Atheist Memes

Here's how it goes down:

Do you want to teach various creation myths and explanatory myths? That stuff goes into cultural anthropology, or if there's enough of it, such as Hellenic mythology, then a literature class, but then it's cross referenced with the values of the age. No-one wants their modern religion taught as mythology right next to others that are regarded as ancient superstition.

Do you want to teach existential questions and morality? Awesome! We have entire school departments dedicated to philosophy. Typically 101 is an intro to existentialism and 102 is an intro into morality. And both of them move beyond religion in the very first chapter. The thing is, religions assert their positions on why are we here? and are property rights evil by mere assertion. Ministries say we have the authority, and you obey. and might even back their position up by scripture. But none of this really answers either why or how we know and even Descartes (a devout follower of the Church) couldn't find a sufficient answer to his own evil demon except to assume by God is good by default (rather than God being a construct by which a corrupt Church might manipulate their flock). Religion turns out to be a starting point for our purpose, the point of everything and right and wrong, but where we end up after the enlightenment is far beyond the apologists.

That’s how they did it at my college in the Netherlands, which has ‘Christian’ in the name but really isn’t religious at all.

You basically got a primer on the big religions as well as some of the fringes. This was part of my journalism degree. I am fully atheist but honestly didn’t mind since it was just factual information.

They also encouraged us to at least once visit a church, synagogue, mosque, etc. The ONLY one they didn’t want us touching was Scientology after they had some negative experiences in prior years.

okay but the problem with teaching pretty much anything in schools is that the kids don't care, they don't want to be there, they don't care about the subject matter, and how are you going to fit all of the world's religions into an elementary school class? And expect the kids to care or comprehend it?

I vaguely remember the Mormons briefly being mentioned in a history textbook in high school. maybe one paragraph in the whole textbook. It barely scratched the surface and I would not have remembered it at all if the Mormons hadn't sucked me in & warped my brain for a decade in my 20s.

Here in Sweden I had a mandatory religious class. They teaced about Hindu, Buddhism, Christianity and so on. We pretty much learned of all the "major" religions and i would say it was pretty beneficial to us all. Did it have shortcomings? Yes, but it was better to get a broad perspective on things instead of just one thing to be teached as "true". We also had history parallel with religion which tied them both together pretty nicely.

That's what we did at my Highschool. Our prof taught us about various religion, including Lavey's Satanism.

Grew up in the UU (Unitarian Universalist) Church and I'm eternally grateful that this was the religious education they offered.

I agree. Also if someone wants to be religious, they should know about all the options out there and decide what fits their views best instead of being railroaded into the religion of their family.

It's like being born into a Republican family and never being exposed to the views of democrats, you just always vote Republican because it's what your family has told you is the way to do it.

How dare you?! It's Jupiter or nothing!

Same here, but my parents chose that I go to Religion class until they had no say in that anymore (age of 14 where I live). Then I opted for ethics.

Sounds like you want religious studies and not theology. It is taught many places but usually first appears in high school or you can get degrees in college. I can't speak for how they break down their study guide, I'm sure they all vary a bit.

would be good for cultural awareness if nothing else. You could mix and match the concepts you like from each religion so you take something away from it.

I really enjoyed RS GCSE. It was the thing that best equipped me to interact with the many, many other cultures I've encountered in the real world and in my industry.

I have almost nothing else nice to say about the British education system but they definitely got this right.

So all of them?

They'd just kill each other.

Sure there is. In fact let's do both. Start "none" because religion doesn't belong. At all. Anywhere.

Then let's do "All" under "history."

The school still has to satisfy the standards of the state it is in. No "intelligent design" in biology class, for example. It can have additional classes though.

Also, no public money, like vouchers, should be accepted in such schools.

The problem is when private schools get government funding, say through subsidies or voucher systems.