Wouldn't it be strange if an American schoolboy discovered one day that his country's founding fathers fled Europe to avoid religious persecution but he had little or no idea about the religions concerned because teaching them was banned?

I don't really see what's wrong with teaching religion with a Christian bias in a Christian country, or an Islamic one in a Moslem country. It seems odd to me to do otherwise - almost to deny the validity of the majority faith, and certainly to undermine it: officially decreed to be of no greater value than other religions that have no place in the country concerned or in its cultural history. I grew up in a nominally Christian country. I learned about Christianity at school. My knowledge and understanding of other religions is coloured by my knowledge of Christian principles and beliefs. I am no better or worse a person for this than if I had received a "neutral" education in this regard.

I rejected God, and therefore Christianity too, and found no other faith offered anything better in its place, so I became an atheist (I don't mind discussing my beliefs here, by the way). But my morality is based upon what I learned in my younger days and I would resent anyone telling me that it is based on a heresy or a fallacy and that it is fundamentally wrong. And what should I have been taught instead?

But don't get me wrong: I'm not saying the subject must be taught with a particular bias. Let me assure you that I am in favour of free thought and self expression. I am therefore against the suppression of ideas, even religious ones.

Should "Citizenship" classes, or studies of the national constitution also be banned? Is it better to teach democracy to students of politics in USA and communism to those in China, and other political ideas afterwards? Or perhaps we must put democracy, communism, fascism and tyranny all on the same footing and let the student choose between them.

TYWD