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

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by kronic

Ehm...no, actually it's not. Are you from Bavaria?

Noone is forced to receive a religious education. You can normally choose beetween "Ethics" and a religious education.

Bavaria is different from the rest of Germany. They even pray in the morning and there are a lot of crucifixes in every public school. They are way backward...

Nope, NRW.
But it was 12 Years ago when I made my Abitur so things might have changed.
When I went to school AFAIK there never were any ethics courses;
if you were protestant you automatically went to protestant RelEd, if you were catholic youi received catholic RelEd and muslims were taught seperately by religious teachers of their belief (and had the hour where everyone else had Rel-Ed free).

But of course it is possible that also to this time your parents could go to the school administration and get their son/daughter out of religion classes.
But I never heard that anyone in my class (or parallel classes) did so.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Did you recieve mandatory religious education at any point of

Originally posted by Heresson
You were not borned as a pupil of this school, as You were borned as a citizen of your state.

Makes no difference. You can denounce your citizenship and go elsewhere.

[Heresson]

But You were borned in a reality, You're not chosing it in any way.

[Ben Kenobi]

I really wouldn't call what BC has (or had, I don't know if it's changed since I went through) religious education in the sense implied in this thread. It's not like you have to read Hindu scripture or learn any particulars of the Koran.

True. It's a small part of the social studies curriculum. However, we do learn about all the important parts of the 'major' religions other than Christianity. It seems to me that the basics of Christianity ought to be taught, if they are also teaching Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Confucianism, etc.

The assumption made that most kids are already familiar with the basic teachings of Christianity is false, given the general secularism of Canadian society.

[muxec]

It is mandatory in Bar-Ilan University Indeed you can just do the exam and resist propoganda aspects of it

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Once, our religion teacher had the very bad idea to actually make a test about what we know. This was our very first, only and successful collective strike. We all sat there and didn't fill in the paper, except for one strike breaker. Needless to say, our poor teacher had serious depressions after that by having finally completely understood her lack of power. In the 8 years I went to that school, two religion teachers went mental - and my school is among the best and most civilised...

And you got away with it?

Here, they'd tried and made you retake the test, and, failing that, given you failing grades across the board (which disadvantages when you apply to the next level of education).

[RGBVideo]

Two replies

Re: Original question:Yes!

Re: Pekka:

Originally posted by Pekka
some of you guys had some 'awesome' teachers

We had a great one... I thought of him as the best teacher in school. Our religion classes were the opposite of religious. It was very.. it's tough to say, his approach was so great. He was funny, I mean genuinely funny dude and smart. I think highly of him even today. We went through all the major and some not-so-major religions and took the same approach on them all. It was definitely NOT Christian biased classes. We didn't whip out the bible, not a single time. The only thing we talked about bible was when he taught us how it was made, who wrote it and how it was put together. That's it. We took more like a global look at religion, and sociological one. It was pretty interesting, plus he made it interesting so most of us enjoyed it in fact.

He also came up with his own remarks about some of the loopholes in all religions etc, and of course the victims of religions of all religions by war or by monsterous religious leaders etc. And also psychological victims of religions. Hey we even had Scientology. SO that's how seriously the religious side was religious. It was more .. like history classes. But he was still tasteful always, while making total fun of all religions, he never .. talked them down. We were taught to respect them all, by knowing what they are about, and how much they are alike, and how they all have their loopholes, and how they all this and that. We were taught by example, but more from sociological and historical point of view. We even had atheist approach. It was religion, in its pure form. Not about religion as in believing in something.

We took a look at most things in religion, also in their architecture at times, he once brought his vacation pics from all around the world and we looked at the buildings from different regions, it was fun. Once he took out a guitar, and we were like 'oh damn what's this', but he just started singing the OTHER songs like Bruce Springsteen's born in the usa!

But yeah, while being funny and mostly making us laugh, and beating on religions, he also taught about them so we were left with knowledge of religions, their similarities and differencies, histories etc, unbiased and respectfully. It's too bad some of you have had bad experiences.. I wouldn't want a fundie teaching my class. That's exactly what it isn't supposed to be.

Furthermore, I feel they were great classes, that should be considered as basic information for civilized people. It builds tolerance and mutual respect and understanding. It's cultural thing. Of course if you have some whacko teaching it, then it's just a waste of time and scaring people and christian mongering. that's what it's not about in here, in the mandatory classes.

I remember doing 3 presentations. One was of Rastafaris, major point being the weed of course, one I did from Wiccas, and one from.. Satanism. So there's your 'YOU GO TO HELL IF YOU DON'T TAKE THIS AS THE TRUTH!' type of classes.. at least we didn't.

You're a living success story of this kind of education, aren't you?

[VetLegion]

Yep, Pekka is a fundie

[Kuciwalker]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Did you recieve mandatory religious education at any poin

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Makes no difference. You can denounce your citizenship and go elsewhere.

So it's fine if the US made Christianity mandatory, cuz you can always leave? No, it doesn't work that way.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


True. It's a small part of the social studies curriculum. However, we do learn about all the important parts of the 'major' religions other than Christianity. It seems to me that the basics of Christianity ought to be taught, if they are also teaching Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Confucianism, etc.

The assumption made that most kids are already familiar with the basic teachings of Christianity is false, given the general secularism of Canadian society.

I seem to recall getting just about the same amount of information regarding Christianity - namely learning about Catholicism vs Protestantism, Martin Luther and what some of the primary differences among the various Christian denominations are. A glossing over, to be sure, but no more so than for any other religion.

[Proteus_MST]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Did you recieve mandatory religious education at any poin

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


So it's fine if the US made Christianity mandatory, cuz you can always leave? No, it doesn't work that way.

Such things would remind me of the good old (medieval) times,
where the King (Duke,Baron whatsoever) had the power to dictate the religion of his peasants.

[Heresson]

...and frogs

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Did you recieve mandatory religious education at any

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
So it's fine if the US made Christianity mandatory, cuz you can always leave? No, it doesn't work that way.

My point exactly. You couldn't really choose the school you go to, especially when you are underage. I reckon the parents have the final say in the matter.

[Kuciwalker]

The entire point of the thread was state-mandated religious education. By your reasoning, anyone who went to church at any point before they were 18 would have mandatory religious education.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
By your reasoning, anyone who went to church at any point before they were 18 would have mandatory religious education.

No. A church doesn't educate in the usual sense.