To put an end to terrorism ban the teaching of religion. Discuss

Freud said many years ago that religion ought to not to be taught. He saw the beginnings of neurosis/psychosis in many of his patients who were heavily religious orientated, for want of a better phrase. However, and I'm sure the research in this area is scant due to the well protected subject of religion, I feel strongly that if you teach about something that's not tangible but powerful en mass, then you're heading for a catastrophe. And we certainly are. Every war, every skirmish we see has the flag of some religion flying heavily in the background. This fact cannot be denied.

So I say stop teaching all religion in schools: world wide. Phase it out. It's indoctrination we don't need - something on the curriculum that will eventually eradicate all man/womankind. It's worse than any nuclear war- head and certainly killed more people.

Over to you.

To me religion is a personal belief, choice and faith. Should it not be taught in schools or should it doesn't really bother me to quite honest. I believe in a faith very different kind to the one I was taught at school after conduction of my own thorough research and education. I dont think it would abolish terriorism because terrorism isn't so much about religion as it is about power. Religion is merely used as an excuse and THAT is what makes me sick to the stomach ...

I dont think it should be taught persay, but i think religion should affect our everyday life, choices and actions. Without a moral guide how do we make a choice between good and evil? SO i think it should not be a subject, but catholic sschools should remain with mass and prayers. Just my two cents.
VByers

i agree, religion should not be taught in school, in any country, one of the bases of terrorist attacks from the middle east is religion.

goverment and religion should be kept as seperate as possible. religion is personal belief, not what the goverment wants you to belive.

to each their own

Dwelt you brought up a very valid point i neglected to mention faith is internal and religion is an external example of ones internal belief. Alot of people express there faith via religious ceremonies. Your right also that these people are ruthless and vile excuses for humans who are committing such dispicable acts but like anything there is good and bad in all races, creeds and religions. To blame an enitre race, to paint a whole creed or religion with the same brush for one foolishly power hungry imbosils mistake is what needs to stop.
We need to better educate ourselves on the acceptance of, the beliefs of, the tolerance and respect of other religions - how can we really achieve this by abolishing religious talks from all our schools?

I'm not getting involved. I'll only get irritated and very opinionated.

Good topic, though.

I agree with Jordan above. Freud was a nutcase who's many opinions led to controversies in scientific discussions. I completely disagree. There are much more issues behind war, and the power of it is not held in religious beliefs, but in strong nationalistic and egocentric ideas of nations. Religion needs to be taught. It is the way of life, and it is extremely important. I don't know how lost I, along with many others, would be without religion.

Well, most of Freud's patients were desperate middle-aged housewives. and from what I know about that demographic today, I can see the conclusion of some religious based psychosis being drawn. I don't know if that makes Freud nutty or just ignorant.

Religion should be studied, absolutely, there is a lot that can be learned from religion itself. Though no person on earth, I believe, has any degree high enough to qualify to teach it. Religion must be discovered, interwoven with the threads of life.

^The Israeli government commits many acts of terrorism and they're far from religious.

Did you really just say that? You know why Isreal was reformed, right?

there are many reasons why people go to war that have to do with something other than religion. There would still be what we call terrorism if religion was banned. Land, economics, freedom, etc, all have to do with war and terrorism. Instead of stating my view on the OP, I suggest people read the lyrics to John Lennon's song Imagine. That does a good job of summing stuff up on my end of this discussion.

As much as i don't like religion, i think that taking it from schools is a bad decision.
1. you cant stop schools WORLDWIDE teaching it
2. its a personal choice, people will learn it anyway
3. religion is not the only thing that backs terrorism
4. a LOT of religions teach morals, values, to love, to respect, gives hope especially to younger children. Even IF they aren't religious, or drop religion later in life, these morals are important, and gives them a concious desicion as to what is right and wrong, that many can take through life religious or not.

I don't think religion should be taught in school, unless it's a school that specializes in religion. Religion shouldn't be forced on people, and should be compleltly optional.

And if a school is going to teach religion I also think they should teach more then one.

Religion should be taught from a sociological perspective as a phenomenon relevant to our history and current situation, as opposed to a system of belief.

The problem with teaching one kind of religion in a school, taking christianity as an example that i grew up with, is that it doesn't encourage free exploration of other systems of thought, and lets be honest, religion in the western world is another arm of the law and order and the governmet, most prevailent in America.

Teach em about God in school, include god in your presidential campaign and shazzam! ready made votes.

