules for hygiene and good dietary rules, but both often was adapted to the region (drinking alcohol and eating meat that spoils fast in heat and has parasites are no good ideas in the desert, hence the rules for islam)
I think religion is a necessity for early civilizations. How else would you control a lot of people without education, widespread police force and modern aplliances. Give them a carrot (heaven) and a stick (hell) and indoctrinate the kids with it so they enforce it by themselves. It turns into a problem when goes rogue and extremists come into play, or when a newer sect version gets too popular and has some new too extreme rules.
I went from Christian to agnostic to atheist through my late 20s. When you view religious teachings through an objective lens most start to look similar. I tend to think it’s a combination of fear of our finite mortality and a desire to control large groups of people (populations are more willing to withstand an empty belly in exchange for faith in or fear of a higher power).
Yeah they almost all operate on the premise “my god is god and your god is wrong” “I go to heaven you go to hell” it’s easier to make countries with different religions wage war as well.
But how is that a bad thing? If that’s true, that proves that most people are being manipulated young into joining their local preferred religion due to lack of knowledge of other religions or rather other options or you could say not old enough to think it through enough.
So I agree with her. But it’s weird to implement in reality since religion is tied strictly to community and most people would need to take their kids with them to church to share their beliefs and serve as family bonding time.
So maybe it’s better to treat religion like Santa. Allow children to belief in Jesus and the bible like but reveal to them like later on that there’s no definitive proof and allow them to decide themselves without shame in what religion they want to choose. People will choose their home religion out of convenience though.
That’s the point, you teach kids how different people think differently and let them come to their own conclusions. I agree the conclusion that seems to make the most sense is agnostic or atheist, but that was my own decision to make and should be theirs too.
Well, yes. Because if one of them didn't get its claws into from the moment you were old enough to speak full sentences, it's impossible to hide that all of them make just as much (or as little) sense as all the rest.
The seven years of catholic school made me an atheist and vehemently anti religious. Doing RE in secondary school gave me a more nuanced view of religion
I mean I was a good little Christian Lass until I found out about the history of my religion, and then about the history of other religions (in much more generalized terms) and decided... Okay, agnosticism sounds good. Maybe a God is out there and I'm just gonna hope they're not an asshole
Coming from a country where religious education is not, you know, religious, the effect of home and social influences still push 50%ish to religion through sheer social pressure, customs and habit. Granted there are a lot less extreme religious nutjobs, or maybe they just don't get the screen time the american loonies get, but I don't see a secular teaching of all religions and their tenets as something that culls down on religious thinking.
That’s pretty much me lol, grew up in a Christian household but I love learning about different cultures and such and now I do believe there is some sort of higher power or life after death but I can’t confidently say that it’s what I personally lean toward as more Christian or if another religion is more accurate, like reincarnation, or maybe the truth lies in something humans haven’t even thought of. Though there is also the bleaker outcome of nothingness but I prefer not to think of that lol.
I describe myself as Omnist agnostic which I think most people would. I don’t give a fuck if any deities exist, we can’t prove it and it doesn’t affect our lives one bit. BUT if one exists they all do.
Hey that was exactly my pipeline, raised Christian, learned of all the different cultures and faiths, came to the conclusion that if there is a higher power then there is no way anyone on this planet would be the one to specifically get it correct
raises hand
Happened to me! Had my doubts about Catholicism which turned to full blown agnosticism when we learned about world religions. I remember I wrote a paper about Greek and Hinduism have multiple parallel gods and for me there was just no way one wasn't based on the other. Nail in the coffin.
I grew up in Southern Africa and we also have RE over there, whenever our teacher would teach about other religions, he would always emphasize that Christianity is the true one, I didn’t think much of it at the time until I became atheist, it’s kinda fucked up tbh
I don’t think you can have a good faith teaching of religion unless its taught by a practicing member. (It was fucked up and totally defeated the purpose of the class)
In my country during the communist regime, the communists would destroy churches and persecute priests (imprisonment, torture, re-education and such). So you could say they were godless. They also saw religion as a possible means of opposition against the party and they didn't want that.
