Bible/Religious Education in America

Hi,I'm a new user brought to this forum by the talented, insightful minds I've seen. (Especially the twin paradox and geocentric model threads, lurking a little while I know.)Being British we have quite a robust religious education curriculum. From Islam, Judaism, Hinduism to the various Christian interpretations and Buddhism. Perhaps this is a by product of our (admittedly segregated) multicultural society but I have talked to a few Americans, some creationists some evolutionists, and I have asked the question a few times (normally from the creationists). Mainly because of their ignorance of other, polytheistic, religious views. From what I see as a basic understanding of other religions, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism to more esoteric theistic ideologies such as hermeticism. (Not part of the British curriculum but a philosophical ideology i have been toying with and trying to understand since meeting with a self-confessed hermeticist that shared my (agnostic) views of god and the cosmos).I have been wondering about the religious education system within America. In Britain and I believe the majority of Europe we have an open almost unbiased religious education in our schools where religion is treated as a separate required subject (normally following onto greater philosophical debates, epistemology etc) the sciences are kept separated from these lessons and I like to think it is down to the student to ask the questions in both science classes and RE classes. However from the people I've spoken too and the news that we get over here that America has an education system that is significantly more involved in the creation/evolution debate, at least politically (why it needs to be contrary to a monotheistic or even polytheistic religion I will never understand but still...)So basically what is the extent of religious education in America? Does it need changing? Combining with science education? Where should we go from here in educating our scientists, theists and philosophers of the future? Or should Britain be more hard in its approuch to a religious/science curriculum?Hopefully its within the scope of these forums and im not trying to bash Americans im just interested in the difference between our respective education programs.Trust me I could do worse. I mean the 'world' series. In what part of the definition of world is that relivent. World Cup on the other hand well now we are playing with spherical objects actually used by the foot. Thanks,Andy.Edited by andyr86, : No reason given.Edited by andyr86, : No reason given.Edited by andyr86, : No reason given.Edited by andyr86, : No reason given.

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When the ideas become too complicated, and the persuit of perfection is misconstrued as the need for excess. When there is so much involved that individual components cannot be discerned...then new rules must be established.

Thread copied here from the Bible/Religious Education in America thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

There is, as a general rule, no religious education in America sponsored by the government. This policy is commonly referred to as the "Separation of Church and State", and is a prominent element of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Being British, you might recall the exodus of a number of Protestants trying to get away from state-sponsored religion and the war fought to keep it that way.In my view it is sufficient to teach proper reasoning and deduction, and let people make their own decisions based on the available information. Public education should not, and cannot, provide the religious training that some parents desire. It is their own business, and they can do it on their own time, and their own dime.

...It seems to me that the seperation of church and state within the constitution has been basterdizied somewhat. (I belive that the American constitution as it was written in the 18th century is a part of history and Humanitarianism so profound that we have not had anything better since the geneva convention.)America as it is does not has seperation between church and state. It has vitriol and hate between two ideals. Would you think the same thing?...I really want to push this home. I'm not an anti american but as a super-power the Americas leads the way in education. Intellect and the integration of the ideas of religion and science.

As long as a school does not endorse a religious viewpoint, teaching the facts about religions should not cause issues with the constitution. "Proper reasoning and deduction" only lessons mean that there is no history, language, geography, literature... no, facts should be taught too. I don't see the benefit in not teaching the populace about religious views around the world in a factual way.I suspect the real reason is because nobody trusts teachers to do this, and fear that lessons would be "Hinduism is an immoral religion, unlike Christ-fearing goodness that is {Insert sect}." Given the way evolution is handled in some schools - I'm not surprise at the fear. But I think it is overblown.It is a great irony that a system which is integrated into a specific sect of religion has a compulsory education in world religions (there is focus on the predominant religions that the children are likely to encounter (so it is different in different areas)).

I don't see that they have any need to be integrated. Where religion has ideas about things that can be determined scientifically it is nearly universally incorrect. There is no debate, or anything to gain by teaching factually incorrect beliefs in that regard. Alternatively the parts of religion that cannot be scientifically determined may as well be opinions, and are probably infinite in scope.

In order to understand religion in America, it would help to apply some Social Psychology and try and actually infiltrate a few divergent groups. It would be an interesting experiment.

On the contrary, I think the real problem is that such a class would never be complete. Education usually consists of teaching things that are to some extent objectively known to be true. If in this circumstance that requirement was removed, then there is no reason why any particular sect or variation in a religion should be taught preferentially to another. This would entail teaching the students the individual opinion of every being on the planet, something that simply isn't practical.If you only teach part of a religion then there will be people who think the part you left out is deathly important. If you only teach some religions then those who are not represented will be incensed. There is no way a teaching institution can give an unbiased view of every religious ideal.Is this necessarily a bad thing? Not in my opinion; everyone should learn about various religious ideas and draw their own conclusions. Their views will be biased and if they are intelligent they will recognize this and compensate to the best of their ability. The key is that the bias will not be the responsibility of the state. Nobody will be forced to pay for a bias contrary to their leanings, they will be free to impart their bias on their offspring on an individual basis.