I find it laughable that a teacher, who has not been to bible college, and may not even be a person of faith, gets to teach young poeple about God.

Hey I sell fish for a living!

Cool, wanna be our new science teacher!

The teaching of religion in schools will not stop the teaching of religion at home or in social circles, simple as that.

example: 7/7 bombings were centred from a fitness or boxing gym, not an RE class.

Your family is what really determines your religion and beliefs. So it wouldn't really make that big of a difference! When i was in high school, we ad a bible class. I'm a Christain, like i was then. I never took the class, but i always brought my bible to school. I read it during lunch. Even if they dismiss all teachings of religion in schools, I highly dought that very dedicated and religious students will stop their faith and study in it. It could even start mass rallys and protests. Yes, religion does effect the mind and the way we al thin. Like in the Iraqian War right now. Their belief was in Sadam, and his belief was that you should give your life, aka suicide, if it was for your country. he believed, his religion which effected the rest of that nation, that suicide was a noble thing to do. killing innocent by-standereds. Religion is a huge cause in wars, but i realy don't think stop teaching religion will effect anything. People are ignorant, and will do as they please. People will want to believe what they want to believe. You can't stop it. I'm sure you've heard of it, it's a little word called, "FREEDOM" of religion. You're allowed to have and support your religion, and with protests, people can stand up for that right. And unless you people don't know what can happen at a protest, VIOLENCE and even MURDER! Yes, religion is a cause of violence and war, but just by stopping the teaching of it, won't do much. Like i said, people will still believe what they want to believe... Thank you.

-*-Cherri-*-

ps: And just because we could stop the teachings of religion here, doesn't mean the rest of the world will follow.

Cherri Im going to have to disagree with you my religious beliefs are ones of personal choice, of a different semetic religion to the one I was born into and raised with. For the majority yes religion may be determined by ones family but its a matter of the soul and that eventually comes down to each and every individual person.

Bret...you have to be joking right look at what Isreal is doing now?? They are terrorising Lebanon, I realise there is reason behind it but it doesn't justify there ruthless acts of terrorism on innocent civilians. Terrorism has many faces and forms.

True, but i stil disagree with Mel, haulting the teachings of religon in school, won't affect much. I just think it ill cause protest. i've seen it before.

-*-Cherri-*-

Thank you, im done.

Eb, I was referring to Israel being far from religious. Israel is a country born of Judaism supported by the US solely for the purpose of the second coming.

Current events in the area remind me of two stubborn kids who would rather see the toys all broked up than share nicely. They feed off each other and are just as bad as each other.

I say, let's get rid of religion all together. I hate the concept. It is so far from anything that God (whichever god you believe in) meant to happen it isn't even funny. Seriously, take a look at all the major world religions today, even throw scientology in there and what do you see? I'll tell you what you see, you see what happens when man institutionalizes anything. It gets too big, out of control, and down right ridiculous. The rich run the institution and set up rules to control the others while these rules keep make the rich richer and poor under more control.

Here is the other reason why religion should never be taught. The Bible, Koran, Tora (forgive spelling), Upanishads, and whatever other text there happens to be are all great literary texts. Excellent ones as a matter of fact. As poets we should all know what great literary texts do: they allow the reader to interpret how the reader wants, meaning there are infinite amount of ways to see one thing. Therefore, what is taught by one person is merely their interpretation and not necessarily what the author intended. I could list a huge amount of examples of this for the christian Bible. Then people teach there interpretation, other people interpret the teaching, and soon things get so far off we have what we have today: mass money-making chaos. But why is religion still around, the money making part I just mentioned. Elron hubbard stated that if someone wanted to get rich they should get into religion, and then came scientology.

Due to all this, I say get rid of religion. Leave the religious texts because they still are useful for reading, but demolish the institution of religion.

There will always be people to take advantage of other people, getting rid of religion and institutions won't change that. Actually, religion, and other institutions were set up and organized with the intent to keep such evil from occuring. The problem, maybe, is that some of these organizations that fight evil don't really know evil because they fail to see the evil within themselves. or they do, and they just ignore it in favor of other purposes.

Big institutions always turn out the same way. You name one that doesn't and I will no longer post on this topic.

I know it won't. But i would still like to see it demolished.

There's some good perspectives above and I'm pretty surprised that some of you actually agree with me. If I posted this topic to a newspaper it would not be put into print. What's that telling you when it come to religion?

