[Vision2020] Religious Knowledge Test Scores

Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Wed Sep 29 20:42:14 PDT 2010


While the wisdom of a class devoted solely to Religion in general as a
subject in K-12 schools can be debated, whether religion in general should
be taught in public K-12 schools in History and Sociology classes cannot be
realistically debated, unless advocating redacting history and social
science textbooks to an absurd degree.

Religion is a dominant force in history, and is an important subject of
study in the social and political sciences.  To comprehensively and
factually present human history, and the current composition and behavior of
society, politically, the nature of the family, gender and sexuality,
perception of science, human relations to Nature, attitudes towards nations
with a majority population of a different religion than the US majority
religion (though the US has an astonishing variety or religions practicing
within its borders), etc. mandates a wide ranging presentation of different
religions, what they believe, and how they behave based on these beliefs.

The only realistic question regarding teaching religion in K-12 schools is
whether or not an unbiased presentation of the facts regarding the role of
religions in human history, and the current sociology and politics of
religious belief and behavior, will be taught in K-12 schools, or will
biased and/or censored history, sociology and politics relating to religion
be taught.

I think a class devoted to the study of Religion should be taught at the
high school level, and any student in the high school should be allowed to
present their "religious beliefs" for discussion in the class, even if the
beliefs are out of the mainstream.  Then we would discover if the US is
really the land of the free and the home of the brave, with freedom of
religion and free speech rights aggressively defended in the education of
youth (who I know do not have full adult civil rights by law).

I suspect we would discover that the courage to allow freedom of religion
and speech for high school youth in K-12 schools would be met with
hysterical opposition by those who in reality want to force their particular
religion onto society, and especially onto their children, for whom they
would oppose exposure to competing religious thought, and the class would be
cancelled due to political and/or economic pressure on educational or
legislative authorities.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 9/28/10, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:
>
> One topic that has been breached and is becoming a major subject for
> debate is . . .
>
> Whether or not religion should be taught in public K-12 schools . . . not
> any specific religion, but religion in general.
>
> In my opinion, religion should NOT be taught in public schools.
>
> How would a teacher present a non-biased class on religion?
>
> Should this class reflect upon ALL religions?  If not, who/what is to
> decide what is, or is not, a religion?
>
> Thoughts, V-peeps?
>
> Tom Hansen
> Monterey, California
>
> "The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
> and the Realist adjusts his sails."
>
> - Unknown
>
>
>
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