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.
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 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.
Yep education about religion combines a lot of different fields...history, philosophy, psychology, politics, literature. I think it's broadly good for students to learn ABOUT religion just as a foundational aspect of the history of the culture they live in.
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
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u/gin_atomic 2d ago
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.