The Dangers of Religious Instruction in Public Schools

[JDHURF]

[exploited]

My comparative religion class was taught by a Catholic. He just outright said he was Catholic, that he may be biased, and to think for ourselves and study the material critically.

[eynon81]

the vast majority of student don't get any substantial scientific education until high-school, if then. while we dabbled in evolution from time to time I didn't get a hefty dose of how it actually worked until an elective zoology class. till, I had no idea how evolution actually really worked until college. so her fears as expressed in that first paragraph don't hold much water for me.

as for religion in public schools, sure...as part of a social-studies or english program (comparative religion, bible as lit).

many, many people in this nations' past who have not been believers have seen value in teaching about religion as part of a well rounded education (thomas jefferson is probably the biggest example). why? it provides cultural background that better enables us to better communicate values and ideas. it's why they pushed classical mythology and history too.

[Mr.Bill]

I see nothing dangerous about teaching religion in a history class, or obviously a comparative history class. The good and bad of religions are part of history, and their teachings and beginnings have to be included if you're talking about that religion and it's affect on history..

The Catholic Church is almost 2,000 years old. How the hell to you teach European history and Western religion without teaching how much and why the Church influenced European history? And then of course the beginnings and the differences and causes of the of Protestant Reformation too.

I do not want religious classes raught in public schools.. But to completely ignore religions and the teaching and how those teaching influenced history, and the differences between the religions is wrong.

[BrownOG]

While the OP is a little much on this issue, there are dangers of teaching religion on public schools.

For starters, the moment you legitimize god, you have to legitmize the idea that the world was created in 7 days and its only ~6000 years old oh and that all humans came from two people.

All of these ideas which directly contrast with science.

Have you ever met an average Muslim or a super religious christian. They are thoroughly incapable of thinking outside the confines of their religion. For example when you bring up the battle of the trench where Mohammed won against a group of attackers and then proceeded to slaughter the allies who never attacked in the first place. Despite there being scholars who all agree that there was a slaughter of those who never attacked a Muslim, every muslim says nope not true its just anti muslim banter. Despite there being academic scholars who say otherwise.

If you want to teach our children stupid stuff go for it. but keep it out of schools

[Stratego]

How can you claim to value education and at the same time shut out a whole branch of studies? It baffles me.

[gla22]

It's different to teach kids religious studies vs indoctrinating kids with a religion

[Stratego]

Teaching religion doesn't mean don't teach anything else. You still have your math classes, your history classes, your English classes. Why is it that teaching that there's 0 god is consider acceptable, but teaching that there's 1 God is consider indoctrination?

[gla22]