Should Religious Education Be Taught In Schools?

[Declan]

Doh!

[Gladys]

I have no problem in religion in the wider sense being taught. If it covers other faiths and gives children an understanding of all the beliefs, then fine. Getting an understanding of religionS is part of understanding how other people near and afar view matters and can only be good.

 

However, I am dead agin any RE teaching of the kind I had where there is only one religion, learn it and all the rest is witchcraft!

[ans]

Excellent. Another thread with potential descends into a feast of pedantry.

[ButterflyMaiden]

Excellent. Another thread with potential descends into a feast of pedantry.

 

Alternatively, someone may have been having their leg pulled ?

[ans]

Oh right, fagging up a thread with a full page of leg pulling is a great idea. Perhaps your self absorbed massive intellect might want to reflect on that.

[Gladys]

Ans, back in your evil closet now! You know we don't want the customers to see you!

[ButterflyMaiden]

Oh right, fagging up a thread with a full page of leg pulling is a great idea. Perhaps your self absorbed massive intellect might want to reflect on that.

 

A full page ? .... probably a stupid question but exactly how lengthy does a post have to be to qualify for a page full ..in your opinion of course ? It does, after all, seem to me that your mealy mouthed posting and its follow up has occupied more space than my own few lines of banter to Declan. Lighten up.

[Steven]

oh PLEASE, i hope butterflymaiden is not our friend roxanne!

If she is IM IN TROUBLE!!! LOL

Had a few little differences of opinion with that lady!!!

 

But i feel RE should be taught in schools, we seem to have lost our way slightly, we need to be

be refreshed about the love + the light?

We need to remeber how the wakefull prothet sheperds first encountered the star of giulding light, which shone so bright + giuded them + so us, to the cradle where lay the bethlehem babe

 

We will get there in the end!!!

 

Nighty nite everyone, im off to bed to dream about a beautifull unicorn

[Jacqueline]

I always thought Roxanne and ans were one and the same?

 

He certainly seems to use most of her good lines.

[ans]

my own few lines of banter to Declan

 

Fagging up a thread with pedantry and obtuseness and then trying to pass it off as banter is laughable.

[sarahc]

If you have a problem with your children taking part in religious assemblies etc you can request to have your child removed from them. Not 100% sure about whether you can remove your child from RE lessons; in non-church primary schools at least they will be taught about all of the major faiths, supposedly with a leaning towards Christianity but I'm not sure how often that actually happens.

[ans]

Thinking about it, even back in the dark days when I was at junior school, there were two girls who sat outside the hall during Assembly while the hymns and prayers were done as they were Jehovah's Witnesses so I guess there's been provision for parents to remove their children all along.

 

I'm very much an athiest, but I still think that educating children about religion is a very important thing, given how much of our culture and tradition comes from it. Get then to understand it, not partake it in.

[Declan]

I think in non-religious schools assemblies should be voluntary, and parents should have the right to remove their kids from it, However, wouldn't that draw attention to the kids as being a bit "odd", in the eyes of the others. I'm sure some would prefer to sit through a boring prayer rather than have themselves drawn attention to.

 

Banning the study of religions, or even making in voluntary for the parents to decide is wrong. In fact I see it as comparable to Alamabaman Schools banning the teaching of evolution.

 

A fully rounded adult needs to know -

 

Christians believe X

Muslims believe Y

Jews believe Z

and some people don't believe much of anything.

 

Also since Christianity has been an intrinsic part of our culture and history, people need to know the basics of that religion as background knowledge for their study of history, and literature.

 

I also think that the basic moral message of Christianity - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - is one which children should be exposed to at least sometime during their childhood.

[VinnieK]

I wouldn't mind compulsary Religious Education until the third year (or year nine for those younger than I am) if it were taught as a proper academic subject. I know it gets a little more rigorous at A-Level, but pre-GCSE the routine was essentially just learning bible stories, with the occassional mention made of Sikhism or whatever other religion the curriculum demanded a weak nod of acknowledgement that week. Although whilst not explicitly preaching Christianity, the subject's concentration on learning about bible harlots and moneylenders and the like, with no deeper study other than recitation of verse and the occassional talk about morals hardly encouraged thought or appreciation of the wider subject.

 

As I understand it, religion is a cultural influence, and certainly a large element of modern society can be traced back to religious thinking, and as such I believe that if it's to be taught, it should be taught as such. There should be a concentration on the development of major religions and its causes and consequences, as well as analysing the fundamental characteristics, as well as dissenting thought and opinion within them.

 

I think, for instance, that Christianity would be far more interesting, and the subject more academically respectable, were it taught as a movement that was initially an heretical and rather radical strain of Judaism, along with the political and social factors that led to the Roman Empire adopting it after initial resistance and spreading it accross Western Europe and the Middle East. Or how Christianity became prone to heresies and dissention itself, the most relevant aspect of which being the popularity of the Monophysism and Nestorian heresies that proved so popular in the middle east and were developed by Mohammed into a form that catered to the people and cultures there - i.e. Islam.

 

There's a lot there that could and indeed should be taught, and preferrably not by the kind of dogmatic reborn Christians that schools filled Religious Education posts with, and their damned accoustic guitars.

[Rog]

In school and compulsory education ---

 

Teaching kids morality, responsibities in relationships and human responsibilities as well as human rights is fine by me.

 

Teaching about the background of religious beliefs as long as it is presented as being less valid than the science of life and existence and just a belief thing with no real validity to back it up but rather a hangover from the days when superstition and myth was used to explain the not understood, and I’m not too uneasy.

 

Teaching about religions and comparative religion and my personal alarm bells ring.

 

Teaching ANY religion is something that I find deplorable. That is down to parents to do and kids to grow out of.