Teaching of religion worldwide

I grew up in US public schools in Missouri and Nebraska. My family was Catholic and sent me to Sunday school. I learned absolutely nothing about other world faiths until I elected to take a course on comparative religions at college. It was only a basic introduction but it Blew My Mind. I felt utterly conned that up until that point in my life, no one had seemingly wanted me to find out about what other people believe. WHY? This is a good question for this thread maybe. As I learned, I came to decide that the world view I had been taught did not match reality. I went from someone who wanted to become a nun as a child, to what I'd best describe today as an agnostic. With leanings toward Buddhism maybe. But no one was about to teach me what that is or what anyone could learn from it. I suspect this is because, as has been suggested here, people think that religious education will cause the "faithful" to jump ship. I would argue that's not necessarily a bad thing, but plenty of people would equate it with condemnation.Perhaps because of my own personal experience, I do believe that a broad education broadens the mind. Concealing the truth from students, e.g. that there are other religious views in the world, and different ways of looking at things, is antithetical to what any good teacher should be doing.RE seems to work well here in the UK. Indeed it is necessary. Leicester, where I live, has an Asian population of over 20%. Learning about Hindus, Seikhs, and Muslims is part of learning about the people who live and work here, those with whom we interact. In fact, RE can be a way for them to learn about the Christians here too. I taught for a while at a school that was 95% Muslim and I am sure that without RE, quite a number of those students would have known little to nothing about Christianity.The big question would be how to introduce this in the US though, where religion is so much more of a political issue. I don't know how it could be done; all I can imagine is problems and lawsuits.

True, though that thread appears to be 2 1/2 years old and is 10 pages long. Just trying to find a place to talk about something I CAN talk about LOL. Sorry I'll try to stick to the topic a bit better.

LOL yes I've noticed that. Maybe I respect the credentials of people here more than a few others and accept that they might just have some expertise. That was a mistake. I meant to reply to Jar. It doesn't make any difference to me because of the way I view this forum but I imagine it puts things in a mess for others, so I'll make sure I look where I'm clicking. I take it the "re:" is OK for this post? They is very good Mr. Nosy Not that it makes any difference as long as the message comes through loud and clear. Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

I understand that Fundamentalist Christians in the US are also pushing for home education, because of the failure to get ID into school curricula. Home education here is generally not religion-based like this. I'm amazed, though, that both the US and the UK have such a laissez--faire attitude toward private education. Here there is quite a strict national curriculum in public schools; but for private and home-schoolers, basically anything goes. Like . . . huh? Personally I would consider it a human rights violation if children were not taught the very basics in a variety of subjects, but there seem to be no laws requiring this to be the case.

Yep, you picked a good subtitle for this.Scary. These people have a lot to answer for. Not just the creationism. American literature from a Christian perspective -- what? Bet there's no Sylvia Plath in it. Or Tennessee Williams. Bet Arthur Miller (The Crucible) gets a miss, as well as The Scarlet Letter.Scariest of all may be the mindless patriotism.OK, referring to the topic here, do home educators in other countries use this kind of bilge?? My friend who home educates here would be horrified to see this.