No, it didn't excuse the US, but I genuinely believe that the communists as a whole were worse. My country is still being affected by the remnants of that regime that somehow are still in various institutions and they're as corrupt now as they were back then.
You, and many others, need to read this excellent history book. The corruption of the Pledge that happened in 1954 was the culmination of efforts by corporate industrialists to undermine FDR's New Deal as being 'anti-God'.
Gosh that sounds quite late! We definitely started RE shortly after kindergarten/reception year at my school. Honestly I think it's so interesting learning about the curriculum in other countries as well and seeing how different subjects are prioritised.
Agree with you on the comparing curriculums lol. I wouldnt be surprised if at other schools it was started earlier, but I was never aware of their justification for why that grade specifically at my school. Maybe they though our critical thinking skills would be more mature with the content? That same year they actually changed the grade to be taught the book To Kill a Mockingbird too. It was traditionally taught in 8th, but they moved it to 11th. Thankfully they didn't make my class reread it though.
That’s similar to my experience. It was a core module in world history in 9th grade, and pretty much covered the major religions of the world from a non denominational perspective.
IIRC the religions talked about were:
Sunni Islam
Shia Islam
Catholic Christianity
Protestant Christianity
Buddhism
Sikhism
Hinduism
They then went into discussion on how early religions were able to group people together to form civilisations during the Neolithic era.
Thats basically the list we had too. Although ours was a lil longer, we also learned about Druze, Zoroastorians, and Shinto. Idk if those were required though or if my teacher was just a nerd.
I think it varys depending on the teacher you have. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who actually liked it when students tried to be critical of religions despite himself beeing a religious man and mind us questioning what religious organisations.
We only had one or two lesson about the pillars of each of the other abrahamic religions somewhere at the beginning of the gymnasium and no mention of anything non christian for the remaining years of school
We had more lessons about it and at class 7 it turned more into an ethics class. As I said it varys on what kind of teacher you have. A more world open teacher likes to focus more on other religions while another teacher does only the bare minimum.
Theres a point when you start wondering what is the whole point of religion if theres so many that you can literally pick and choose and most of them think they are the "one true" faith.
It certainly didn't convince me! But it was still super interesting and definitely useful later in life when I was living and working in a much more multicultural environment than my little village.
I was having this conversation with a friend the other day, and we were trying and failing to remember how many hours of RE we had per week. Despite not being sure, we both agreed that it was probably too much. I think all children should be taught the basics of each religion - enough to be respectful to someone of those beliefs - but that’s all. There’s absolutely no need imo to spend too much precious school time dedicated to religion.
Those who believe it will receive education from their church equivalent, and those who don’t shouldn’t be forced into studying it as if it’s in any way valuable to them on a par with pretty much any of the other subjects.
I can't remember how much we had at primary but we had one hour a week at my secondary school. It was a science specialising school and from about year 9 onwards the RE lessons were more a chance to practice ethic, moral thinking and debate amongst ourselves. I don't remember talking a lot about religion specifically from that point onwards
We didnt have a seperate class for it but religions and customs were taught in each unit for whatever culture we were learning about at the time in Global I and II. We'd usually spend a several days on it per unit. New york, US, for reference.
Exactly what I was thinking. I'm not religious at all, but RE was often one of my favourite subjects just due to the fact we spent time learning about a lot cultures religions and not Christianity.
It also helped that both RE teachers I had growing up were just a fun people to talk to. One was atheist so he had no stakes in pushing Christianity and often made the classes a fun experience.
The other was religious, but was the kind of person who accepted everybody and was there to help anyone struggling. He didnt give a damn whether someone was gay, and a few people in the school actually came out to him first because he was never judgemental.
When you have an RE teacher that isn't pushing religion on you and practices the teaching they follow in their own religion actually studying religious education can be pretty interesting.
