As a staunch atheist, I think religious education is very important.
1) Without extensive bible study we'll be blind to a large proportion of Western references in literature, all the way up until the 20'th century. Which would be a shame, especially to those of us with literary ambitions.
2) It's great to have education in all the worlds religions, so that people can compare them. And then I hope that people will understand that they're all equally plausible as hypothetical theories. I can't imagine anything more damaging for a persons soul than to receive education in only one religion, which will be the case if your parents are religious. ie, you'll naturally only hear their version of events.
3) Context needs to be taught. People need to do more than just interpret the Bible in today's world. They need to know what the words in the Bible meant to people in the time they where written, (which is very alien to us). This needs to be taught and plenty of expert guidance. It's pretty deep stuff. Why was the empty void, Leviathan, so terrifying? Why was it portrayed like a monster? It doesn't say in the Bible and isn't self evident.
4) I think it would be good to hear a short history of the Bible, and be informed about the large variety of Christian ideas and Bibles. It might also help to learn that the "original"/"real" Bible, is just loose pages and a collection of articles. It quite ok, according to original Christian faith to just pick and chose which of the gospels to take seriously. They should be informed about the Apocrypha. The original Christian Church is today just a little sect called Ebionites. How did they fall out of favour? They where the first.
5) I think it should be accompanied with a short philosophical introduction, so people will understand where these ideas come from. They should learn about the
Unmoved Mover theory by Aristotle and learn about Thomas Aquinas on it. They should learn about Philo of Alexandria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_of_Alexandria.
It would be good if they heard about Enuma Elish and the Babylonian myths, so they understand from which culture Judaism grew, and the sources of their myths.
It wouldn't hurt if people learned that Jesus could have been one or many Pharisees. As a Pharisee he of course only repeating the words first penned by Philo of Alexandria, and was free of any original ideas. Being taught the hypothetical theory that Jesus might just have been a run of the mill Jewish prophet for the time, and doing very ordinary prophety things. Presenting the evidence for this theory, I think can't hurt. The Christian tendency to see Jesus as a magic man, I think is very unfortunate and seems to be a hard theory to dispel.
6) Learning about religion in School doesn't violate the separation of religion and state. It's preaching it and singing psalms and stuff which would violate it. Sweden has the same constitutional law when it comes to religion, and we've got plenty of religion taught in school. There's no conflict.
I don't think education is ever bad.
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
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