Did you recieve mandatory religious education at any point of your life?

[VetLegion]

Well, I was mildly surprised learning that Greece has mandatory religious education. Up until now, I thought that was stuff for fundies and their ilk, but I guess it can happen anywhere.

In any case, I consider it an atavism, a remnant of past, a sign of backwardness. (How the hell is it even constitutional? Most constitutions in most countries guarantee religious freedoms!)

But now I learn that FINLAND also has mandatory religious education!!! What the HELL is that, how did that happen?? When?? Why??

And ... who else? I dread to ask, but is there a European Bible Belt too? . Spanning from Finland through... Poland? (could be) and all the way down to Greece? What countries comprise it?

I'm waiting for your responses with trepidation here, for I fear the number may be larger than I thought. At least I know France is not one of them

Proudly stating for Croatia: religious education exists in primary and secondary schools, but it is NOT mandatory. Everyone attends only because of social pressure, especially in small communities where you can't afford to stand out.

[Buck Birdseed]

It's part of the compulsory curriculum in sweden from secondary-level onwards. It's nominally a kind of "comparative sociology/anthropology of religions" course but in practice tends to be taught by rabid free-church (radical protestant) nutcases, often in cardigans.

I left Sweden age 11, thank god, and so missed out on that crap.

[Kontiki]

Certainly isn't mandatory in Canada.

[chequita guevara]

Yep. We had one hour a week in our schools where we were shipped off to church. It wasn't exactly mandatory, but it was strongly encouraged. This was in a public school and was clearly unconstitutional, and resulted in my becoming religious for about a decade of my life.

[laurentius]

from the other thread:

Originally posted by VetLegion


Man, that's like, Saudi Arabia. And Greece. Crazy.

Sadly, but I have to demote Finland in my eyes from No 1 county on Earth to "a place to visit and laugh at the fundies"

Well things aint so bad yet.

On the religion lessons pupils are taught to respect other religions and they are taught about muslims, jews, hindus and buddhists in a very respecting manner. So its not just about christianity, its more of a broader scan to the world of religion. And its mandatory to everyone who is officially ev. lut. Orthodox pupils have religion lessons of their own but catholics, muslims, atheists et all get to go to these ethics classes instead. That pissed me off since I already knew quite alot about the other religions and really wanted to learn non-religios ethics, universal moral values, philosophers, human rights and international relief work. That would have been interesting...it was taught by our schools philosophy teacher.

Another reason was because our religion teachers nickname was "the crusifier"

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Yep. We had one hour a week in our schools where we were shipped off to church. It wasn't exactly mandatory, but it was strongly encouraged. This was in a public school and was clearly unconstitutional, and resulted in my becoming religious for about a decade of my life.

You must be talking about what in NYC was called "released time" - catholic kids could leave school early once a week, to get religious training on church grounds, of course, and we Jewish kids got to stay and have fun (of course OUR religious school was AFTER school hours) It WAS constitutional, IIUC, since no public funds were involved, and nothing happened on school grounds. I dont know what the social pressures were within the CATHOLIC community, but obviously no non-Catholics were part of this.

[Patriqvium]

Well, Finland has an Evangelic Lutheran state church (that's right, no state-church separation for us) which has a few anachronistic powers like the right to collect a church tax from all members of the Church and private enterprises operating in Finland (even though all of their staff would be non-members, which is kind of amusing)

As another result, we have semi-mandatory religious education both in comprehensive school and senior high - any pupil/student who's not a church member attends the non-denominational and non-religious "elämänkatsomustieto" (lit. view of life knowledge) where they supposedly study the thinking of various philosophies and religions. What the religious studies involve seems to be depend quite much on the teacher: I for instance had mostly Biblical history and a few lessons on world religions in comprehensive school, but I've also heard stories of fouled-up fundie teachers who tell the kids that all "pagans" (kids who don't belong to the church) go to hell and so on.

The new law on freedom of religion changed this so that you can actually choose which one to study (before, non-members had a chance to pick religious studies, but members weren't allowed to study Elämänkatsomustieto, which was kind of unfair to them). I went with the religious lessons, since the Finnish church is very watered-down and liberal in its views and the single mandatory course was mostly about the worldly history of the Bible and Judeo-Christianism, so it wasn't that unappealing and the Elämänkatsomustieto lessons were kept only late in the afternoons because of the small number of people attending (89 percent of Finns still belong to the church, mainly because of tradition - I no longer do)

Edit: Since the Orthodox church also has the status of a state church alongside the Lutheran one, they have their own religious lessons - these were mostly kept in one school for all Orthodox pupils in town a few times per month. Other registered religious minorities, such as Moslems, have the right to have their own lessons (so I've heard) if they have enough pupils in a school - I think the minimum was five or so.

[laurentius]

This "elämänkatsomustieto" is what I refer in my post as "ethics". I didnt know that nowadays you could pick wich one to study, thats great improvement

[Locutus]

In the Netherlands there's a 'Life Philosophies' class in early secondary school that's officially mandatory (but often neglected). It's much like laurentius describes: it teaches students to respect other religions and gives a crash course on many religious and also non-religious world views: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, New Age, the teachings of Bhagwan and other cults, Scientology, atheism, etc, etc... It introduces all these and other world views and challenges students to not take anything for granted but think for themselves and choose or form whichever world view suits them best.

It's IMO one of the few actually useful courses in secondary school and should be compulsory everywhere

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Certainly isn't mandatory in Canada.

Yeah, but French is (or was) - not much different.

[laurentius]

Originally posted by Locutus


It's IMO one of the few actually useful courses in secondary school and should be compulsory everywhere

While I agree to certain extend the problem for me personally was that it wasent possible to attend both to these classes. You had to pick either one and also to leave the church if you wanted to take "life philosophy/ethics" instead or relion centered studies.

[General Ludd]

My teacher once mentioned something that was in the bible.

[BeBMan]

No, but in when I was a school kid in Eastern Germany they teached pro communist stuff - does that count?

[Locutus]

Originally posted by laurentius
While I agree to certain extend the problem for me personally was that it wasent possible to attend both to these classes. You had to pick either one and also to leave the church if you wanted to take "life philosophy/ethics" instead or relion centered studies.

IMO the class I had was more important for religious people to take than for unreligious ones, as generally speaking religious people tend to be more narrow-minded (though obviously there are plenty of exceptions on both sides). So people shouldn't have to choose, it should be compulsory for ALL.

Of course, that's never gonna actually happen in the real world...

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by dejon


Yeah, but French is (or was) - not much different.

True - but looking back at it now, I'm glad it was.