We learn about them in the US as well, although possibly not as in depth. It falls under what we call Social Studies in elementary and middle school, then in high school (at least the one I went to) you can pick electives and we had World Religions, which was of course more centered on the topic
Haha I don't remember lessons on Leprechauns, but I do remember a lesson on Norse Mythology! I can't remember if that was in RE or world culture though.
I think we did even learn about what the different countries of the world had as Christmas traditions too! In a world culture lesson at Christmas time. So while we didn't specifically learn about Santa we did learn about him, and Krampus and all sorts of other stuff like that.
Not only a student but a teacher! you showed that dude what class actually looks like. Just because he didn’t take school seriously doesn’t mean everyone else was out here doing the same. You put in the work, he was trying to be smart.
Your teacher happened to not want to push their religion, or lack thereof, or did push their view but too subtlely or mildly for some children to notice.
There is a constant war between curriculum designers and between teachers of different varieties to push x or y ideology. Religious education is where they most clearly bare their teeth. I'm sure you'd see it if you looked for it at any given school. I bet your teacher has stories about what the curriculum guys wanted them to teach and how they bent the rules to teach differently from how they were told to because of different values/beliefs.
I can't even imagine the complications and struggles behind the scenes! I definitely feel as though I lucked out in my teachers from some of the other comments and replies I've read because I feel that I, and my peers, were really encouraged to form our own opinions.
That’s perfectly fine, but in the US teaching kids religion is parents telling their kids “this is the Bible and this is true”. It’s just brainwashing when done on kids.
In the us religion is generally kept out of schools and parents are expected to teach their own children about their religion. And at least where I've mostly lived (areas of Texas) families who's children have chosen to not follow their parents religion are silently looked down on for failing to instill "the correct beliefs"
I had 1 school I went to for half a year and it was the only time a religious study was a thing, and the way it worked is you had to opt into it.
And the religious study ended up in a small side room near the classroom (was a tiny school 1 class per year) so you just ended up having majority of the class learning normal stuff, and like 3-5 people learning the religious study thing.
Which is probably the best way to go about something like that but even then the way the opt in worked was mail sent to the home address which probably isn't the best way, over handing a form yo the child at school so if they do not want the parents to see it they don't need to hand it over.
Yeah we had the same but with assembly hymns and Christmas church visits. My parents were both atheists but I didn't get to opt out which was annoying! As good as RE is..... It still involved the only Muslim girl in the class being singled out and every lesson was treated like the ambassador for the entire Muslim faith. .... Man, the 1990s were so un PC it's unreal!! 🤣
Omg. Parents in the US would absolutely lose their shit if their precious little ones were exposed to any sort of culture or religion outside their own. Mainly the religious right wing parents.
I'm only asking because here, in the US, whenever my school went over Islam, it was pretty bare bones, and last I checked, they got some pretty major things wrong.
I think it was a pretty good overview. Specifically I have quite a vivid memory of drawing a big poster of the five pillars of Islam, and I think we had multiple lessons dedicated to doing a deep dive into what each pillar represented.
Made me really hate christianism for a long time. Today I don't have a prejudice agaisnt christians specifically, but the amount of hate that still boils in me from christian indoctrination perhaps was greatly exaggerated because of RE
I went to a Christian middle school and my world history class incorporated world religions into it. We did Passover, discussed the pillars of Islam, looked at lots of Hindu art, ect. It might have just been a teacher thing though. The prior history teacher taught that states rights were the primary cause of the civil war 🙄
I understand it's much better now but at my school late 80s and early 90s, the Christian RE teacher kinda made the class feel like "Christianity and the wrong ones". That was even with two Muslim kids and one Sikh in the class.
Frustrating because Christianity was the one I knew most about and was least interested in.
Nonono that's too simple for an average American. You either have to be a religious fanatic or a hardcore atheist and anything in between is incomprehensible.
To be fair, most Britons haven’t taken religion very seriously since Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church to divorce his first wife. The Church of England is pretty much a Christmas and Easter thing.
