surreptitious57 wrote:
I am all in favour of religion being taught in schools but
providing that it is done as a humanity and not as a science
I am also in favour of all variations in all spectrums - religious
political, philosophical, economic - being taught so that pupils are
aware of such differences. But teachers should not over step the mark
and impose their own interpretation. And this applies equally to atheists as
well as theists. Pupils should be taught how to think, not what to think beyond
basic factual information. It is the job of the teacher to educate not to indoctrinate
and most probably avoid that anyway. But once a pupil leaves the class, and returns home
they can have everything they learnt dismissed. Yet parents too have a responsibility to educate
Well personally I tend to think that that anything can be a science, where science refers to systematic
study, or a subject-area that has its own internal systematic structure. After all, we freely use the
terms political science and social science, I really do not see anything particularly controversial
about the scientific study of the sciences of religion. Theology is a legitimate academic
subject in its own right, and from what I gather is intellectually very demanding.
As for teachers 'overstepping the mark' as you call it ('imposing their own
interpretation') I don't think you've really hit the nail on the head of
what you're trying to say. After all, we expect maths and physics
teachers to teach their interpretation most of the time, I really
don't see what's so controversial about teachers of theology
teaching from their own perspective. And again I think
you have a very arbitrary boundary between what is
education and what is indoctrination. Personally I
think in principle the two things are exactly the
same. No one has a monopoly of truth, surely?