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Nice post Mordant, but I sorta lost track..judging by the mother Theresa thread...what? That nobody could be objective? I could be. I'd pound her and her bloody church into the ground in front of a goggling classroom with the utmost impartiality.
If Christianity didn't come out looking good...it would be allowed to teach about other religions?
On the MT thread, many folks are demonstrating an even more egregious than usual willingness to grant religion a free pass and to consider any skepticism or criticism as literally sacrosanct. To the point where someone raising issues with MT's life and ministry to have no possible motive other than "hatred".
In the situation I pointed out where a whole east coast school district has been shut down due to a kerfuffle about a calligraphy class that gave an example of Arab calligraphy that happened to be the Muslim statement of faith -- the dimbulb the media keeps broadcasting an interview of is a mother who was SHOCKED that this teacher tried to CONVERT her children to ISLAM and by god she is taking a STAND FOR CHRIST.
If they can consider copying a calligraphy sample that is a bunch of meaningless squiggles on paper to the kids doing the assignment, with no mention in sight of Muslim ideology, to be proselytization and PROOF POSITIVE that the teacher is a COVERT MUSLIM ... then I would expect similar problems should we try to introduce a UK style system of religious instruction in the US. We Americans can't handle the truth unless maybe Christianity gets a completely uncritical presentation that suggests that the world would be a dark and Nihlistic despairing place without it ... and the other religions are portrayed as having lost the battle of ideas and been swept aside by a clearly superior formulation of faith.
I took a college World Religion class taught by a Christian pastor. He would repeatedly say that there was no logic in any religion except Christianity.
How unfortunate.
I also took a world religion class in college, was also taught by a Christian pastor. His teachings were about the religions, how and when they started, the tenants and terminology forums within. NEVER did he preach his religion. In fact, he kept his religion a secret until the last few weeks of the semester.
I figured he was a Christian based on statistics, however, from his manner of talking about the different religions, I think he was a closet Buddhist.
Anyone of any religion, or irreligious, who can teach without attempting to convert, convince or have a sway towards a specific religion is qualified to do so. I see this sort of class more like a history class focused on religion, just like an art or music history class.
Teaching should not be preaching. Stick to dates, places, influential people, traditions and the core beliefs- and everything will be fine.
I took a college World Religion class taught by a Christian pastor. He would repeatedly say that there was no logic in any religion except Christianity.
What did you think about him pushing his religious agenda in a World Religion class?
I took a World Religion class in college as an elective. It was taught by an Atheist in the making. He had no personal agenda to try and sway us with.
Sure it can. You can teach religions as part of history class or literature (the holy texts) class. I even had some stories from the Bible as part of my English class in high school. We were supposed to treat it as a work of literature, nothing more and nothing less.
Or art history. Or philosophy.
In fact, any course in these subjects that completely omits religion would be fundamentally lacking.
I took a college World Religion class taught by a Christian pastor. He would repeatedly say that there was no logic in any religion except Christianity.
Well, he stepped across the line a bit there! But do you think his coverage of non-christian religions was adequate and reasonably fair?
We probably all know about the silliness coming out of Virginia about the world religion class that used the opening verse of teh Koran in an exercise of writing a foreign language, yada, yada, yada...
So I started wondering who would be the best person to teach a world religion class in high school (or even college)?
Would an atheists? A Wiccan? Could a evangelical christian teach such a class?
I wonder if a world religion class can ONLY be taught by a revolving staff where a representative of each religion is brought in to teach that unit?
Can religion be taught in a way that is neither demeaning or proselyting?
People who aren't literal minded can teach it. That's it.
By the way, being 'not literal minded' is the same thing as not being a complete idiot. In other words, intelligent people can teach religion in a constructive way. But idiots cannot. I don't personally find that idea to be revolutionary, but for some maybe it is.
Quite the opposite. You cannot teach religion with only a literal comprehension. One could say that the strictly literally-minded are by definition incapable. To do an effective job at teaching world religions it is essential to be able to relay the passions behind each religion, and specifically be able to relay the passions behind each equally.
This insistence on dumbing everything down so it has no significance, has no meaning, blinds people to the reality. Art, religion, culture, history, sociology, archaeology, even politics - these are topics about people - about human beings. Washing away the humanity from these topic just leaves behind ignorance of what's truly important.
What's needed isn't de-human-ization. What's needed is affirmation of the worth of all humanity. The only thing that needs to be suppressed is the bias for that which is one's own and the bias against that which is of the other.
An atheist has a vested interest in selling these religions as bunk. Pass.
Ditto for the last one, because it not only flies in the face of letting kids decide, but it's frankly unconstitutional.
The first one's stupid. And not Christian for the same reason as the atheist.
Which leaves either just letting whoever teach if they can do it in a way that isn't proselytizing, or having a real Buddhist talk about Buddhism. Doing this would actually cause kids to pursue their own faith and not have Christians or atheists choose for them.
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