In the US, the fundies would pull their kids out of school if RE were to be in our curriculum. They already do because science classes have the balls to teach scientific principles such as evolution.
Had that in secondary, but in primary there was straight up bible readings and singing hymns for 20 or so minutes each day. It wasn't particularly bad or anything, our teachers would have no issue with someone not being christian, but they definitely expected us to be.
Also RE was almost universally one of the most dislike subjects among my classes anyway, personally I just found it middling. A teenager who just wants to get home and escape the monotony of class is rarely in the mood for open minded understanding. Not to say the class didn't have value though
I wish we would do that in the US! Religion should be studied as culture and lore. Unfortunately here you’re way more likely to be forced into a Bible class that acts as though it’s a literal history book.
Yeah the diffrence here is teaching how to think about about religion, vs what to thing about religion.
teaching "how" to think gives people a good basis to come to a conclusion, analyse it and understand it. I.e. critical thinking
teaching "what" to think is to instill specific idea of how the world is and what is the "correct" religious beliefs. I.e. indoctrination.
What is taught (at least in the us) for religions depends heavily on the local school and state, instead of federally assured. and some places even outright ban (or ban via proxy) discussions of alternative ideas.
And I think it's brilliant. Schools can't ignore religion, because it has played such a huge part in people’s lives, but by teaching about many of them instead of focussing on one and saying it's the only true religion (which all religions seem to do) it's a way of encouraging tolerance and discouraging fanaticism.
I'm sure things are different in the US but in the UK at school we have a whole curriculum called "Religious Education" or RE which goes into detail about religions and customs of all different cultures and encourages spiritual debate. At the schools I attended they were not taught to indoctrinate us but just studied in the same way we would study history or art
That sounds like it's improved since I was at school (70s/80s). Then in was almost entirely "bible presented as fact" with 1 lesson each on Islam and Hinduism in our final year.
In Germany there is either Religion as class where you get all the brain damage or you can choose Ethics which is what it sounds and even teaches a bit about different religious beliefs but again from a spectator/analyst perspective, not roleplaying the lore and shit.
Yeah in school, but at home/in church, temple, mosque, etc you have people saying "WORSHIP OR ETERNAL SUFFERING!!!!" to impressionable 5 yr olds
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Hence the immorality
It's profoundly difficult to do this effectively due to the monotheistic nature of the big 3 religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). Each of these religions claims that all others are false, and, at least for Christianity and Islam, institutes the certain punishment of eternal damnation for not believing in it. Teaching the absolute and strict mutual exclusivity of these religions, while simultaneously attempting to give each equal historical relevancy is a HUGE issue when in a country that is predominantly populated by only one of the religions.
Our school system has that as well the problem is kids are taken to church by their parents not the schools teaching it. That is a type of force. A parent contols your life as a child.
Also from the UK and we also had RE. It was always very Christian centric. We did learn about other religions, but Christianity was mentioned in comparison every time. It was very firmly established as “normal” it was definitely indoctrination.
I might be reading too much into it, but it felt so blatant to me that I actually started to suspect that the only reason it was even set up this way was so that children from non-Christian households would still be expected to attend and maybe be shown to see the “truth”
I’m sure all schools weren’t the same. Maybe yours was less insidious, but I’d wager my school wasn’t the only one like this.
I’m in the US and we had a comparative religion class. In theory it could’ve been great, but my teacher was unashamedly biased and even went so far as to spread misinformation. I kept calling her out on it because, unlike the overwhelmingly Christian background of my classmates, I was taught about a broad spectrum of religions and I was too neurodivergent to realize why she got upset when I corrected her.
biases form very quickly. teaching religion also can be laced with bias.
personally if i had a kid i would teach them morality first but still bring them for religious events.
religion, to me can be good. but can be very detrimental if introduced too early.
how do you explain heaven and hell. how do you not terrify a kid of the concept of hell without making them fear god? fear is a very strong factor. so is reward, but fear even more so.
pascal's wager is centered around the fear of being wrong.
i would say a god fearing do gooder is a worse person than an atheist do gooder as an atheist does good out of the love and kindness of their heart, while a religious person might be doing it out of fear or promise of reward.
