Well stated, but not my cup of tea. If parents want religious instruction, they should be responsible for it instead of fobbing it off on schools and taxpayers.
Sunday school, not actual school.
Agreed.
The issue is, whether religion is your cup of tea or not, it is still present in the world and should in some way shape or form, be taught in schools at least from an education point of view.
I don't think there are many who agree that religion has absolutely no place in school. I know I have no real problem with a religious studies type class. There are people out there who are genuinely interested in the culture of religion without being religious themselves. It's when you have one faith being put forward as the one true faith by some priest/minister for that religion that is completely unacceptable and is really just indoctrination (let's be honest here it's always the Christians :sarcasm
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I'd be more on board with religion being taught in school if it was all major religions being taught in an objective way. The way I recall it being, it was just the religion the chaplain preferred that was taught.
This. Nothing wrong with objective religious studies.
I like religion being taught in schools. Because when i went to school, my parents opted me out of scripture so i spent three hours every friday f**king around in the computer lab with my friends.
I did scripture despite my family being non-religious (go figure), I still have a test I did (and failed) in year 8 or something that I should really scan and upload for the lols. :lol:
Ah ah, there's the rub. You can't teach religion in an objective way because everyone has an attachment to it one way or another. You could hand someone the books i guess, but that's not really teaching.
You can teach religion in an objective way. It's really as simple as prefacing stuff with "Christians believe" vs "And then this happened", i.e making it clear that these are people's beliefs and not factual.
This is the issue. As AFS has said, religion should be taught by the adherents otherwise you never get the right side of it. Christianity taught by Richard Dawkins is far different to Christianity taught by a Chaplain, for example.
Well this leads into another problem where you have a bazillion denominations of Christianity because people can't agree on what's right and what's wrong.
But anyway I agree to an extent except that I would say I think there would be teachers out there capable of teaching the 'basics' of a religion without being affiliated with that religion.
If you want your kids to learn Religion, send them to a Catholic school (or other religious affiliation, I guess).
Or just buy them a book, it shouldn't be the responsibility of the government, at least not when we're in a "debt crisis"
Ultimately I agree that religion is best left to the home, church etc and should not be taught in 'that' way at school. Objectively from a culture/ethics point of view only, maybe.
Still, with all that being said, I feel like I'm extending an olive branch a bit. Besides the culture/history/ethics part of it, I personally think teaching about what's left (i.e what the believers believe) is a complete waste of time and a detriment to society, but I can't say it'd bother me enough to vehemently oppose it.
