The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

And how much more would your child have learned in a comparative religions class focusing on the religions of the world? That's part of my point.

(Social studies classes are very unlikely to cover, say, modern Paganism. They are very unlikely to more than trivially cover Quakerism or Mormonism, both of which have had a substantial effect on various parts of the US at different times. Or the equivalents elsewhere, I'm guessing.

The way social studies classes cover Catholicism is often atrocious bordering on libellous, in terms of conveying accurate information about the modern religion - I've noted on here before that I experienced far more overt *nasty* harassment as an active Catholic in high school and college in New England than I ever have as a Pagan.)

I don't think comparative religion should be a required class - but I do think it's a valuable elective to offer, and that having it present in the school can encourage important conversations.

I'm reminded of a conversation at the school I worked at mentioned earlier in this thread where I walked by a table of boys in the library who were actively engaged in really good discussion about how their respective religions dealt with something. I wasn't trying to overhear, but I was working on re-labelling magazine shelves in the area, so I was near them for about 20 minutes.

I know one was Hindu (very much a minority in that particular area), one was Protestant, one was culturally but not very religiously Jewish (his self-identification) and I forget the last. And they were having that conversation because of a speaker who'd been brought in for the comparative religions class, which I think none of them were even *taking*, but they were continuing a conversation started at lunch with a friend who was in the class. (This was about 7 years ago now, but I think the speaker was talking about misassumptions about religions, and the speaker was from a religion that was not widely known.)

That's a pretty cool feat of education. And it doesn't happen if you don't spend time saying "Hey, let's talk about this." Or if you don't have time in the curriculum to bring in people from religions who would get glossed over in any course that's also trying to jam in history and geography and economic structures and literature and art and music and so on.

Again, I'm not arguing for a class called 'religious education' (I agree, that families and religious communities should do their own, in terms of 'how are you a member of this religion'.)

Comparative religion, however, is an academic area that is about how religions work (both on their own, and in context of each other) and it is just as reasonable to offer it as to offer electives in economics or psychology or sociology (all of which that school also offered).

(I'd also argue that general religious literacy is highly beneficial to the community at large, though very sadly lacking. That's a whole other conversation, though.)

Yes, and I'll bring my big Book O' Shadows.

Sounds like a plan to me!

Let's really give the fundies coronaries!

And please believe me when I say the kids here are not short-changed on depth in exchange for bredth. I can send you the grade 8 Social Studies curriculum if you like and you will see it does not skip over anything.

Sounds like a plan to me!

Let's really give the fundies coronaries!

That's a trap? I don't want to ban religion or force it to be private. Only thing I want to ban is the Christian dominion on public expression of religion.

Where I live you don't get classes like that until you go to college. Assuming you actually go to the few public colleges here and not for one of the many private, Christian colleges here in my part of Virginia. At my school, we even have a Religious Studies minor that teaches you about various religion and their texts. I think the best my high school had was a college-level Humanities course. I had a few friends take it and they said the teacher was open minded and people were allowed and even encouraged to learn about different religions. One of my friends even did a paper on Satanism for the class.