Bible/Religious Education in America

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)).

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.

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.

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.

I think most people use science to refer to an empirical methodology and mathematics as being focussed on logical studies. I am not saying one cannot say that maths is a science, I'm just saying that I was not using the word in that fashion. You forgot the Muslims and the Ethiopians - if only the fact that different groups had different canons were taught at school Pedantry aside as to what should be included as canon, there is pretty much no dispute over the contents of Exodus or the book of Acts. I'm not suggesting we teach that Catholic teaching is that aliens started the Boer war, since that is objectively false. I'm suggesting we teach children important facts about the religions of the world. And since we can't teach it all (like with history) certain decisions have to be made.Do we teach what Dave from Dagenham had for breakfast on 3 July 1494?No, we should teach actual facts about religions - and only ones which are judged as important or interesting enough to warrant study. Great, so let's not teach kids facts that are objectively wrong.So, let's teach them that being a Jew is an ethnic as well as a religious label and that in this class we are talking about the religious side of things. We'll teach them about what the Talmud is and what that means, the Pentatuech, the Old Testament (though mentioning that this is not a Jewish label), maybe talk about Abraham and other prophets, Genesis and the origins of various religious festivals. You know, objective facts about Judaism. No, I didn't say that in order to qualify as a Christian one has to think that Yeshua's real name is Christ (since that would be objectively false, if anything children should be taught that Christ is a title - since that is objectively true). My thought got cut off and I was trying to say more but forgot about it. I'm not proposing we come up with any 'qualifications' for any religious view. However, children should be made aware of what someone generally means when they say "Hi I'm a Christian" or "Hi I am Muslim". They should also be made aware that there are many groups that identify as Christians and Muslims, that there are differences (with some key ones such as Catholic vs Protestant, Shia vs Sunni etc), but some general indicators. There is some leeway, here, actually. Precisely because of the contentious nature of history. Nevertheless, there is a curriculum. And as long as the factual issues of religion are addressed I still don't see a problem.Unless there is a reason that a school shouldn't commit themselves to commenting on whether or not the Qur'An is the holy book of Islam and that Muslims believe that the angel Gabriel dictated its words to Mohammed? No - I was inviting you to look to those countries to see if you can find a consequence of this kind of study that is negative. They exist and some systems even avoid all out civil war.Exam questions might be about religious symbols and devices or the structure of a mosque or the method of prayer in a mandir or a typical service in a gurdwara.You may be asked about views on abortion or war of various religions. Correct answers include pointing out that there are differences within the religions. In some places, discussions of secular views are even had.

Nobody is deciding what religions are not officially recognized. They're just teaching a representative sample of the available knowledge regarding a certain subject. It would be remiss if as part of the subject it wasn't pointed that there are many religions and many sects of religions.Just like a politics class that discusses Marxism and Capitalism but misses out anarcho-syndicalism. It isn't because anarcho-syndicalism isn't an officially recognized political position - it's because it isn't as important for most people to spend time studying it. If you're parents are anarcho-syndicalists I'm sure they'd teach that to their children if they want. Nope, that would be like saying it OK to teach people that being a Marxist involves wearing a white robe and burning crosses while having a form of communal ownership and rule by soviet. It would be false. No I didn't. I didn't say anything of the sort. If some person's religion is as you describe, and they call it by the name - then they should be prepared to expect confusion when using the word.Likewise, if some people want to call "Giving out candy floss to everyone between the ages of 8-80" the "Holocaust" - I suggest it would be for the best that student learn that he might cause offence if he communicates one while meaning the other. As I have said in a previous post. We don't study Dave from Dagenham's breakfast regime, despite it being history. Drawing lines is entirely possible, and necessary, in education. Nobody is suggesting we teach kids the 'proper way to pray' or the 'correct structure of a mosque'. And especially not that practice x is objectively wrong.If you fear marginalising tiny numbers of people - then the lessons could easily include reminders that unless otherwise stated, the facts about religions apply in general and are about the mainstream variants. Interesting or notable exceptions to general rules might be occasionally noted too.If a pupil was to write in their exam something like "Most Christians regard the creator as the good and divine God, but some gnostic Christians believed the creator to have been a malevolent being sometimes referred to as Ialdaboath or the Demiurge." - I'm sure they would get some nice marks (assuming it was relevant to the question).