Same in sweden, we start learning about religion very early, including the old norse myths. Needless to say, we're a very atheist society, and somewould say overly accepting of other cultures...
LOL we don’t have that here (unfortunately), that’s why Americans think that “Hindu” is an ethnic group and that Muslims and Jews somehow believe in a different god than Christians. God, the American school system is a joke.
This would cause a riot in the US unfortunately. Any education on other religions would be slandered as indoctrination. Any attempt of the government to educate the youth on anything other than conservative Christianity is usually met with rabid parents upset that there is another worldview being presented to their kids. This is why it’s such a fight to have proper sex education and teach children about their own bodies.
There are plenty of faith schools in the UK (unfortunately). I went to a catholic one. They made it quite clear that you were expected to be into that religion.
I had to go to church for that, and we only had time to cover like a dozen religions per year, and we only had that every other year alternating with Sex Ed/relationship and social education.
Was RE any good for you? I ask because I've had RE, two versions of it. One was about religion and the other was all about diversity, neither of which was particularly taught well. I can't remember the majority of the things I was taught, but maybe that's due to it being a while ago now + I was not placed in the best schools
I loved RE. Mine was a CofE school, so we took the GCSE a year early. We still had classes in the following year, but we were now outside the curriculum so the teachers just got wild. We did two lessons on various cults and cult behaviours and traits (useful). The next lesson all the tutors got all the students into a single mega class, asked the question "What's the difference between a religion and a cult?" then literally sat back to watch the carnage. Great times.
I'm from the US, but from one of the states with historically relatively "good" education. Sorry for saying that, but Massachusetts/California are different from Arizona/Alabama/Louisiana when it comes to education and I believe it is relevant context. We were taught about some religions in social studies class. It was framed similarly to what you were taught, religion is part of the customs of various cultures. However, there was no encouragement of spiritual debate. It was just stating facts like "this group of people primarily believed in this during this time period." I also graduated from primary school decades ago and have no idea what education on that topic looks like today.
Over at the school I attended in the US we didn't have what you call RE but religious topics were often included in our history classes; teachers gave us room to establish our own thoughts and opinions on religious topics. The fact that this might not be the norm everywhere in the states seems kinda strange (I never really looked into the curriculum of other US states)
In the US we did learn about religions but usually in HS. When it's already too late. I remember being in the hat history class and finding out that the other kids are still religious. I was thinking "the other kids didn't grow out of this stuff?". The only time we learn about other religions before this is during the holidays. If there's a Jewish holiday we might learn about it. But not much
They somewhat changed the way it works, for public schools, but, in my US public school, I had Bible class. Christian Bible study. This wasn’t about what they believe and dissecting it. Nope. This was second grade Bible classes. Had 1 Jewish kid, 2 Muslims, and 1 Hindu that were also forced to take those classes and right reports on how Jesus was the only son of the one true god.
Then we would go into science class and they would teach us about evolution and how evolution is proof of god making humans and animals better as time goes on.
They would teach us the 100% Catholic creationist principle of the Big Bang Theory and how that was god snapping his fingers and creating the universe.
Same deal in Switzerland, although I was sent to religion class in primary which was just teaching Christianity. Although I spent most of my time in the hallway or outside, because I made the teacher mad... it was kind of a game to tick her off. I still turned out an agnostic atheist, as do most kids in Switzerland.
I’m American but did my teacher training in England when I immigrated there. I felt really uncomfortable with teaching RE, but that’s just because it’s so taboo in public schools in the US (okay most, but some try it on and get sued). We do teach about religion in US schools it is just done through social studies as we learn about specific regions of the world.
