Magicziggy wrote:JimC wrote:Much ado about nothing, this thread...
Few if any are arguing that some form of education about religion should not be part of a curriculum, somewhere along the line...
Most would like no religious education by those who wish to indoctrinate the young, and certainly no creotard rubbish...
The only place for creationism is a lesson in how lies can be propagated. That's never going to happen. Although I would personally volunteer to deliver this aspect given the time to research and prepare:)
JimC wrote:
As I read it, Exi would like RE to be delivered by the deluded, because it is more existentially honest than some boring humanist droning on about the history of religion...
I read it that way too. I cringe at the thought of an advocate of a religion entering a school to present to kids.
JimC wrote:
Deep down, I resent anything in education which takes precious time away from quadratic equations and Newtonian mechanics...
Quadratics are rather elegant. I'm rather fond of rational functions myself.
If Religious Education dies out in British schools, I won't argue for its re-introduction as a specific subject. What I'm against is censorship in general and I am against censorship in schools. As I've said before, I think our society is strongly structured according to the religious principles of mainstream organised christianity: patriarchy, authority, fear and blind obedience are mainstays of capitalism and these principles are intimately connected to christianity.
Now I wouldn't want to deprive school students the knowledge to recognise these connections. Insisting that the teaching of 'comparative religion' should only be done by neutral, objective teachers does two things. For one thing, no one is neutral and objective, so I wouldn't want children getting the impression that something is the truth just because their teacher said it was. Secondly, it just isn't interesting enough, most of the time, to have subjects taught by people who do not bring their own passion to the teaching - and by their own passion, I mean their biased passion.
I'd have no objection to anybody going into a school to teach their specialism from any field. With subjects like chemistry and physics I'm sure the presence of chemists and physicists from outside the education system wouldn't be a problem for most people here, subject to the appropriate CRB checks. Similarly a holocaust survivor speaking in a history class, or a founder citizen of the state of israel, or a palestinian displaced by the west bank settlements - why on earth would such people be excluded from a classroom as visiting speakers on relevant subjects? I wouldn't exclude them. Obviously balance is important, but in principle living witnesses to history are far more interesting than some dull burnt-out history teachers.
Similarly, philosophy. I'd welcome the early teaching of philosophy and visiting speakers who are existentialists, marxists, classicists or objectivists. I don't see any special reason to censor religious speakers in comparative religion classes given that I would allow all these other speakers to speak. The biggest problem with getting any of these speakers from any field would be their availability. There aren't a lot of them but there are a lot of schools. But somewhere along the line we seem to have turned schools into a boundaried haven from the real world, and I think that's unhealthy and I think it should change.
Now I'll open this up to a lot of people who are keen to turn something I've said into something I haven't said....