Marx said (Karl, not Groucho) that religion was the [drug] of the masses. And this addiction has led to drug induced psychosis/paranoia in many religious factions. Someone above mentioned the 'Reader Response' theory to literature where after a text has been produced (and all religions are texts) the author is 'dead' and the text comes alive by the readers' unique response to that text. this response is governed by culture/sociological factors and psychological make up of the individual/s. Bearing in mind that religious texts are open to many interpretations, then many misreadings will surely follow. In times like these we don't want religious nuts taking to arms over some story they've read or been taught.

Everytime I hear the three bears story (goldilocks) I become hungry and think of porridge!

Ban the teaching of religion.

I agree religions shouldn't be taught in school, but rather in Church, Mosque, etc.

I think it's good to be taught religion in school. I am not taught it, however, because in my town it's only taught in the Catholic schools, which I do not go to. I think it's good because it teaches people the backgrounds of other cultures and often that can result in more respect for other nations/cultures, etc. Just because some of the wars in the past were 'caused' by religion it doesn't mean that it should be banned from schools. That's not the teacher's fault, but the people who start the fight in the first place. It's part of the learning process, and to choose not to learn it, wouldn't that be ignorance? At least if you learn you can talk about it with people around you and lear to respect their way of life, even if you don't share in it or believe what they believe.

"I agree religions shouldn't be taught in school, but rather in Church, Mosque, etc,"

^ I disagree. Not everybody goes into those places. If the concept of Christinaity is only taught in a Church, no Muslim that I know would go in a Church, so how would they hear the Gospel? And viceversa; how would a Christian learn about the Muslim religion? Yes, there are books and TV shows, etc. But that doesn't always give the whole story or the the whole experience so you can learn all you want, etc.

Even if it is taught at school, it odesn't mean you have to pay attention. You choose to learn what you want to learn, the same way you choose to believe what you want to believe. Having religion banned from being in the school's is not going to stop the war over in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter.

I also agree with what Cory said above. The Bible says that God Himself hates religion, but unfortunately it's part of life. I think it's good to learn about it. But that's just my opinion =)

I think it's good to learn about religion as well... but just not in school. Well at least in a public school. If a school wants to specialize in religion then that's their chose, and the students that want to attend there can. But I feel that teaching it in public schools forces religion upon people, and not all people want that. I know that if my school started making us take a class on religion I wouldn't be very happy.

To that Bret I agree 100%. I misinterpreted your response ;oP

To whomever it was that said a Muslim would never walk into a church, you obviously do not know a broad enough spectrum of people. I was born into a Christian family, and am now a practicing Muslim. I go to church every year with my family to celebrate there Easter and Christmas regardless of my now different choice of faith, we are all praying to the same God it need not matter who's house I am in. Your comment was extremely shallow.

WTF? I go to church ever Wednesday and Sunday and we have a muslim family who goes because what they say is "they'd like to know more about our religion"....you have no idea what kinds of religions would walk into a Christian church

To the initial thread...I'd like to say...being a 15 year old still in high school, I actually would like to be taught about more religions..here is why...i was born into a Christian family..actually I wasn't a Christian until I was five, but have been going to church ever since...and I have a majority of friends who are not Christians and I can't even begin to explain how stupid I feel sometimes when they talk about their religion and I have no clue what they are talking about. I don't think a teacher should tell you "here is the religion to choose"...but I think we should tell students a little bit about each religion to perhaps help them choose which one fits best for them. At least thats my opinon because since my school doesn't talk about religion, I'm stuck now researching about several religions and I'm still having a hard time understanding

I agree....Why not teach the basic principles of most religions...say in a history class... so people can understand where others peoples faith comes from and therefore reduce stereotypes and prejudice? Whether its Christainity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism a brief history on each will help quell the negative images that we see today. Just a thought!

In my history class (Global) we learned about a whole bunch of different religions, but we learned it in the way of the basics, and how it effects the government and stuff.

Oh, yeah, history, and literature, yes, definitely teach religion in those classes. I mean, the history of religion is some of the fundamentals of the history and evolution of human thought. and history is just as challengeable too. My favorite history teachers have very strong religious backgrounds. one a baptist minister. another, a very devout muslim. that wasn't a requirement for me, but I'm sure that their religion had something to do with their moral solidarity. not the only thing. they obviously also just have extremely great characters.

Now, science on the other hand. and math. and institutional studies that require logical thinking, not faith-based ideology, should leave religion out of it.

