George, not "anti-religious" rather as balanced as we can make it. That will be fairly threatening to most creeds because it would show the strengths and failings of various belief systems including secular humanism.

I'm a former christian so I've got a bit better understanding of how RE is treated within the churches than just sitting in an RE class would give. Despite the pretense many wish to make by and large RE is regarded as an outreach activity not as a community service.

The approach taken by Boaz_David http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=719#13215 (especially the third paragraph) to dealing with other belief systems is typical of what I think happens when advocates for a particular belief system teach RE classes. I've also seen childrens bibles and the changes made in them to make the whole thing more appealing to children.

Some of the same issues are a risk whoever is teaching about beliefs and values, there is always a risk that the teachers own beliefs and values will be presented in a way that is not balanced and opposing viewpoints will be unfairly portrayed. At least teachers have a curriculum and training to deal with those issues.

R0bert

Exactly RObert.

RE has no place in public schools. Parents have to send their children to the nearest public school, so there is no choice. Whereas if you want your child to have any particular kind of Christian teaching there are many schools to choose from or your church.

If there was to be any Religious education that is what it should be; about religions. Not just Christian, but philosophy in general, including humanistic thought.

It is fundamentally wrong that parents have to act to remove their child in a state school from something as personal and private as spiritual indoctrination of a kind that may be completely contrary to their own beliefs. This includes Christian philosophy.

If this happened with sex education for instance, for which you have to give permission for attendence, many of you would go ape. Why is sex so private that it is accorded respect, but a family's spiritual beliefs are not?

Parents should be asked if their child has permission to attend and should be told exactly what their child is taught. In that scenario I would suggest that very soon this nonsense would stop.

R0bert,
you had a bad experience with a Christian RE, I had a bad experience with a secular (actually explicitly atheist) education system, and my experience with my daughter’s RE in a Melbourne Catholic school was far from satisfactory.

However, I think we should concentrate on what is desirable (and also realisable) for the future. I agree that any subject that explicitly or implicitly conveys a world view should be “as balanced as we can make it” and, I would add, as appropriate for the age of the students involved as it can be. This is an ideal that you strive for, and I think, also any RE – not only Christian, but, say, also Muslim – should strive for. Children should not be taught that their parents are immoral, because they do not go to church, or irrational because they do go to church.

What is practicable in the present situation is a different story. You mention a contributor here whom you think could not provide such a balanced view; I could name many OLO contributors, explicitly or implicitly atheist, whom I would not trust with being very balanced in their presentation of other belief systems.

I also agree that “there is always a risk that the teacher’s own beliefs and values will be presented in a way that is not balanced and opposing viewpoints will be unfairly portrayed”, and this applies to RE teachers as well as those who think they are above any “religion”. So again, this is a question of quality, not choice between world view orientations. One can and should strive for quality and objectivity, but the “home orientation” will always show: there will always be a difference in how e.g. the battle of Mohács in 1526 is explained and evaluated in a Hungarian or in a Turkish school. This haunts present day EU enthusiasts who want to find a unified way of teaching European history. Do you think teaching “religious studies” - where you have to answer students’ value loaded questions etc. - would be easier or even possible at all?

Yvonne,
I like your contributions on this forum, but I am not sure I understand you this time. Do you mean that instead of a choice of a SUBJECT that teaches “religion” (in the classical RE sense or some secular humanist alternative) in a public school, there should be a choice of SCHOOLS dedicated to different world view orientations? I am not sure how these things could be financed in such a way that a poor student would have an equal chance of getting into a Humanist, or, say Catholic or Muslim school. Or at least the same chance as he/she would have if public schools would offer a choice of a subject along these lines.

Another way I can understand your suggestion is that public schools should be a priori secular humanist and teach “about religions”. In addition to my doubts, as expressed to R0bert, that this can be done without an anti-religious biast, it somehow reminds me of the – in my and many scientists’ eyes dubious – university level “scientific studies” subject for students who were unable to understand science, notably the maths behind physics (often the same was true about their lecturers). This was very different from philosophy of science which was studied by students who have already taken some proper science and maths subjects.

It just occurred to me, whether there is not some similarity, although one is at university level, the other at a high school level, and the “insider knowledge" that the “studies” instructor often lacks is mathematics in the first case and faith in the second case.

Also, I find your comparison of the two intimacies, sexual and spiritual (I used to call them horizontal and vertical) very illuminating, though I think there is one difference: nobody proudly proclaims he/she is asexual, but many, also on this forum, claim to be something like “areligious”.

I find it abhorrent that Christians see it their right to damage the minds of not only their children but the children of others. What we see in teaching religious values and concepts in schools is to sanctify explicit crimes against humanity by subverting laws of the land to enable cults that believe in gods or other mythological creatures to brainwash children which will allow Islamists and Christianists and who knows what in the future to dominate and corrupt this society.

The core value of Christianity and Islam is the disrespect of those who dont share their superstitious beliefs. We have witnessed moral corruption in the United States where education funding is linked to Christian demands and therefore rendered great amounts of the population to believe in invented lies such as intelligent design along with its racial supremacy and the supremecy over homosexuals and pacifists. The Bush administration bolstered by Americans Christian population which is violence loving and hate inspired and war mongering. All serve to expose the myth that Christianity inherently holds good values. It is a cult dependent on the lies of myth such as resurrection and Noah and a host of other magic tricks.

That we even consider sanctifying the psychological abuse of children and take those preaching the darkage cults of monotheism seriously is alarming especially at a time when the federal government must address the child abuse amongst christian communities as it is with Indigenous communities. Where children are kept in poverty as parents waste money on churches, are abused with corporal punishment for the slightest of acts, sexually abused by clergy and youth camp volunteers and are psychologically abused with being brainwashed into believing the world will end soon and they are to be judged on the false premise they are born in sin. What results are damaged minds who believes magic spells such as prayer can evoke gods which do not exist. Believing they are chosen above all others, self focus to a point of dysfunction and putting death as greater than life and are politically aligned to spreading their superstition further.

West, you are so misinformed about what Religious Education in Schools is about. I suggest you visit a good bookship and see the text set for the State curriculum "Studies of Religion".

Most of it is about man living in community, and not about Noah's flood etc; unless to illustrate a point that God cares for his creatures and so ought we.