Religion and Lack of Religion

[Adriane]

What Tarvos means is being taught about religion as a mythology, not as truth. Which I agree should be done because religion is a huge aspect of world culture.

It seemed they were replying to Pathos.

Studying religion is fine when students have developed the greater ability to think for themselves.

 

[Harlequin]

What Tarvos means is being taught about religion as a mythology, not as truth. Which I agree should be done because religion is a huge aspect of world culture.

I agree that this is important. So much culture and art and literature comes from the various mythologies that have been popular since God knows when (see, reference to a mythological being right there!!!) and you can really miss out on a lot if you're unfamiliar with your Bible, Greek myths or Norse gods.

Taught in such a way it would be interesting and valuable, but right now it's usually not taught in an interesting or useful way.

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

even as an elective?

Ah, I don't mind it being an elective, in fact, I'd probably take it if it was, but forcing religious education instead of general education in philosophy seems silly to me.

EDIT: For clarification, I totally think everyone should receive education about religions; I just don't think everyone should be forced to take RE, I think they should study religion in the context of a philosophy class.

 

[Tarvos]

I was a Christian for 15 years of my life simply because my parents were (and they're not exactly devout, either.) Parents have immeasurable influence over their young children and instil a foundation of values.

My parents are technically Catholics, so what? I didn't ever think about what I considered my religious beliefs until I was 14 (I wasn't baptised so could hardly consider myself Catholic). I was never taught "The Bible says this, it is truth!". I had religious education at a public primary school and was never taught that these stories were fact (which I would hardly have believed since I knew about evolution before I knew about religion). Mind you, I was NINE at that time. And I *liked* the stories. It's fully, and entirely, possible to be taught about the religious stories without them being represented as the truth. I never ever saw any Biblical story as the truth, even when I was told about the Old Testament stories at age 9.

I went to a Catholic (technically) school. I took religious education for four out of those six years, with a break of one year in between due to some random illness.

In my last two years, our RE class taught us about the following subjects:
- Ethics (this included everything from Thomas de St. Aquinas to outright postmodernism, utilitarianism as well as Kant, both atheist and religious sides addressed)
- Christianity
- Buddhism (we had a collective choice between this or Islam. Our class voted Buddhism en masse)
- Religious symbolism of the senses or something weird like that.

That is what our religious study entailed. We were, ffs, allowed to CHOOSE which religion we studied (and although we did study Christianity as it was a Catholic school, this included religious history as much and was not, in any way, explicitly, related to Catholicism - everything from the Nicene Creed to the protestant split and indulgences were addressed. There was no sides being taken or anything of the sort).

Relatedly, I am now an antitheist.

I'm an atheist too. I was hardly raised religiously and yet I've been reading about pretty much every mythology you can think of since I was 9 or 10. My favourites were always the Hellenic stories, but I also liked Roman ones (and took Latin for this reason).

I'll tell you something: in high school religious education was one of my favourite classes. We had an excellent teacher. He, too, was a Catholic. It was entirely possible for him to separate the teaching of religion from the teaching of students. He has, never, in any way, attempted to indoctrinate any of us. He was ridiculously open minded. He willingly taught us about a religion he himself had barely even studied and that cost him ages to read up on. It is entirely unfair, in every way, to state that religion cannot be taught as a subject in schools without indoctrinating people.

It's happened for me, it's happened for others and since it is such a pervasive element of culture it is plain wrong to state this.

And mind you I was at a Catholic school not a public one (it was an open catholic school though, so technically religion didn't matter for entering)

 

[shy ♡]

Tarvos, from what you've said it seems like you weren't raised to be religious. There is a marked difference between raising a kid to know about their parents' religion and raising them religious.

For example; parents have a set of ideals for their kids. 'Don't kill, don't steal, don't smoke', etc. and they pass these ideals onto their children. For some, religious belief is as important as these things. If their children are not religious, it's as if they've committed murder; their parents have failed in their intention to raise their children 'correctly' because they haven't passed on the 'correct' beliefs.

Clearly not all religious families are like this. This is how I was raised, but I don't expect all religious parents are like this; yours don't seem to have been. But the difference seems to be that your parents didn't see their religion as being a core aspect of their personality or beliefs that they had to pass unto you in order for you to be a good person. Mine did. And that is indoctrination.

Also, Vixie said she's an antitheist, not an atheist. There's a difference. Another also, no one said religion cannot be taught in school without indoctrinating people; in fact it's pretty much agreed that religion should be taught in schools, but not as a required course.

