Are you advocating for the teachings of religion, or teaching that the religions exist?

For instance, since I am more than likely not being clear, would you teach them in the same way Greek and Roman mythology is taught? Or would you teach them as truths?

And why it is so hard to teach any religion at all. I would not want my child to be learning about the two religions as two separate things--there is no difference between the validity of the two.

I don't understand your point. Maybe I am just too tired but it isn't clicking

I meant that I wouldn't want my kid to learn about religions as being fundamentally different from one another: myth vs. religion vs. truth. Which makes it hard, because very few liberal religious people would be okay with modern religion being taught as myth, or older "myths" being taught as valid religions. And right wing religious nuts wouldn't be okay with it being taught as anything but the truth, of course.

Anything lower than that, I wouldn't want any religion taught as anything but myth. I don't mean the factual aspects of each e.g Jesus and Muhammad were real people, etc.

I entirely agree at the college level, because that is voluntary, and higher education needs to have room for lateral thinking.

I think Pinto makes a good point below, in that it should be taught as neither. I would argue that it should be taught as religion, nether true nor false, all sects and beliefs equally valid, and no difference between dead and modern religion.

I don't think it should be taught as myth, even though that is what I would prefer, as I think it amounts to government taking a stand on religion.

Also, there's debate about even the "factual" aspects...so i don't think any of it can be taught as fact or not. Rather I would like it to be taught as belief, with no judgement on truth or not. That would let religious parents tell their children that belief is true, and atheists like me can tell our children that it is just that, belief.

It's all hooey

Both are an unobjective approach, i.e. advocacy of a sort. I think the primary role of a study is neither, in this realm.

Brain surgery, that's another thing...

I think that would be different than teaching aboyt the Greek and Latin religions because, despite neo-paganism, those are essentially dead religions.

The religions as practiced by the Romans and Greeks - and Norse essentially became extinct. To the extent that paganism thrives today, it is essentially a revival, drawing on some but not all of the old religions.

I don't think the author teaches current religions as truth but as knowledge.

What is so fundamentally different about the religions of the past and our current ones? And all a religion needs is one follower for it to be just as valid as any other. I'll bet you can find adherents to the greek and roman religions even today.

What living people do, whether religion, war or sex, is vastly interesting and urgent. That's a big part about widespread religious practices and beliefs.

It's somewhat less interesting to learn what people believed in the past as it is less urgent.

For instance, Guernica is a more compelling subject than cave paintings.

It's really less about the beliefs than it is about people.

There is no serious difference between the dead religions and the modern ones. In fact, much of what modern religion is comes directly from older religions, as you know, I am sure. They should not be taught differently, which was my point. I think this is where problems arise, because most modern religious people see their religion as fundamentally different than older "myths", and indeed, more true.

I agree that what is currently happening is certainly more relevant, but I disagree that it is more interesting. I, for one, find more to be learned in cave paintings and their ramifications in early society than I do in Guernica and contemporary Spain. Interest varies by the individual and their circumstances.

When you are teaching religion, it is absolutely about the beliefs. Otherwise, we would not have people becoming angry when it is suggested that we teach older, dead religions as equally valid as modern religions (and I don't mean you when I say this). Yes, religious study is about people: their political, economic, social, and other conditions that they lived and live in. But it is also about belief, because too many treat modern religions as different than older ones. Urgency and relevancy to modern times does not change the fact that they are not, and should not be taught as such.

But the more religions, old and new, the more it is established that "There is no serious difference".

The similarities can also be established but not all fish are the same.

Let me ask you about teaching religion versus teaching politics. Can you not teach a course in fascism without advocating belief in fascism?

But I think that if you teach older religions as myths and modern religions as religion, you are implying things about both that lead to the conclusion that the modern religion is more valid than the old. That is all i am trying to say.

Which of these two items is more important to an understanding of the world in which the students live:

1. The two primary sects of Islam, Sunni and Shiite, are frequently involved on opposite sides of contemporary political conflicts in Western Asia.

2. Ancient Egyptians believed that the god Set murdered his brother Osiris because his wife, Nephthys, was not only in love with Osiris but conceived her son Anubis by him.

What effect does item 1 have on us today? What effect does item 2 have on us today?

Pastafarians, Jedi, and the Church of the SubGenius as well.

I appreciate it.

I took a course in college called man and his religions. Though very little time was spent on it, the dead religions were taught right along with the others. Loved that course

Course. I took Humanities as my Honors English senior year. We studied religion in context of literature. (As well as architecture and music and film in relation to lit.) And also in History courses. Religion plays a very important role in History. Without a basic background, we couldn't understand fully World History.

component of understanding other cultures and people.

Religion cannot be taught out of context, or else many will be taught as inherently more valuable or true than others.

for this very reason, BUT I was very disappointed that virtually NOTHING was taught about Islam. (This was around 50 years ago, at a state university in Ohio.)

The Anthropology of Religion. Good stuff. As I remember it was mostly a look at if a religion was adaptive for the culture. If it was, both survived. The other big question was, is it nature or nurture. As most traits that are found across all people and cultures tend to have a genetic component. I always thought that would be true and I must be one of those without that gene.

Ditto about not having the gene.

I always look at religion as something to study, not practice.

from the moment, in synagogue, reading the 'reading' alongside Dad, and realized I couldn't read it ALOUD! He elbowed me, I continued to read in silence, and that was that, never a word from him about it.

Also, first in the family to date 'out' of the faith, in high school, son of the Presbyterian minister! Other things too, it's just ME, and never felt 'odd' about any of it, more like a pioneer!!!

First love of my was a wonderful Jewish girl. We went out twice and her family ended it. Broke my heart and I didn't date for a year or two.

Not sure if I believe in love either now.

My folks kind of tried to break us up, but not strongly, and they always liked him. 'Breaking up' occurred due to natural causes: He attended College of Wooster, and I went to Miami! (We're from Long Island, NY.)

'Love?' What's that? There's nature, that's it.

It should be part of literature or history classes if the curriculum is complete.

My children had a course in junior high in a public school on the literature of the Bible.

It is advocating for a specific religion or requiring children to pray or worship or read Bible verses as a religious expression in schools that is not appropriate.

Many children and parents would be offended if their child had a teacher who taught the teacher's chosen religion in the classroom. Lots of kooks out there.

Catholics probably would not want a Muslim teacher teaching their child religion although they might be fine if the Muslim teacher taught the history of the religions, comparative religion as someone suggested above.

Similarly, Muslims might object if a Christian teacher taught the Christian religion in the school.

My Protestant parents would have been very upset if a Catholic teacher had tried to teach me the Catholic religion.

But teaching about religion is usually OK in the schools depending on how it is done.

Requiring prayer in the schools is probably not OK in my opinion. I grew up with that back when and it is pretty useless.

If I were filling an anonymous form that didn't count toward a grade, I might jokingly say that I thought Daoism was about Winnie the Pooh too!

a most basic rundown course in just Christian theology would face every one raised on a compound that they're not "like, ORIGINAL Christians" but premillenniallist providentialist sentimentalists whose history is imported entirely from one Victorian amateur who renounced the whole shebang and whose geology is from some excommunicated Adventist crank

Ironically it would be atheists.