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[ed]Teaching Religion in Public School
Of course, the Religious Fundamentalists would be opposed to this course of study because it undermines their exclusive teachings and practices. When all children learn that every culture living in the middle-east five thousand years ago has a flood narrative, they would be less susceptible to the idea that holy writ was dictated by God to its authors. As the students discover that virgins have been impregnated by the gods for centuries before the birth of Christ it might force them to consider their religious assumptions beyond "God said it, I believe it". By the seventh or eighth grade these students would find that some of the basics of Christianity were not invented by Jesus, but by Plato. When the issue of Good and Evil comes up, imagine their surprise to learn that the battle in heaven, the fall of angels, the existence of evil, those contradictions in Judaism and Christianity reflecting the battle of light and darkness, began two thousand years before Christ with Zarathustra and Ahura-Mazda. Remember, knowledge is power. What our children need is to understand religion, its roots, its uses and its potential for abuse. Armed with this information they would be prepared to make rational decisions regarding their own relationship with God. There are those among us on both sides of the issue who might not think this is a good idea, but only because it removes religion from their arsenal of power tools. This program exposes those who rely on the weakness of mind of true-believers and followers to achieve power as charlatans. On the other hand there are those who reject all religion as myth and counter to the modern project. Modernity itself is a religion in its own right, complete with mythology and theology, in this day and age grounded in a belief in human self-perfectibility, the hallmarks of which feature the failures of Nazism and Communism. As Nietzsche proclaims God is dead, Hitler and Stalin show us a world without God. American modernity replaces God with the "Free Market".
This grand tour of Religion yields an excellent education in the humanities. Some of the world's greatest literature is religious. Religious motives produced many of the noblest products of the human mind. Students would study Issues of good and evil, right and wrong, interpersonal relationships, the idea of the good, the cultural and civic value of excellence, the result of cynicism, manipulation, and dishonesty. The nature of morality and how morality affects societies would be front and center throughout this study. The power of those who would use superstition and irrational or misguided belief would be negated. However, this would only be a secondary result of this curriculum. The major benefit comes from the intense immersion in the humanities, developing a worldview that human endeavor and human happiness is not only advanced by material productivity, but by finding the self within and pursuing that which is pleasing to that self. There is nothing wrong with the pursuit of happiness. That is the true danger of this program: the discovery that humans are not cogs in a wheel to be used, but ends in ourselves, functioning best when engaged in cooperative endeavor.
[ed]Teaching Religion in Public School | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
[ed]Teaching Religion in Public School | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
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