Primary school children should be taught about obscure religions that believe plants have souls and the dead must be eaten by vultures, according to government guidance.
I know that my view won’t be very popular, but frankly who cares anymore what is taught in Religious Education. The fact of the matter is, that true Christian education should be the preserve of the family and the church. It is not the responsibility of a publicly funded education system to pump out Christians.
I did note that among the ‘obscure religions’ to be taught as part of ‘Religious Education’, we can find secular humanism. This raises a couple of interesting questions in my mind such as, why have the government opted to include Humanism in religious education?
Are we to conclude that Secular Humanism’ is in fact a religion, and if it is, how does this impact their war on religion? As Humanists favour the removal of religion from the educational environment, will they be asking for Humanism to be removed from this governmental guidance.
Or is it perhaps that our children simply need to know why all religion is crap, from the Humanist worldview?
Some Christians will be up in arms over all of this (as usual), but for me personally, I learned nothing of Christianity from my Christian RE teacher and looking at my sons school work, it might be better all round if the public education system removed religious education altogether.
This is from my sons school RE book:-
Christians have been responsible for two millenia of suppressing women and Christians believe that if they are good they will go to heaven.
Islam was cited as bringing science and mathematics to humanity.
Uh huh!
If you have stumbled onto this blog please do take a few moments to read the following piece:- Echoes of GodChildren as young as five to learn about minority faiths
Primary school children should be taught about obscure religions that believe plants have souls and the dead must be eaten by vultures, according to government guidance.
Ministers are recommending that pupils as young as five learn about minority faiths – some of which have a few thousand British followers – alongside Christianity and Islam.
Areas of study in the first religious education programme for primaries include humanism, the faiths of Baha’i, Zoroastrianism and Jainism along with Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Christianity.
But critics have condemned the guidance as ‘educational nonsense’ and a ‘multi-faith mish-mash’.
The programme is not mandatory but is likely to be taken up by most primaries and will mean children learning beliefs such as the Zoroastrian tradition that the dead should be eaten by vultures.
Jains believe in non-violence and think that all animals and plants have souls, each of which are of equal value.
The Baha’i faith teaches followers that all religions have valid origins and has laws prohibiting alcohol, drugs, adultery and party politics.
Tags: Christianity, Education
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Wise words. Thank you. And I too have been appalled by what has been taught to my children about religion. Indeed, as a former Christian, now Humanist, I have found myself in the bizarre position of having to explain more clearly some of hugely oversimplified or plain wrong ideas about Christianity that they have been given. Never thought I’d be doing that!
But it does not worry me that they are taught about religion. Education should provide children the confidence to make up their own minds on this and other important topics.
And no, I’m sure fellow Humanists do not regard it as a religion. Perish the thought!
Curiously, perhaps a better way to recruit new believers might be to ban religious studies from the curriculum. With their rebellious nature, teenagers would probably flock to join!
February 8th, 2010 at 3:11 am
I like Jim’s logic. “A better way to recruit new believers might be to ban religious studies from the curiculum.” Teenagers are rebellious by nature.
April 5th, 2010 at 12:26 am
“The Baha’i faith teaches followers that all religions have valid origins and has laws prohibiting alcohol, drugs, adultery and party politics.”
Wow! How wacky is that? Wouldn’t want our kids being brainwashed with this dangerous nonsense (!)