Mandatory Religion Classes?

[SkepticalScience]

I thought of something today.

If the US adopted mandatory religion classes, where students would be taught the beliefs of all the major religions, would that be a good thing for skepticism in general?

Would children naturally work out that with all the different contradictory religions out there, how can all of them be right? Or would this just strengthen the "argument from design" point of view that most people have?

 

[drkitten]

I thought of something today.

If the US adopted mandatory religion classes, where students would be taught the beliefs of all the major religions, would that be a good thing for skepticism in general?

Almost certainly not. Many of the teachers would not, in fact, teach "the beliefs of all the major religions," but would instead use this course as an opportunity to proseletyze.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't see how anyone can get out of public high school without learning the tenets of at least the major religions; it's part of history class.

But then, not everywhere bothers to require much history, and it's not difficult to pass a class without learning much.

But it is there and being taught, if anyone cared to learn.

 

[Iacchus]

I thought of something today.

If the US adopted mandatory religion classes, where students would be taught the beliefs of all the major religions, would that be a good thing for skepticism in general?

Would children naturally work out that with all the different contradictory religions out there, how can all of them be right? Or would this just strengthen the "argument from design" point of view that most people have?

That would all depend on how good the teacher is I believe. Now, if the teacher actually knew what he/she was talking about, the students might learn something ... besides learning to sling the "customary poo" that is.

 

[wastepanel]

I think that if you were going to have "mandatory" religious classes, you would need to have teachers that could seperate their beliefs from the material, or have multiple teachers from each religion available to the students. As most religions scoff at the others beliefs, I would find that it would be nearly impossible to have one religious person to teach all religions' concepts without bias.

But, a study of a certain religion's beliefs could take years upon years to complete. For example, what part of Christianity would you teach? The Catholic, or Protestant? Or what about the thousands of variations of each? The same can be said with Islamic, Buddhist, etc. So it depends on what your goals are to teach all of theories.

 

[ceo_esq]

I don't see how anyone can get out of public high school without learning the tenets of at least the major religions; it's part of history class.

I don't see how anyone can get out of a public high school without learning to read well, but a non-negligible number of people do.

I daresay the great majority of the people on this board have graduated from high school (though I suspect a few are still in it), yet the average level of comprehension displayed here with regard even to Christian doctrine - much less that of other world religions - is not especially high.

Perhaps these things are being taught, but badly. Perhaps they are simply not being learned well. High school was a long time ago for me, but I don't recall heading off to college with a solid grasp of Islamic or Buddhist thought.

 

[izittrue]

i went to a catholic high school...and they taught a class called comparative religions...
and all these years growing up attending catholic schools i thought catholic was the only "real" religion...
i had lots of questions about all these other religions...
the questions were not answered to my satisfaction and led me down that road of doubt...
so i became agnostic thanks to my religion class in catholic high school....so to me some good came out of it...

 

[Kopji]

Heh heh heh. Sure. We could have a member of each religion stop by and teach the class.

The Christian could teach about Islam
The Muslim could teach about Judism...
Jew could teach about Christianity.

It would be fun.

 

[ceo_esq]

Heh heh heh. Sure. We could have a member of each religion stop by and teach the class.

The Christian could teach about Islam
The Muslim could teach about Judism...
Jew could teach about Christianity.

It would be fun.

And all three of them could teach about atheism, I guess.

 

[Kopji]

And all three of them could teach about atheism, I guess.

Oh, you could have an atheist talk about atheism. You probably can't find any two that can get along.

 

[Riddick]

Heh heh heh. Sure. We could have a member of each religion stop by and teach the class.

The Christian could teach about Islam
The Muslim could teach about Judism...
Jew could teach about Christianity.

It would be fun.

have the ferrari people present lamborghini automobiles.
have the lambo people present ferrari automobiles.

yea, that would really work. really smart thinking there.

 

[DarkMagician]

It's a great idea in theory, but there are a whole lot of windows for abuse.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Would it be okay if Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens devised the curriculum?

~~ Paul

 

[Z]

Forget all that. Have Dennis Leary and George Carlin videotape the whole thing.