Yes, there should be a wall between church and state.
However, I disagree with the statement, religion absolutely belongs in schools. Students should study religion as part of cultural studies because it's such a huge part of our social interactions. Religious students should have accommodations granted, such as Muslim prayer time (and their Friday holy day), Sikh head coverings, etc, and students should learn about why these accommodations are important.
At least in the US, we have a constitutional amendment that bans the government from making any law preventing free exercise of religion, and to me that means restricting expression within schools. It also bans the government from establishing a religion, and to me that means giving preferential treatment in schools to any particular religion.
Religion should absolutely be a part of education in our schools, and it should absolutely be separated from government. These are absolutely compatible.
When I went to school in Sheffield, UK we had a course for religion. I think it was obviously just the major ones and I got grouped into 'non-relgious' where we studied other religions. I'm assuming it's probably without the piety and single-focus of the other classes, but I can only assume.
I also think there's value in learning other religions due to their connection with history and the arts and stuff.
We briefly covered religion in K-12 education, but only when religion was directly related to world history. We touched on religions, but only for like a day, and only as an explanatory factor in other world events. We didn't learn much of anything about those religions themselves, even as much as what day of the week they worship on, or the core tenants of their religion (though we did learn the name of the big religious texts though).
It wasn't until I did concurrent enrollment at a local community college where I actually studied other religions. We read excerpts from the Qu'ran, Bhagavad Ghita, the Bible, and others, and learned about the connection between the various religions. That class was amazingly instructive and I think something like that should be part of the core curriculum for K-12 education (perhaps around grade 10 or 11). A little bit of understanding goes a long way to establishing tolerance and mutual respect.
A lot of people don't actually understand their own faith, they just attend services because that's what they're culturally expected to do. I think a secular education about religion can go a long way in helping people understand their heritage, as well as understand their peers.
Oh but it's ok for science to be there?! You need to check your bias. This isn't the 1990s. There's plenty of alternative facts now that kids can be learning about. If we keep science in schools we are just going to end up with more kids with shit jobs like engineers, researchers, and doctors.
This just.... isn't true
When I was a kid we had a class called R.E.
Religious Education
The whole point of it was to inform and educate kids like us about the multitude of religious and non-religious beliefs in the world, and to allow us to form our own opinions, while also understanding different perspectives on the subject
That would be good in theory, but incredibly easy to exploit.
Worked fine in the class I took at community college. We read parts of the Qu'ran, Torah, and New Testament, and I think parts of the Bagavad Ghita and some Buddhist texts. The course was fantastic, and I recommend everyone take something similar.
Accurate. Officially, there's a wall, but in practice, church and state go around the side of it constantly.
Well it depends:
Science and Religion are not opposing forces:
You can study religion at the university using the scientific method. That is comparing different religious texts, analysing the historical context of the religious texts, explore how religious tradition evolved over time.
Also I have a hard time imaging a society without religion. People will always believe in something, be it fate, astrology, crystals. And people always have. Religion is a big part of our culture. Not talking about it will not undo it. We have to talk about it and and we have to teach about it. Teach about the atrocities commited in the name of religion but also the fascinating ideas religion has left in our culture. Such as the idea that you have a moral obligation to help the vulnerable, beyond your personal interest.
And teaching should not be left to your weird aunt or some strange people on the Internet. Teaching needs expertise and should be done in the best interest of the child.
A society founded on laicism gives no democratic voice to the issues of religion. Religion becomes a private matter and will only be taught by false prophets with a private interest such as making money from scamming people or gaining political influence.
The public must fund religion for it to be free and it must also make sure that there is no religion who actively undermines the constitution. Tolerance only works if there's a minimal consensus on the fact that we have to be tolerant and how we resolve conflicts in a peaceful way and this minimal consensus should be the constitution.
So it always depends on your current point of view:
Are schools filled with proletyzing fundamentalist ?then yes you might need less religion and more science in school or more scientific method in your religious teaching
But are your kids so uneducated about religion that they blindly believe everything they are being told about "gods will" ? Then please reintroduce some religious teaching in your education system. Let them work on the sources.
Here's an interesting example of this
Dlf Islamunterricht - Schwieriger Weg zur Normalität im Schulalltag https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/islamunterricht-schwieriger-weg-zur-normalitaet-im-schulalltag-dlf-e73dc633-100.html
The public must fund religion for it to be free
I disagree here, at least in the way you phrased it.
Freedom is about restrictions on what the government provides. If your school teaches Christianity exclusively, for example, then are you really free to practice Buddhism? Not really, because you're essentially getting indoctrinated into whatever religion your school picked to teach, which will directly oppose the religion you want to practice.
I absolutely think religion should be taught at school, and all major religions should be taught. You should finish K-12 with a passing understanding of all of the major world religions and be able to talk intelligently about the differences in the various value systems. This helps immensely in understanding those around you, and it can also help identify those "false prophets" you're talking about because you'll notice where they differ from the main branch of their professed religion.
I'm deeply religious, and I would hate for my religion to be taught exclusively at any school my kids go to. In fact, some of my neighbors send their kids to a private school that teaches my religion, and I would absolutely refuse to send my kids there, even if it was free. I want my kids to decide for themselves what religion (if any) to believe in, because without freedom, what do your choices even mean? I'd much rather have discussions on religion with my kids instead of give sermons.
So I'm absolutely in the camp of schools should be secular, but I'm also firmly in the camp that schools should teach religion, they just need to be impartial.