Despite this being true of other subjects, we teach science, language, history.... I understand. I question the wisdom, however, of worrying about the bias (I raised the bias of teachers, but anybody in the process counts) - history and science and art and English Literature suffer from it after all. Somehow a broad consensus of important facts gets agreed upon that people should know. For example: That Islam, Christianity and Judaism are "Abrahamic" religions who all believe in slightly different concepts of the same god. Key religious festivals in them etc etc.

If things have changed since I have been in secondary education I apologize, but has evolution really become a large sticking point for the british curriculum? My physics teacher tought me the fundimentals in GCSE, my biology and chemistry teacher also. My physics teacher in my transistion to A Level Physics also gave me the quantum theory text which described in detail schrodinger's cat. I'm sorry, I forget what text (in fact I still might have it at home, i've been meaning to give it back to Mr Gould...Honest.) I switched from physics to philosophy in my first A Level year. Funny really considering my undergraduate degree acception was based on my live sound engineering career. And nothing todo with my actual studies.What intreages me is the education of european(from manchester I assume you are uk/eu origin Mr Modulous) students in regard to religious education. We seem to have a completely different set of standards regarding the explination of religions. (Whatever they happen to be, sikh, hindhu, buddhist, islamic etc) These lessons to our youth don't necessarily happen to be a part of our scientific education. Nor do they try to contradict scientific ideas such as helioscentric orbit, evolution etc. Neither does the quality of our education pertain to its scientific/religious merits. (I was educated in a comprehensive school. ie a regular school like everyone else. Perhaps I was lucky that I had good science teachers as well as good philosophy/RE teachers, but i don't see how the quality of teaching can diviate that significantly from school to school.)Surely the facts of a religious ideology can be described without the referance to science in anyway. After all we must all agree that if there is a godhead it is neither provable nor disprovable by the fact that it is a godhead. Science relies on the predictions of theories and their experimental findings. While a teacher my have a religious bias this does not necessarily mean that the teacher will teach behond what the cuurriculum stats in referance to the facts of the ideologies of buddhism, sikhism, toaism etc.Edited by andyr86, : ClarificationEdited by andyr86, : No reason given.

You only have to teach one way of doing trigonometry, and nobody gets bent out of shape when you teach that and not quantum physics as mandatory public education. You speak heresy, my particular flavor of Christianity/Islam/Judaism is separate and distinct from those false religious in a variety of important ways. It deeply offends me that you would seek to lump my deepest beliefs about the Holy Truth in with those false worships. I demand equal representation.

It's becoming more of an issue, but it is still not a major one. Born and raised in the UK, with a few years in the Bahamas. Both of our religious teachers were atrocious (one too strict the other too lax). However, we still ate a traditional Jewish meal, spoke with a Sikh about their knife/bracelets etc and so on and so forth. The focus was clearly Christianity, since it was predominant in our community.

Not entirely untrue, but that is mathematics and I didn't say mathematics I said science, history and language. History is particularly contentious.I got bent out of shape because I wasn't taught trigonometry. So there. You can teach that to your children, just like you can teach your children that your flavour of science is that dinosaurs co-existed with man and that your flavour of history is that the holocaust didn't happen.

Mathematics is a science. The debate about history is generally about the interpretation of history, not what actually happened. For instance: The North won the USA Civil War, and The Holocaust happened. Whether these were good or bad occurrences is generally discussed much more than if they happened or not (although I do recognize that some people are Holocaust deniers).My point is, history is like science in that something either happened or it didn't, and it only happened one way. There is a "Truth" out there, and a teacher can realistically attempt to get as close to that as possible. How the Civil War occurred isn't up to the personal beliefs of individual citizens, and there are some accounts that are objectively superior to others. Right, I could if you were not trying to make it a law that my children be subjected to such filth, and that I pay for it. When someone comes to my door with guns to make...Ok, I think the role-play has served its purpose. You yourself admitted that when a teaching institution stops teaching a subject at an arbitrary point there will be people who are ticked some subject didn't get taught. For you it was trigonometry, for someone else it would be their particular brand of Zen-Christian Buddhism.But seriously, no trig? Sin, cos, tan? SOH-CAH-TOA? Nothing?

Not in the sense I was using the word 'science', and not in the sense that most people would use it that way either. Not so, but that doesn't matter. There is no debate about the contents of the Bible, but there is a great deal of debate about interpreting what that means.We can still teach history, even though we can't teach it all.
We can still teach it, even though there is disagreement over whether such-and-such actually said or did x.
We can still teach it, even if there is disagreement over whether the Boer war was a contributory factor in the breakout of WWI. Heresy! I happen to believe the South won and the holocaust did not happen and I deman equal time in the classroom! The same is true of religious studies. I'm not talking about dictating beliefs, I'm talking about objective facts about religion. Christians follow someone called 'Jesus Christ'. How does being taught that the holocaust happened prevent you from teaching them that it didn't? Agreed - but we still try and teach maths, biology and history. Some countries even teach their kids what Yom Kippur is, and why Sikhs wear turbans etc and that some religions have baptism ceremonies and some of the beliefs that exist about baptism. I was told when I was 12 about its existence, spent a day doing basic SOH-CAH-TOA stuff. Then for my main exams it was completely ignored. I went to college (16-18 years old) and the knowledge was assumed and we were doing physics and maths with calculus on trig functions so I just had to teach myself quickly. Pain in the arse.