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RE: Wrong place. Wrong Time.
America is an athiest nation - love it or leave it.
As much as I hate to say it, I don't entirely agree with that one. The state should be an atheist nation that shows favor to no one. But the public ... well, they are free to do what they want and [unfortunately] want to believe in religion.
I do completely agree with you with regards to how schools teach religion of the world. There is definitely a pretext that "those other" religions are exactly that, something "other people" do.
Well, with one caveat: not in science class. The facts about religions are fine in history classes, not biology or physics.
This I agree with as well. But if they are to come up in history, sociology, political, etc. classes ... there ought to be equal face time and legitimacy put into the others. I'd like to also hear a little about how members of that class would be re-incarnated as low caste people or cockroaches under the Hindu system. Or that ascension is not into heaven but into a Buddhist Nirvana. Damning the Muslim girl, though [from the NY Times article] ... that seems a little one-sided.
RE: Wrong place. Wrong Time.
Yes, they did cover Christianity in the same way. Remember this was sixth grade, and was only done over a couple of weeks. I do not remembember there being any uproar at all. I live in an idyllic town.
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RE: Wrong place. Wrong Time.
It is O.K. by me for the facts about different religions to be taught in an informative way in public schools.
Well, with one caveat: not in science class. The facts about religions are fine in history classes, not biology or physics.
In our junior high they do this by presenting each major world religion, the beliefs they contain, and the culture that ensues from them.
Do they cover Christianity in essentially the same way? That'd be pretty unusual - the "usual" approach is to skip Christianity on the grounds that the students are "already familiar" with it. Though the real reason is that by leaving Christianity out, the coverage of the other religions is done in the same tones as coverage of classical mythology - the "nobody believes this anymore, but in the old days they used to think..." kind of tone. You can pretend you're being "fair and balanced" and convey a really strong subtext of "these other religions are wrong".
If you take that tone on the subject of Christianity, the fundies cry foul.
Religion doesn't belong in the classroom. America is an athiest nation - love it or leave it.
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