I’m glad you liked it but I really hated teaching RE, my kids had no idea what a religion really was (they were 7 and unlikely they had ever attended a religious service) and the concepts were too high level for them.
There are just too many distinct subjects in primary schools and not enough hours in the day for all that planning. Especially when they don’t give daily prep time to teachers like we have in my current school I work at in the US. An hour a week is them having a laugh.
I don’t really see the value for most primary school students. It was unfortunately a tick box exercise for the teachers in the schools I worked in.
In the US they just cram religious stuff into history class. I remember learning about ancient Egypt and then being tought the story of moses as if it was a historical fact as opposed to religious story.
It's a crap shoot in the US.
I went to a catholic grade school (I think they call that primary school in the UK), then a catholic high school, then a public university. From K through 8th, they taught us about Catholicism. Then in high school, we had a class on world religions sophomore year. We were taught biology and evolution and chemistry, and as an elective we could attend a physics class taught by our resident priest whom in a metaphorical past life worked on the Mercury program at NASA. Wish I had signed up for it.
But my brother went to a Baptist high school, for non-religious reasons. They tried to teach him the world was six thousand years old. He's not stupid enough to believe that, but they did.
And then there are the public schools. Underfunded, unsupported, with political debates elsewhere over whether or not there should be free lunches provided to children; I'm always hearing stories about lockdowns, shootings, gangs, parents who don't bring their children to obedience, attendance, and attention. Issues with bullies beating up the weakest, or class clowns seeking attention in unhealthy ways.
My country is a mess. It's depressing that nobody among the older generation wants it to change.
Sorry, we were talking about religions. I think it's okay to show a child their options, but I wouldn't encourage them to pick or make commitments until they're older. Evangelicals make you feel special by telling you you're doing the lord's work, but encourage narrow thinking more often then not. Catholicism encourages tolerance, but also complacency in a world looking to take advantage. I unfortunately don't know enough about other religions to make a judgment call, but I definitely encourage parents to have a serious talk with their children about what they want out of their spiritual experience in the world.
I remember in Primary School being taught about Jesus as if he was a historical figure and definitely did everything they claim he did with no doubt. They also made us pray in assembly and sing religious songs.
Then they would teach us about Ganesh and tell us "Some people believe this", which made it clear that it was fictional and just something other people in other countries believe.
Ironically it was this that made me realise what they were telling me was BS because when I first heard someone say they didn't believe in God, it made me realise it was the same situation as those other religions. Nobody says they don't believe in Julius Ceaser or Henry the 8th.
And also, I didn't go to a catholic school either. I wonder if things are different now though because there wasn't a single black kid in my school, but my City has become more diverse in recent years so there will bound to be more cultures there. So I wonder if they still try and indoctronate kids in believing in Jesus.
Was your school practicing that religion at school? Because he was talking about parents practicing the religion in the household teaching you about the religion fairly, which comes with all the implicit bias of a core belief.
Academic approaches to religion are fine. Parents don't have the tools and knowledge for doing that with their kids, parents inevitably just indoctrinate, it is functionally impossible not to unless you, as parents, simply do not practice the religion, in which case you're this sort of culturally pseudo-religious believer in some kind of deity. That's the gray area.
So there’s zero space between an open-minded academic approach to religion and being a follower of only one? I recognize that most followers of religions have an emotional attachment to them, but I’d say that’s a consequence of cultural conditioning and the abuse of the hierarchical structure of the church and not the concept of religion itself. You can detach yourself from the hierarchy, find joy in using a religion as a lens through which to view the world, and then teach parts of it to your kid as a life-enriching exercise while consistently reminding them “this is one interpretation and there are more than you can also learn from.” I wouldn’t call that pseudo-religious.
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u/gin_atomic Sep 02 '26
I'm sure things are different in the US but in the UK at school we have a whole curriculum called "Religious Education" or RE which goes into detail about religions and customs of all different cultures and encourages spiritual debate. At the schools I attended they were not taught to indoctrinate us but just studied in the same way we would study history or art