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

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


We didn't get released early, it was after lunch, but before the end of the school day, so we had to return. IIRC, a school bus drove us to our individual churches.

IN NY they released them at 2 PM, and they didnt come back till the next day.

[Last Conformist]

Sd Buck said, Sweden has mandatory religion classes, which are at least theoretically conducted from a neutral comparative religion standpoint. Most of my teachers in it were Christians, but they on the whole did a good job of giving all covered religions a fair treatment (the chief exception being an atheist teacher who for some reason was very hostile to Ultraorthodox Judaicism). The textbooks were aggressively benevolent towards all religions.

[Frozzy]

Good old R.E...

certainly was compulsory when I was in England.

[Dry]

In Belgium, it was mandatory, but you had the choice between:
- catholic
- protestant
- jew
- islam
- orthodox (*)
- NoneOfTheAbove. Its was called 'morale'.

(*) Only in cities with an Orthodox community.

[Whaleboy]

Yes, we had to say prayers in lower school and middle school (Christian) which I always objected to, being the only Jew in the school I was trying to assert myself before I became an atheist.

My parents forced me into Jewish education, had to go to Sunday school (called Chedar) at the synagogue since the age of four until my Bar Mitzvah where I finally told them where to stick it, after cashing my cheques and hoarding the cake.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Yes, we had to say prayers in lower school and middle school (Christian) which I always objected to, being the only Jew in the school I was trying to assert myself before I became an atheist.

My parents forced me into Jewish education, had to go to Sunday school (called Chedar) at the synagogue since the age of four until my Bar Mitzvah where I finally told them where to stick it, after cashing my cheques and hoarding the cake.

Was your chedar anywhere near Cheddar? But gad these UK liberal Jews were old fashioned, i never hear it called chedar outside Orthodox circles.

[Richelieu]

Yes. I began school in 1970 and the whole education system in Quebec was just starting to come out from the Catholic church's coontrol. I had some mandatory religious courses in primary and secondary school but not every year. Early on they were named religion courses - and only ever presented Roman Catholic POV - but later, as Quebec built its own education system they were called social sciences or even "religious sciences". I had a few nuns and priests as teachers along the way. They're a rarity now i guess, if there are any left.

[Snotty]

Religious education class for 3 years from age 11-14 ish. Covered allsorts, but not too much about christianty. I remember learning about the lives of the Bushmen of the Kalahari and stuff like that. 15-16 it turned into a sociology GCSE course without much in the way of relgious over tones.

We sung hymns and stuff at the morning assembly, primary and secondary school (age7-16), but you could opt out of it on religious grounds if you wanted to.

[Sandman]

Yes, assorted hymns and stuff in primary school - you could opt out, but only theoretically, no-one did. The teachers seemed very serious about it.

Less of that at high school, although there was still some. In both cases, we sometimes had ministers from the various churches turn up and tell us why Easter was important, and stuff like that.

RE was heavily Christian-centric. I don't remember atheism being taught as an equally valid option - it most definitely should be. Only problem is, most RE teachers wouldn't want to, because they're 'spritual' people.

[Last Conformist]

I don't think RE should comment on the validity of various creeds at all.

[Sandman]

I don't think that there are many RE teachers who don't have a faith. They're about as likely a non-games player who is well informed about the console (and PC) wars.

edit- you say earlier in the thread that you had an atheist one: I'm wrong.

[Last Conformist]

Of the five I got thru, I know two were Christians, think one was, know that one was an atheist, and have no idea about the last one.

[Stefu]

Originally posted by laurentius
Orthodox pupils have religion lessons of their own

Yeah, I went to these. You don't know boredom until you've seen videotape about monks of the monastery of Valamo doing their daily activities. While the Lutherans were learning that boy howdy, there indeed was this fellow named St. Paul, we were learning about mother****ing onion domes. Endless onion domes. What the hell did we need the onion dome knowledge for, anyhow? I ASK YOU

But I can, at least thank the religion classes for this brilliant answer in grade school religion exam (paraphrased, it might have been someone other than JtB but idea's the same):

Q: What did John the Baptist do?
A: He baptized.

(Okay, it was 'he baptized and taught' but the 'taught' was clearly an afterthought.)

[Kassiopeia]

I had religion through grade 1 to grade 9 and took the religion courses in upper comprehensive/senior high (excuse me but I am loathe to compare it to an American high school) because they were more convenient that way, even though I haven't been a member of the church for a while now. My parents even threw me into a free religious daycare set up by the local parish for a few years, but miraculously I turned out a decent, God-eschewing citizen.

Originally posted by Patriqvium
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.

I have my own horror story to share - we had a "free church nutcase" as Buck so eloquently puts it in my school, a member of the local Pentecostalist church to be exact, teaching both in the comprehensive and upper secondary schools (they share the building). I was in comprehensive school at the time and didn't experience this, it was a secondary school class.

This was the year (I forget when, 5 years ago perhaps) when gay civil unions were being voted on in the parliament. The teacher opened up the TV set in class and asked the students to pray with her so that the MPs would vote against the bill and that it would not pass. This, of course, raised hell (excuse the pun) and we got rid of the mad bint soon after. Around the same time a group of 3rd year students managed to wrangle the school principal into allowing those who are not members of the church to excuse themselves whenever there's a "spiritual message" by a reverend in the school PA system.

I find it rather ironic - in the US, gay civil unions are being clamped down on hard, while here in the Jesusland of no separation of church and state, they're allowed.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Sandman
I don't think that there are many RE teachers who don't have a faith. They're about as likely a non-games player who is well informed about the console (and PC) wars.

Of course, I've never had classic RE classes, but the Life Philosophy classes that I had were usually given by either atheist or non-practicing christian teachers (which is pretty much what 70-80% of the population is over here).

And that while I attended a school which was officially catholic (but aside from some crosses decorating the older classrooms and a communal christmas celebration for which attendance was officially mandatory (but in practice skipping out was accepted, especially from known non-christian students) there was no real evidence of that).