Hello,

I was thinking why is it that only Christianity is taught in school classes labeled as "Religious Education".

If it was "Religious Education" you should be taught about all religions (eg: Pagan religions, Islam, Judaism, ect. ect. the list goes on) from a non-biased point of view not just Christianity, which it was at my primary school and the primary schools of all my friends (I live in Queensland, Australia by the way).

What is your view on all this, is it different in your country?


Joric.

PS: The schools weren't christian schools either.

not in the UK, we get taught everything but christianity, so we "get to know are community" RUBBISH!!!!!!!

It depends on where you live and what the major religions are in your area. But overall i would say there is a bias towards teaching christianity in the U.S and it defiantly should not be that way.

I think religion just shouldn't be taught in school.
But, you have a point, if it's called "Religious Education" then it should teach about all religions, not just Chirstianity.

Ive always been taught about all religions. No "just christianity." But everything.

LOL in my school we get taught nothing but chrstianity so we get to know the people

For my old school we had to do R.S up until the end of year 11.

We studied Christianity in depth more than others because it was the easiest to get the highest grades on, but I think secretly we did it because our teacher was a Christian.


Hate.

We also have to remember that the United States was founded upon the principles of Christianity - so while some of us may be adverse to the teachings, it is what our founding fathers had invisioned when they wrote the constitution.

in Brazil only catholic schools teach religion, with nuns, chapel and everything, and they are private schools (whitch means that if a kid is there it's because the parents want it)

it's the church, mosque, camdombles, or whatever is the place's name where people 'practice' their religion, that teaches it, not public schools.

I am a muslim. They only taught about islam for two days after 9-11 to stop us all from getting killed. It's all hypocrisy.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

-Treaty of Tripoli 1797

To add to that, the majority of the Founding Fathers were Deists, and not practicing Christians.

i am an agnostic. I don't believe there is a god but i can't deny the possibility cause i can't disprove it. I still enjoy learning about religions because they are a rich and interesting part of all cultures. I am learning about religions now and we first learned about hinduism, then buhddism, then judism, then christianity, then muslim. Tha's kinda cause thats the order they popped up

Islam came before Christianity.
At least I think.
Meh. I don't care.

No. Christianity started a few years after Jesus died.
Muhammad invented Islam and he was born in 570 AD.

Correct. Muhammed was the son of a merchant and became familiar with Judaism and Christianity during his trips further to the north. He based his teachings on these stories, which became the Qur'an. The official start date of Islam is 622, when Muhammed moved from Mekka to Yathrib. This city was from then on called Medina ('city of the prophet')

in order:
1º Judaism
then came Jesus,...and we all know this part of history.
2º Christianism
after that, cristianism was divide in catholic, protestant, etc... but lets came back to the desert...
here came Muhammad, God revealed the Qur'an to him, and....
3º Islam
some time after, it was slip in Sunni and Shi'a Islam.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
it's nice to note that all of them say exactly the same history, but with different interpretations and focus (some give more importance to some 'details' that other religion don't, and some interpret the same phrase in different ways, etc).

This is very true.

Id seriously prefer if they didn't bring religion into school, but i guess i wouldn't care.

No, they don't.
Christians believe Jesus died and rose again 3 days later. We believe he was the Son of God. Jews, however, believe he was merely a man. Same with Islam, they believe he was a prophet, who did not die.

Judaism came before Hinduism and Buddhism. Christianity came before Hinduism, Buddhism, and Muslim. Muslim came before Hinduism and Buddhism.

Buddhism was started about 2500 years ago, that was way before christianity. And Hinduism people are unsure of it's origin but it is considered very likely to have come before Judaism. Not sure what you are talking about.

Prince Siddharta Gautama (Buddha) was born around 560 B.C., so that makes Buddhism way older than Christianity and Islam. Judaism however is older.
Hinduism is based on the Vedas (collections of hymns), the oldest is the Rigveda, whose oral tradition goes back to 1700 B.C., so that makes them older than Moses (if he ever existed)

you just said by yourself that all of them believe in Jesus, but in different ways.
like i said:
Same history, different points of view/interpretation/focus.

i think we should teach religion in schools, and if it the main religion of the country, that country has the right to teach it, not force it on to the students but to teach it to them.

christianism =)) lol. that made me laugh so much it's unbeleivable I to to a catholic school and in re we are taught about the worlds main religions: Islam, judaism, buddhism and all branches of Christianity

If religion isn't taught in school, society breeds idiots like you.