Cory, you know I can't answer your question, because institutions are made up of individuals. and individuals can sometimes mar the credibility of an institution. so it would probably be better to figure out if the actions of the individual are reflective of the institution itself, or whether the institution can rise above it. Change, good or bad, happens at the local level.

for now my answers stand as

The Catholic Church
the ACLU
&
The American Red Cross

Learning a religion to broaden one's mind to a different culture isn't bad, but that isn't how religion is taught. When religion is taught it is in a fashion that points out why someone else's beliefs are wrong.

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Okay, lets see. Individuals do make up an institution, and yes you do lways get a couple of crazies in every group, but institutions are wrong not because their individuals, but because they get too damn big, and sooner or later, they are the crazy. It's much like communism. On paper the theory is excellent, but it just doesn't work in reality. It sucks on the bog scale.

And as for your examples, The catholic church, I don't need to say anything about the catholic church. I think everybody nows enough about them to know that there is plenty of bad going on.

Aclu, I'm bad with acronyms give me the full name.

American Red Cross, has a lot to do with wars. If you want to help people, stop helping war. Start helping to stop the wars. They do a lot of good, but at the same time they don't stand up for anything right. They just go in and help people in hard times, but as an institution they don't necessarily make a good enough effort to stop the bad things from happening. Much like they treat the sympton, not the cold, which in turn allows the cold to keep roaming free.

A counter example of American Red Cross, Ghandi. Not only did he help individuals who needed him, but he stood up for what was right. He accomplished great things in entirely peaceful ways. He fought against the occupation of India I believe it was, helping to stop Britain from the whole colonization mindset by lying in the streets. Of course he wasn't the only one, but he started it and others followed.

Ghandi, in his efforts to free India from British rule, was also part of the decision that forced all muslims out of India back to Pakistan, and all hindus out of Pakistan back to India, thereby creating further division between the longstanding conflict that continues to this day. It was a compromise he made in order to gain freedom, but he was still part of it.

I never said the American Red Cross, or ACLU (that's the American Civil Liberties Union), or the Catholic Church were completely blameless. In their attempts to preserve freedom, the ACLU has defended neo-nazis and pedeophiles.

I don't know. You mention communism. Under Lenin, it doesn't sound like it was that bad. Kind of Fascist, you know, hero-worship tendencies, but didn't really get that far until Stalin, who I see as a very bad seed, seceded by others following in similar fashion. However, in a large country, like Russia, true, communism might be difficult to manage. And it became even moreso as the Soviet Union expanded...much like Britian, or Rome, or any empire that exceeded it's bounds. But at the local level, I think communism is essential. and the local level is where it all matters.

Etsubina: I meant the people that I know. I have a few Muslim friends and they would never go into a church and/or they are not allowed by their parents. That's what I meant; I didn't mean to offend you or anybody else I was just giving an example =)

Corey,

regarding your distaste for the American red cross:

You're going to damn a charitable organisation that gives aid to the world because they don't walk about with with signs saying 'stop war'? You're one cold mother ______, mate. Do emos... please!

But why stop at the American red cross when you can lambaste the whole red cross/crescent system? Nearly every country has its own red cross (western) / crescent (middle eastern) organization... tear it all down mate. Helping people get well, clothed and back on their feet obviously just isn't cutting it anymore.

This is what you're saying.

Helping people without charging them is wrong unless you rant politic at the same time.

You've just alienated all those people who volunteer once a week, month or even a year who make a difference. My mate Andy used to spend six months of his year flying red cross planes into war zones in Africa... for free. But he did a bad job because at the very least he should have put a peace sign on the wings...

Lastly, for one so knowledgable about America's need for oil and war, I'm shocked you don't know the ACLU, who must only make the news when oil isn't being plundered from the high seas of Iraq by Blackbeard Bush, scourge of the seven seas.*

*Yes, I'm being a little sarcastic in your (maybe unintended) portrayal of Bush as a pirate.

Lovely thats okay I just think it was unfair to generalise so greatly when it really itsn't fact.

I didn't really know that at the time, but I'll remember that for next time.

Just one question, if you don't mind, that I've always wondered about:

Muslims always say that their God (I think they call Him Allah?) is the same as our God. Are you talking about the God who we believe to be the father of Jesus Christ, whom Muslims believe is only a prophet? I hope I've worded that right, but thats the only way I can understand it lol. If anybody could let me know it would be much appreciated =)

And does anybody know where I can find a Quaran? (sorry for any possible spelling mistakes) I've always wanted to read one and compare it with the Bible.