Were you taught Religious Studies at school?

[loc978]

Northwestern US (yes, there's a huge difference in schooling depending on the State you're from, city or countryside, et cetera), high school through the late 1990s.
Religious education was a part of history classes for me. They were presented in the ways they affected culture, nothing more. We took the separation of church and state seriously.
Now if we could just get religious unions and holidays out of the Federal government, I might be a happy camper.

 

[Iron Mal]

United Kingdom here.

I had to do Religious Studies up through Primary and Secondary school (even got a C in it for my GCSE's) and despite me being an Athiest I did find a lot of the stuff they taught us pretty interesting.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe anything they taught was 'true' or an explanation for the world or morality but that doesn't mean that other people's beliefs can't be fascinating to learn about and understand.

 

[Lizardon]

I went to a Catholic school for Years 2-7 in Australia, where we had a few classes of Religious Education every week. I honestly can't remember most of it. I know we didn't do much reading of the Bible or learning about the history, so I'm not really sure what we spent all that time doing. I do remember it being fairly simple and straightforward stuff.

I just dug out some old report cards. Whatever I did, apparently I was good at it. The teacher wrote "... understanding of the material raised this year has been extraordinary"

 

[Akyho]

Scottish and Scottish education.

From primary 1-4 I remember a stronger religious education mostly focused on Christianity.
We even had our local Parish Minister come in and teach us. Problem is he always sounded preachy. I always ALWAYS challenged him. I have alway been atheist so for a 5 year old to 10 year old keep challenging him must have been something.

In Primary 4 I openly said "Could Mary have been cheating with say Josephs friend. This being ancient middle east she would be stoned to death. So concocted the whole story of god and such to explain why she is pregnant which Joseph being the god fearing man beleaved it. Which sparked a whacky adventure."

I came up with this thought all on my own. Except he was always able to win why? Because he would started talking from the bible and from a pool of knowledge I had not gained yet.

When asked what my faith was i answered "Protestant!" Because I had asked my dad whats not Catholic and he replied Protestant. What I meant was not religious. So from age of 5 I always wanted to say non religious.

However we always butted heads and not in the simple manner of a child arguing with an adult it always was more like an adult arguing with an adult although not as learned.

From 5-7 we were taught more other religions and stuck on Judaism for a long time..

We went to church every holiday and sang hymns and such which I always disliked of course.


When I hut High school we were taught RE from people who had degrees in Religious studies. However they were not christian's and thus didnt try to convert us. Tried to get us to think in our own ways. Which was very engaging. That was only for my first 2 years. Then is was gone.

I feel I have had more of a Religious study in my times since In my own research. I am still atheist and have only became more rooted as an Atheist.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I went to Roman Catholic school for a while, they didn't like me. I challenged them constantly on the faith and it naturally made them uncomfortable. I didn't accept the fact that whenever I did anything good I should thank the Lord, but when I did something bad it was all my fault and not even a bit of the Devils.

When I got into college however I learned the basics of many religions. Including, Christianity, Muslim, and Judaism. And since it was a public college, I was free to question whatever the hell I wanted.

 

[loudestmute]

In small town America, so that was completely left out of my K-12 years. Took a bunch of electives on the subject when in college (helped a bunch for my minor in Peace and Conflict Studies, more than the geography class). History of Eastern Religions was what it said on the tin, a historical study of anything well outside the judeo-islamo-christian trinity. Religious Studies grazed over everything in general. Religion and Moral Issues was a debate-centric class, frequently organized around finding objective truths on subjective subjects.

Also, the latter two classes shared a die-hard Christian. Who carried a 10 pound bible along with the rest of his course materials. And he would frequently argue with professors. Much to everyone's amusement. Paraphrased exchange follows.

"You're trying to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about? After spending 30 years of my working life studying around the world, working with leaders of every religion on the planet, you're trying to say I might be wrong?"

"No sir, what I'm saying is I know you haven't accepted Jesus as your savior, so I know you're inherently wrong."

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah I had RE lesson too during the early years in High School. Now I say early years because I was pull out of it so I had more special English class (I'm Chinese and my English was bad back then).
I can't remember much of the RE lesson other than I was taught about Heaven and Hell, the differences between Catholic and Protestant and abit of Judaism (baptists).

 

[TheIronRuler]

Were you taught Religious Studies (or Religious Education) at school? And what was included?

To provide some context, include what country you live in (or were schooled in).

For example, I live in the UK. I had RE (Religious Education) lessons at primary school (up to the age of 11) covering the "Big Six" religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Then I had RS (Religious Studies) lessons for the first three years of secondary school. The first year was entirely devoted to Christianity (and was mainly spent reading the Old Testament). The second year covered the other five religions. And the third year was more of a philosophy course.

(To provide a complete picture: My primary school education also included Christian hymns, prayer and Bible readings. But that was kept separate to the RE lessons, and pupils belonging to other religions were exempt. For some reason, coming from a family of atheists wasn't enough to exempt me!)

.
Israel, learned the Hebrew Bible for 11 years. Huzzah.
Though you should bear in mind that the Hebrew language leans on many phrases and words from that damned text, so it actually enriched my vocabulary and understanding of the language.

 

[GeorgW]

Sweden.

We had religious studies years 7-10, with emphasis on studies. Sweden is a very atheist country. 7-9 was in basic education, one year for each of the big 3 religions, with some of the minor ones thrown in from time to time. In our version of high school in year 10, I only studied one semester since I was a science major, but we covered pretty much every big religion in depth.

