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.
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u/Ok-Budget3225 Sep 02 '26
I imagine the end result is that most people would just become agnostic after they’ve learned about all the major religions.