Christianity is taught the most because it builds up a large part of the world's religion along with Hinduism and Islam.

Um, well the public school system in California has teachers go over Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and other religions. At least in 6th and 7th grade.

I believe they should use this/these 1-2 hours to develop their critical mind.

We only got taught Christianity at GCSE.


Borrrrriiiiinnnngggggg.

You're an idiot.


Agreed.

I approve of this post.

I go to a christian school but I believe that we should learn other religions and theories so we don't look completely arrogant when discussing them. Before telling people their religion is wrong, I want to know exactly what's wrong in their religion. That is simply impossible for me to do when I'm only learning about Christianity.

how is this?

When I did R.E at school we covered Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism etc. As well as Christianity. I didn't really give a shit about learning about religion and what not but it was my best subject. And sorry about any possible spelling mistakes.

exactly, people need to learn to be open-minded to other religion. Most religions have the same morals (like loving eachother) so you shouldn't condemn them for simply not believing in your god or whatever

I cannot remember the first time I ever heard about god and the bible. I had grown up always knowing that god existed and I was a christian, because my school had drummed it into my head.

Don't you think that is terribly wrong? That we preach to children and make them believe in something that isn't true, all part of doctrinating them into our society? Children at young ages shouldn't be told about a fake god and forced to believe in anything other than what they want to believe in. Not once did I ever get told about anything other than Christianity. I had no choice, wether I was to be Athiest, Buddhist, Muslim etc. And they say Islam forces people into it's ranks?

Christianity is terribly corrupt and flawed in most respects, especially this one.

I went to a church of England school for primary school i can't remeber learining much about other religons I think we may learnt about Hinduism in year 2 but everyday for 30 minutes we talked about Christianity beliefs and stuff like that.
At the school i go to now we learn about alot more religions. But today in RE i did my german work, becuase i didn't want to do the coursework.

At school we only learn about Islam and Christianity. Boring as fuck.

Penis!

that's the only part that i agree.
cause no one can say if god is a fake or not.
the great problem is that some parents aren't very well instructed to how to teach religion to a child.
it's not about say "it's like this! the end, don't you dare to contradicted it, now go pray or you will go to hell!"
if the parents want their child to be from the same religion they have to teach how to love it, and love can't be forced. And it's also wrong to teaches the child how to hate others religions or atheism, so s/he will be from the religion the parents wants.

We learn about a wide range of religions in our school, but not in a 'preachy' way. I think it's important to learn the basics about other religions, so that your not completely ignorant about other peoples possible beliefs.

But, we have to take it for our GSCE's - It's an easy GCSE but i don't think that it should be compulsary at this stage...

I'm in a Catholic school so we mostly learn about Christianity and some Judaism.

i go to a catholic school. i didn't mind that we had minimal teaching on other religions. what i hated was the limited sex education. dangerous.

at my school (in england), we learn about christianity and islam
i think what you learn in a religious education lesson depends on the place you live in
for example, the environment i live in contains christians and muslims as there are churches and mosques
so therefore there would be not much point in learning about budism if there are no buddists living nearby
if you understand me..?
i also believe that students shouldn't be forced into taking r.e. as a subject
i think it should be an option whether you take it or not, because i have been learning about these religions for probably 6 or 7 years
and i feel that i don't need any more education on them
sorry about my rant, i just felt like getting it off my chest

Religion shouldn't be taught in school to be honest
I think it should be just Philosophy and Ethics.

If you dont mind me asking, how do you know thats true?

All my life i have been taught about other religions (I live in England)
I believe that it is important to learn about other religion, but it can make religion a school thing.
Personally i do not believe that there is a God, but i have no problem with people that do, but i find that those that try to change people's mind are awful.
People should be allowed to believe what they want
Personally i believe religion gives people false hope, life will never be how you want it to be.
If there was a God then why do the people you love the most and those that have only done good have to go.

It is good to know about other religions but not to be preached what you should believe, people should be allowed to choose to believe what they want


Also on another point religion should not be forced on children, it is not just schools it is also parents, parents should allow thier children to choose thier own way of life and not force them to believe something just because they believe something.
I have a friend that is relgious purely to make her parents happy and i think that is disgraceful.

i think that teaching religion in school is ok. to a point. i think that having it as a elective class(chosen by the student) is ok. but on that note i think all electives should require parental signature. i think that it should teach a wide variety of religions as well...and not only the beleifs of the religion but the origin so that its educational.

anywho.

school is not the place for religion...and if there are religion classes they should be optional