<div>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.</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>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).</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/28/10, <b class="gmail_sendername">Tom Hansen</b> <<a href="mailto:thansen@moscow.com">thansen@moscow.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">One topic that has been breached and is becoming a major subject for<br>debate is . . .<br><br>Whether or not religion should be taught in public K-12 schools . . . not<br>
any specific religion, but religion in general.<br><br>In my opinion, religion should NOT be taught in public schools.<br><br>How would a teacher present a non-biased class on religion?<br><br>Should this class reflect upon ALL religions? If not, who/what is to<br>
decide what is, or is not, a religion?<br><br>Thoughts, V-peeps?<br><br>Tom Hansen<br>Monterey, California<br><br>"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change<br>and the Realist adjusts his sails."<br>
<br>- Unknown<br><br><br></blockquote></div>