Since you appear to enjoy anectodes, here's one for you. Over here in Israel, it's required that you take 5 separate Torah classes for your entire school experience. Five separate classes; navi, torah, chumash, and idek the rest. Different parts of the Torah and whatnot. And yes, they're all taught as fact. And there are zero classes teaching evolution. Not even an elective course. Nothing. I call this indoctrination.

 

[Tarvos]

Tarvos, from what you've said it seems like you weren't raised to be religious. There is a marked difference between raising a kid to know about their parents' religion and raising them religious.

For example; parents have a set of ideals for their kids. 'Don't kill, don't steal, don't smoke', etc. and they pass these ideals onto their children. For some, religious belief is as important as these things. If their children are not religious, it's as if they've committed murder; their parents have failed in their intention to raise their children 'correctly' because they haven't passed on the 'correct' beliefs.

My parents don't consider themselves religious anymore, I believe. I am very sure my mother does not at least. My father... he's not religious, he's not atheist, I think he just says the "subject of God isn't worth discussing because there's nothing meaningful you can say about it", but I don't think he thinks a God affects daily life either

Also, Vixie said she's an antitheist, not an atheist. There's a difference. Another also, no one said religion cannot be taught in school without indoctrinating people; in fact it's pretty much agreed that religion should be taught in schools, but not as a required course.

Why not? It's so pervasive around the world that history of religion and religious ideas/other philosophy as a required course seems to be a very useful subject to me

Since you appear to enjoy anectodes, here's one for you. Over here in Israel, it's required that you take 5 separate Torah classes for your entire school experience. Five separate classes; navi, torah, chumash, and idek the rest. Different parts of the Torah and whatnot. And yes, they're all taught as fact. And there are zero classes teaching evolution. Not even an elective course. Nothing. I call this indoctrination.

I know Israel sucks for religion. I heard they passed a law over there giving rabbis the power to determine whether couples should divorce or some shit. If I wanted religious indoctrination, I'd send my children there.

And what I was trying to say is: you can be taught about religion, as mythology, not as truth. Pretty much just an anecdote to back up what Bachuru said. And my school was based on the ideals of a Catholic cardinal. Clearly it was a school based on religious foundations, but they accepted all religions as students

 

[shy ♡]

Why not? It's so pervasive around the world that history of religion and religious ideas/other philosophy as a required course seems to be a very useful subject to me

I know Israel sucks for religion. I heard they passed a law over there giving rabbis the power to determine whether couples should divorce or some shit. If I wanted religious indoctrination, I'd send my children there.

And what I was trying to say is: you can be taught about religion, as mythology, not as truth. Pretty much just an anecdote to back up what Bachuru said. And my school was based on the ideals of a Catholic cardinal. Clearly it was a school based on religious foundations, but they accepted all religions as students

Religion should not be taught as a required course because there is no reason for it to be a required course. It's not truth, so forcing people to learn it is wrong when they could be learning things that are factual and useful. There are enough kids dropping out of school because there's too much, no need for them to have to do unnecessary crap.

As Jews you need approval from the rabbis to get a Jewish divorce, meaning you need both a regular divorce and a Jewish divorce 'in the eyes of god'. Or actually you just need the Jewish divorce to please god, but need a legal divorce for legal reasons. So, yeah. I don't know if the rabbis actually deny anyone asking for a divorce, but it is pretty shitty. But it happens in the US too - if you want a Jewish divorce, that is. Anywhere you want a Jewish divorce, you need to go through a rabbi, so. Eh.

 

[Tarvos]

Good God I hope if I ever marry my current girlfriend we'll forego this whole Jewish marriage thing then, haha. Now that is a bunch of nonsense, first class.

As for the classes, I disagree, I think it's good as a "general knowledge base" but that's just me being a nitpick.

 

[Zuu]

Religion should not be taught as a required course because there is no reason for it to be a required course. It's not truth, so forcing people to learn it is wrong when they could be learning things that are factual and useful. There are enough kids dropping out of school because there's too much, no need for them to have to do unnecessary crap.

there are required literature courses and to some degree music courses. would you say that these are unnecessary because they are not "factual" or "useful" (in the way that you would use math)?

 

[shy ♡]

there are required literature courses and to some degree music courses. would you say that these are unnecessary because they are not "factual" or "useful" (in the way that you would use math)?

Haha I think I'm the wrong person to ask, seeing as I dropped out of fourth grade.

 

[dolphinfish]

At the documentary - funny story, they have "Jesus Camp"-esque events for adults too. In fact, I've been to like five of them. I think I was twelve when my mom converted to Charismatic, and ended up at a bunch of her, erm, 'Camps'. (They call them conferences, usually.) And at all of them you're encouraged to bring your kids, despite the fact that no one ever sets up childcare. And since both of my parents totally bought into the whole 'teach your children the real truth! The Bible/God [insert probable BS here]' deal.

