Should the Bible be taught in US public schools.

Originally posted by Trickster
I'd still like to know why you think that teaching seperate religions in high school is preferable to teaching the way all religions approach life. And especially why a class which does inform on all religions should be put off to college, while a single-belief lesson is perfectly acceptable in high school.

How do you suggest one adequately teaches ALL religions. How do you divide time between them?

Originally posted by Alliance
How do you suggest one adequately teaches ALL religions. How do you divide time between them?

Christianity (go over the major differences in the more common denominations), Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism. Of course, the PC police will show up because I've forgotten some obscure religion.

I think people generally know enought of a survey of world religions...maybe wee need to treat a few in depth.

Apologies if my point was somewhat unclear - I meant the world's major religions, and their standpoints on important issues. Teaching one religion seems foolish, to me, as it doesn't offer different perspectives on anything.

Well, in the US, Christianity has had a major impact. Hinduism has not. Do we need to spend equal time on both even though one is exceedingly significant to US culture and the other is not?

Originally posted by Alliance
Well, in the US, Christianity has had a major impact. Hinduism has not. Do we need to spend equal time on both even though one is exceedingly significant to US culture and the other is not?

I agree...and don't bash the ACLU too much, they have stood up for people who had no voice of thier own.

The place to learn about other faiths is a world history class. America is predominatnly influenced by Christianity and Athiesm/Agnosticism.

I suppose that would be the case if you wanted American students growing up only knowing the American perspective on things. I agree it would be fair to focus more heavily on Christianity, but a 'Religion' class is not merely American Religion. If I said that geography classes should only teach students the geography of their own country, or the immediate region, I doubt you'd hold the same view.

I also don't think any form of history class is the place for a study of religion. Religion is something contemporary, and people use their religious beliefs to make moral and political decisions today.

Only if you teach The Quran, Torah, etc, etc and every other religious text on earth.

I guess, on topic, I don't like the idea of 'teaching' any religious text. It seems to imply that the text is fact, and not compiled from stories that are often disputed.

Also, teaching more than one religous text as fact would be a bit stupid, since they obviously contradict one another.

Originally posted by Alliance
America is predominatnly influenced by Christianity and Athiesm/Agnosticism.

You can thank our two party system for that.

Originally posted by Trickster
If I said that geography classes should only teach students the geography of their own country, or the immediate region, I doubt you'd hold the same view.

I also don't think any form of history class is the place for a study of religion. Religion is something contemporary, and people use their religious beliefs to make moral and political decisions today.

coke Can't be put any better than that

Thank you.

Originally posted by Alliance
don't bash the ACLU too much

I know. But they protect people like me form people like you 😄

Originally posted by Capt_Fantastic
You can thank our two party system for that.

Originally posted by Trickster
I suppose that would be the case if you wanted American students growing up only knowing the American perspective on things. I agree it would be fair to focus more heavily on Christianity, but a 'Religion' class is not merely American Religion. If I said that geography classes should only teach students the geography of their own country, or the immediate region, I doubt you'd hold the same view.

I also don't think any form of history class is the place for a study of religion. Religion is something contemporary, and people use their religious beliefs to make moral and political decisions today.

However, we learn US geography before global geography. We learn US history before world history. US religion undobutedly has more an immediate direct impact. I never said world religons should be neglected. My old high school has world religoins incorporated into a 2 mandatory World History classes. Maybe it even deserves its own class. But If I had to create only one mandatory class, I'd spend my time focusing on US-centric religions and thier historical application.

Ah, well, if that's the case and you approve of such a system of learning (America first, then the rest of the world), then it would make sense to have classes concerned with the religions prevalent in American society. Unfortunately, I can only apply my own experiences of school, and I learnt some world history (the Aztecs, for instance) before concentrating on British history. In geography, we were taught about volcanoes and tectonic plates rather than British geography.

It seems a pity to me that the American school system is so centred on America. It's sort of like a small town school demanding students memorise the town map before teaching them the names of continents and oceans.

Originally posted by Alliance
I don't really see how. I don't think religion was covered in Duverger's law.

It doesn't have to address it directly. The point I'm making is that in America the mindset revolves around the "you're either for us or against us" policy. Black v. white; rich v. poor; republican v. democrat; gay v. straight; any gun you want v. no guns at all; you're with us or you're with the terrorists and so forth. The sad part is that it has little to do with our elections and very much how political topics are presented to the public. The people who fall in to the a little from column A and a little from column B category get overlooked in the process. So few people vote in America, but everyone has an opinion.

So does that mean you're against primarily teaching 'American religion' in schools?

What is American religion