This is not a debate on whether religion should be kept out of schools or not. This debate assumes that it is. What I'm saying is, how far should it be carried out? All my teachers go about saying AD and BC, and, as a Jew, that makes me a little uncomfortable. And one of our World History units is World Religions. Should this even be taught? Is there a difference between religion in schools and being taught about religion? Please don't turn this into a thread debating religion itself. Personally, I think that World Religions should be taught, but there should be less reference to dominant religions, such as textbooks should replace AD and BC with CE and BCE.

In my history class, we learn about different religions, and I see nothing wrong with that. If anything, it makes people more open minded about different religions. As an atheist, I don't believe in ANY of the religions that we're taught about, but I'm interested in hearing it.

My school just got new textbooks, and they now use CE and BCE. I definitely think that's better.
As long as one certain religion isn't being favored or talked about as if that's the true one and the rest are false, I think that religions should be taught.

I do think it's wrong that my teacher, when writing all the gods of the world's 5 major religions, simply wrote "God" under Christianity. NC being in the Bible Belt is no excuse for that.

Isn't that correct, though? Sorry, I just don't quite understand...I mean, the Christian god is...God.

There is a difference in regards to understanding others beliefs and enforcing them I think. I myself had heard of Jewish but really didn't know much Judaism or Catholicism before I lived in Connecticut for a little while. Knowing about something isn't necessarily bad in regards to learning about customs of people as long as they don't force you into a belief and let you come to your own conclusions. This may help you in the long run.

I love stuff like national geographic and sometimes it will talk about such things...it doesn't mean that it is trying to convert me to a belief, and if you feel what you study is doing that you should express it.

As for the calender yes it should be changed, the old form is antiquated now as most time is kept by scientist and historians and less by monk scribes speaking Latin. As for the teachers I think it is mostly innocent on their part as they use that term like me without really thinking about it.

As an educator...I think this is a tricky topic and there is often great controversy around Christmas time in many classrooms.

If I could in all honesty there should be "NO" religious teachings or celebrations (including Christmas) in school grades Pre-K -10th grade. This does not mean that students don't have cultural and world studies, just no talk of religion. Religion and exposure to different religions (especially for young children) should be completely up to the parents as just mentioning that people see God differently or have different ideas of God can be an issue for parents and confusing for kids. Besides, this could be a great way to bond for parents and children if parents don't mind exposing their children to religion on a larger scale.

Now, when students are in the last 2 years in high school, I think World Cultures and even World Religions (not religious doctrine, but awareness) as electives would be fine. In that way, the students (and parents if necessary) can decide if they want to learn about these things and sign up for the courses.

There was not a year that went by that there wasn't drama over religion when I was teaching. Those in the majority often don't see what the big deal is. It became a huge distraction/disruption to teaching in all honesty and it is not the bulk of what we teach. At our school it was decided it was alright to discuss the basics of Christmas only if other religious celebrations were covered as well. No doctrine/belief talk at all. I always found it awkward when 2 or 3 children had to miss a whole day of school around certain holidays or had to be isolated because of religious beliefs. With the young ones, it was difficult for them to understand it all.

They probably did not know the actual name. Judaism is the root religion of Christianity hence the term 'Judeo–Christian'. Much of the old testament it taken from the Torah although I am sure that it has been altered.

The term they should have probably used or Jehova or YHWH -yaweh.

Will said textbooks also change the number of years to fit with the start of human civilization? Or will it be a cosmetic change that looks different but still uses the Christian system of numbering?

Last edited by Black_Barook! : 16th Feb 2011 at 02:56 PM.

I really hate how some parents are like that. (Like just because a child is raised as a Christian, they'll decide they want to convert to Judaism just because they learn about Hanukkah or become an atheist just because they know the truth that not everyone believes in Jesus.) I'm a full blown atheist and I honestly wouldn't care if my child wanted to learn about different forms of theism. Shielding kids from opposing viewpoints [in my mind] is wrong.

All the Abrahamic religions (that would include Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Bahai, Mormonism, and whatever I may have forgotten) are monotheistic and basically worship the same God and with fairly similar backstories, although they may have different thoughts about what it all means and what He/She/It may want of humans.

CE and BCE are simply scientific replacements for AD and BC. They're already in use for many people, especially those who are not Christian. Technically, the year 1 CE is arbitrary, even in the Christian faith, because nobody knows for sure when the man in question was actually born, and he most likely was born before the common era.

The whole BC/AD BCE/CE I didn't even know it was made an issue. I am apathetic towards that, if it says either AD or CE I couldn't care less. This may surprise some people but I am not a Christian or have I ever been one I am an agnostic who has better things to worry than being offended by 2 letters.

I am fine with the idea of learning about the history of world religions and in fact more interested in learning about that than politics but someone will complain that a not so well known religion like Jainism is not being taught and realistically only most well known religions would be taught. There are so many religions and different sects of religions that it would be hard to teach them all.

Before prayer was banned in public school in BC (the Province) in 1989 it was mandatory to start the day with the Lord's Prayer and a Bible reading. Praying at lunchtime in private in fine but being forced to start the day with prayers goes against freedom of conscience and religion which is in Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Our Bill of Rights).

I remember having to do that. Well, not the Bible reading. But I did have to say the Lord's Prayer every morning (as well as sing "O Canada"... maybe that's why the school day used to be longer: they needed time for all that stuff that wasn't related to education!). The praying is sort of a form of indoctrination, but I guess it never really "took" with me (other than giving me the urge to say "Amen" at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance when I attended school in the U.S.A.).

I don't see anything wrong with learning about other cultures and religions, though. I think there's probably quite a bit of that here, as we have large South Asian and Chinese populations. I wonder if it's a bit different in Canada, though. We're more of a mosaic (rather than a melting pot) with less assimilation, so children aren't necessarily pushed into one religion or culture by the public schools. If they were, they'd be in violation of the Charter (as Rectos Dominos noted).

Learning about the worlds religions is learning about other cultures, and what inspired them to do what they did. It shouldn't be taught as "truth" (a word that has lost a lot of meaning thanks to some religions). It should simply be taught in terms of facts.

That said, I also believe that if the worlds religions are taught that all of them should be, including ones falling outside the Abrahamic religions. Ideally an understanding of humanity as a whole would be accomplished by this, rather then attempting to indoctrinate children.

I am not sure however, that there are very many teachers that could remain that objective about religions not matching their own for it to be taught fairly.

Non-religious teachers could probably come the closest.

Though, in some areas, they're probably pretty rare.

I believe there should be appropriate mandatory culture studies for all levels of school. It's absolutely shocking that so many people are ignorant of others ideology. They already have required language courses why not world religion? It seems to me that schools do say to be "open-minded" and at the same time reject everything but their own culture. I think this would help promote goodwill to those "different" than the norm in whatever part of the world you live in. Of course, not every government would agree to changing to a less hostile mindset, but it's still worth it.

I also think students of public schools should be able to wear whatever symbols of faith they wish, so long as it's not garish. I remember some friends of mine had to remove their pentacles and had them taken up when there were so many others wearing the cross and they had no one say a word to them. It angers me to this day.

In the UK, we do this quite easily. They're called Religious Education teachers, and they teach in the same way a teacher of any lesson teaches. And a non-religious teacher isn't necessarily going to be unbiased in teaching R.E.

Another option is using BP, before present, its the archaeological dating system which became outdated the year after it was started in the 1950s but we still use it for some stupid reason, so now if we say an artifact is dated between 2000-2250 BP that really means its about 2060-2310 years old, so it was from around 310-60 BC. Have fun dealing with that every day haha.