So I can attest that "those poor children" is not the first thing you need to be saying. (Not until later, when they discover that they really, actually have no social skills whatsoever.) I would suggest you start with teaching them how real people talk. Because only really 'christian' people use terms like "the flesh" and "the spirit' and 'love on you'. (xD I know way too many people who say 'God just wants to love on you.' Scary thought. Your supposedly all-powerful, invisible deity wants to, erm, make love? How would that work? And wouldn't it end in me dying?) (I also would like to say that Levi from the documentary most definitely got all the abuse a Christian kid can dole out for that special attention from the pastor people. And Christian kids are really abusive.) And yes, there are lots of people like that lady. They are all well-endowed and they are all creepy. Also, they wear more makeup than the average supermodel - except that supermodels know how to put makeup on.

Anyway, I'll contribute to the debate now.

I definitely don't mind the idea of religion being presented to children at a young age by their parents, mostly because there is absolutely nothing we can do about and having it be presented as an idea - not absolute truth - makes it knowledge, not a conviction that will have to be carefully extracted later. (Personally, I learned about evolution from my dad ranting about how wrong it is. But I learned about it at least.) If you're not indoctrinated to professing something as absolute truth, then converting to whatever religion you feel actually applies to reality can be painless-ish. (Whereas if you're Catholic they tell you that you can never actually un-Catholic yourself. And also that no other religion or religion subgroup will accept their Catholicization as reality.)

 

[Phantom]

I definitely don't mind the idea of religion being presented to children at a young age by their parents, mostly because there is absolutely nothing we can do about and having it be presented as an idea - not absolute truth - makes it knowledge, not a conviction that will have to be carefully extracted later.

I was force fed Catholicism since I was four. That Catholic elementary school taught only Catholicism, there was never a mention of other religions, hell I remember when 9/11 happened kids asked "What's a Muslim?"

You generalise that it's presented as an idea, but we were taught no alternative. I remember that there was this girl who got expelled because her family was Wiccan and other parents thought she and her family were witches. (True story as my parents were, sadly, the ringleaders of that)

So is it ok when kids are forced into a religion with no alternative options? As a Catholic we are baptized as babes, so no choice in that, and generally receive First Communion, or Eucharist around second grade, usually coupled with first Confession, and by 8th or 9th grade we get Confirmed.

If you're not indoctrinated to professing something as absolute truth, then converting to whatever religion you feel actually applies to reality can be painless-ish. (Whereas if you're Catholic they tell you that you can never actually un-Catholic yourself.

But that's not usually what happens. "Un-Catholic"? Is that a term? Oh there are ways to get removed from the Catholic Church... Though getting yourself Excommunicated is kinda hard.

 

[hopeandjoy]

You can just ask your priest to take you off the register, for starters. And I believe you're only on it after your Confirmation. Don't quote me on the last part, though.

 

[Phantom]

Eh, I've asked my priest numerous times. I am starting to think he is hopeful I will change my mind as he hasn't told me anything. But I've heard of people being denied when they requested to be "taken off the roster" so to speak.

I had my Confirmation in 2006.

 

[Pwnemon]

um, even if you're never "un-catholiced" as you say, does it matter at all? i mean, if you stop attending church and all that jazz does it make a difference. it's not like being baptized as a child is a horribly traumatic experience.

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

If you join the Socialist Party and then become an anarchist, does it matter at all if the Party refuses to take you off their register? If you are born Mormon and convert to Muslim, does it matter at all if the LDS Church refuse to take you off their register? Of course it does, don't be ridiculous. Why wouldn't it matter if you reject a belief system and that belief system continues to claim you as its own? You do realise that there are blacklists of people who are in various organisations available to governments, universities and corporations, right? Not being removed from groups you are no longer a member of can have a serious effect on your life.

 

[Ether's Bane]

um, even if you're never "un-catholiced" as you say, does it matter at all? i mean, if you stop attending church and all that jazz does it make a difference. it's not like being baptized as a child is a horribly traumatic experience.

*facepalm*

 

[Zuu]

thoughts on deism?

 

[Karkat Vantas]

thoughts on deism?

I'm personally deist, because why the fuck not.

 

[Zuu]

well the reason i ask is that i am practically on the verge of declaring myself deist but i have my reservations (mostly in how rational i'm being, since i'm more or less "convinced" that there is/was an Architect but i'm not sure that it's sensible) so i wanted some thoughts from a) atheists, b) deists, or c) whatever.

i appreciate the response though!