I was taught that Jesus rose from the dead , that humans will be god like and immortal , the world was flooded, moses parted the ocean and the world was created in 7 days. Women are made made from mens ribs and therefore lesser beings. That Jesus was good and all sorts of other garbage besides.

What it taught me was that such claims were ridiculous and the people who were pushing such garbage were not to be trusted. Upon investigation I later found the history of the cult was a history of violence and degradation. That all claims of moral standing are dishonest and meaningless.

By all means teach children about religion , the holy wars , the slavery , the subjigation of women , slavery , witch burning and inquisition , the sociopathic hatred of gays and sectarianism, the power struggle with realism , the anti democracy and the money farming of churches. Teach kids the truth , that god is a dubious fantasy articulated through superstition. Compare the Bible with others of its type , the Lord of the Rings , Harry Potter , Dune.

Just dont feed them the garbage that Christianists conspire to do. Kids need truth the opposite to god. Information is power and if we lie to children and brainwash them into believing in gods and fairylands we are disempowering them as adults.

Crazy Causes for Wars.....

Talking about preventing religous wars, if we don't look out if we attack Iran - and the surge that follows, we might soon be facing the most religous war the world has ever seen. Not only because George Dubya says the Islamists, especially the Iranians are such a religous war-mad lot, but Georgie Boy himself especially with that stormy-eyed Christian Right behind him, backed also by the Israeli Jews that the End-days mob have officially forgiven, will more than match the Islamics in some sort of cranky belief in an ever-after Sweet Existence that death in such a war might be for either.

Best pray that they both lose touch.

DavidJS , R0bert, West,
I must have misunderstood something. I though the point of this article was to give all students/parents – whatever their world view preferences were – a fair choice of a world view and ethics perspective in their education, whereas you all seem to advocate the replacement of a, compulsory for all, religious alleged indoctrination (as it is the case in some Muslim countries and was the case in the past in some then Christian countries) by a, compulsory (for all (except for those whose parents can afford a private school), anti-religious indoctrination. I am sorry for the misguided way you were taught by your teachers of (Christian?) religion but I doubt they would have spread so much hatred towards, and ignorance about, other beliefs as you demonstrate here.

I have been through all this: there was no religious education in the Stalinist schools I attended, only an endless litany about the “scientific world view” that anybody could claim if he/she replaced traditioinmal religion by marx-leninism that embraced many of the tenets propagated by you. I was lucky to have a university educated father who could easily counterbalance the arguments I heard at school, but not everybody had this advantage. The consequences of that can still be seen in Eastern Europe with its predominance of very naive Christians and even more naive atheists.

DavidJS, “how can the student demonstrate s/he has got it right” How can a student demonstrate that he got it right in a science subject, e.g. physics? By being able to memorise the laws he/she has been taught, apply them in very simple (e.g. laboratory or fictitious) situations, and accept that there are specialists who studied the subject for years, and have a deeper understanding of what it is all about than a high school kid could comprehend. “Jesus Christ rose from the dead ... that phenomenon hasn't been repeated lately”. Had it been, if would not have become the founding fact (or myth for you) of a religion that survived for 2000 years.

The laws of physics have nothing in common with belief systems such as Christianity. The theory of gravity, for example, has been tested and regarded as a valid theory which explains why objects fall. If a better theory came along then scientists worth their name would adhere to that theory.

Religions and Stalinist dogma require uncritical belief. Quite the opposite of science.

I must admit, after reading this article I was somewhat infuriated. I too had direct experience of religious instruction in both public and private schools.

In the public school, I brought a note and was able to go to the library and read instead. I still don't see why this was an 'opt out' system, rather than an 'opt in' one. Were it the latter, I wouldn't have any issues with it, but the implication that we should all be receiving religious instruction except those who decide against it, seems a little off. I bet there'd be an outcry, if it was, say, Islam instead of Christianity.

runner - people are flocking to Christian schools because most private schools are christian. There are very few secular ones. I went to a private christian school, because there was no secular option, but around 15 christian private ones in my area.
If you read the recent census, you will see that the number of people identifying as non-religious has jumped significantly. There is not an increase of people wanting religious education, no matter how much you'd like to believe that. Most of the people I knew in the Christian school were in the same boat as me - only a handful identified themselves as openly christian.

I don't see how this can be construed as anything other than impressing a belief system on others, and denying them the alternative they wish for.

DavidJS,
“The laws of physics have nothing in common with belief systems such as Christianity”
Nobody claimed they have, at least not at a high school level. If Christianity for you is just a belief system, religion requires an “uncritical belief”, you think that high school students should be taught about gravitation only on the basis of “valid theories” (whatever that means: Newton, Einstein or even quantum gravity?) and you correlate Stalinism (I do not know about you, but I lived through it, though was never taught any “Stalinist dogma” whatever that is) with (any?) religion then I surely hope, for the sake of all high school kids, that you do not teach philosophy/ethics or physics or 20th century history.

TurnRightThenLeft,
That is exactly the point I was trying to make. Whatever the cultural heritage of the West – and you have to have some understanding for historical inertia, which still keep the Christian outlook in the forefront – the PLURALITY of world views (religious, in the classical sense, or not) is a reality that should not be ignored: Neither by militant Christians, who keep looking to the past which they want to preserve, nor by militant anti-Christians (or anti-religious) who also keep looking to the past which they want to turn around by making the secular humanist – or even simply atheist - outlook as privileged as the Christian one was in the past.

There could be some technical problems with a particular school’s ability to offer a fair selection of world-views or ethical education, or what you would call them, i.e. not only those associated with a particular religion or even Church. However, in my opinion, the main problem why there are not enough secular humanist offerings as alternatives to religious instructions lies in the fact that those in favour of them instead of lobbying for plurality, and consequently for the inclusion of their “quasi-religion” as an alternative, concentrate on ATTACKING the established alternatives, or even religion as such. This is, of course, counterproductive.