It was all just studies on the facts of the religion, and how it affects the culture. It's baked into social studies until year 10, where it becomes its own subject. To actually have prayers in school here in Sweden would be met with outrage, we have a strict separation of church and state. I really like it, that way each student can decide for themselves if they want to be religious, and decide intelligently which religion. However, I must say that, especially in the younger generation, there is a lot of stigma attached to being religious. It makes people uncomfortable.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Yup, every year.

From Year 1 to 11, there's no escape!

 

[HardkorSB]

Were you taught Religious Studies (or Religious Education) at school? And what was included?

Yeah.
It was called religious studies but it really was Christian indoctrination, without any mentioning of other religions.
Ever since I remember, I was always making fun of it, pointing out the plot holes in the Bible (my favorite ones were the incest among Adam and Eve's children and Noah's family after the flood, which had to occur in order to keep humanity alive). The grade wasn't really important, you could fail the subject and nothing would happen but I remember when I almost managed to do that, people were looking at me like I was Damien from Omen or something.

To provide some context, include what country you live in (or were schooled in).

I (used to) live in Poland. It's a self proclaimed Christian nation. Within the last 10-20 years (so basically since there's public internet access in Poland), things have started to change. We still have a long way to go though.

It's because of our history.
Poland was forced to convert to Christianity in 966 by Germany. It was either that or war. Ever since then, we were ruled by the Catholic church. During the Middle Ages (later as well, just not to the same extent) priests were the wealthiest and the most powerful people in a large portion of the country.
In 1772, after a long term European conflict, Poland was taken apart by Germany, Russia and Austria. There was no Poland until 1918 when World War I ended. During that time (1772-1918), the Catholic Church was one of the few places where the Polish language, culture and history were preserved and taught. They were also doing it during the Nazi occupation of Poland (which was illegal and punished with death at the time). So in a way, the Catholic church is one of the main reasons why I'm not German.
I guess that creates this reasoning that Christianity saved Poland and that we owe something to the church. The new generation (like a lot of young people all over the world over the last decade) is finally seeing through the bull shit, younger politicians are starting to come out of their closets about their atheism so it's OK, I think.

This brief history lesson was brought to you by iwasboredsoiwrotethis.com

 

[imnot]

England, it was really wierd they where like ,
"God is real jesus is realNow heres what hindus belive, its wrong of course!"
only for one year though after that it was the normal stuff.

 

[EeveeElectro]

Yeah, mine sounds like yours. Except in Secondary school we focused on the other religions too. I can't remember much of what we studied because it was nearly 5 years ago... I think we read up on how different religions celebrate things and such.
We covered racism too which confused me because I assumed race and religion were different. Our teacher was Asian and I remember her saying "Racism is discriminating against people who aren't white."
Pretty sure it works both ways. Maybe hiring her to teach it was a bad idea xD

 

[MurderousToaster]

I had RMPSE (Religious, Moral and Philosophical Education) up until my fifth year of secondary school in Scotland. Which would be, uh, my thirteenth year of education total when you include primary school.

Some (ignorant) people kept saying that it was worthless unless you were going to become a priest or a preacher, which is ridiculous considering that the vast, vast majority of the time was spent on either philosophy or the other world religions. All in all, I'd say it was fairly worth it. You really do need a functional knowledge of the major religions in order to not become some sort of raving asshole in such a metropolitan society. I mean, seriously, most of the racists you see complaining about various concessions afforded to Muslims in the UK could very easily be stopped if someone would sign them up for a fucking RE course.

Most of the teachers I got for it were actually totally neutral on religion, which I'm somewhat happy about. Regardless of what they are, I really just can't stand people pushing their own beliefs on others.

 

[LadyTiamat]

Yep, it was one of my fav classes as we had a really good teacher that challenged and nurture out critical thinking skills.

and he was funny, genisis story = class laughing at incest in bible (i think hw was an atheist lol)

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

Yes, i think i'm free of it after the summer. In primary school we had christian assembly every tuesday afternoon, i didn't believe a word of it even at that age as i was a massive science nerd when i was little, i just thought of it as storytime and we never did actual work so i enjoyed it.

 

[doggy go 7]

well, as you're probably aware, in the UK you HAVE to have RE BY LAW up untill the school leaving age. my RE lessons nowadays (year 11) are mostly philosophy types, but we did lukes gospel in year 9, world religions in 7, a varity of things.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I am from Ireland and in my Primary school which is equivalent to grade school in America for the 8 years we spend there we just learned about Christianity and Bible stories which is understandable as a massive chunk of the Primary schools in Ireland are actually funded mostly by the Catholic Church.

Then in Secondary Education(equivalent to High School in America) I was in a Christian Brother's School so Religious Education was mandatory so for the Junior Cert(similar to GCSEs in England) we did do it for three years and sat a State Exam in it. We looked at the world's major religions but we have to pick one and specifically learn more about it we had Islam. We also learned more about Christianity in general and the various schisms and denominations in it like Orthodox and the many Protestant ones along with Catholicism.

Then for Fourth Year or Transition Year we just learned about random stuff to do with Religion and Philosophy like Morality and stuff to do with sexism as this is a bit of a piss take year.

For the last 2 years of Secondary School for the Leaving Cert(A levels in England) we did have three one hour classes of religion a week but did not sit a State Exam or any exam. Well lets just say we spent more time watching that tunnel scene in the Dark Knight than we did watching Green Mile in those 2 year. We did do a bit of work in Religion and Philosophies(Different views like Pantheism among other non theistic views like we did watch Religulous[forget how it is spelt]) but it was similar to Transition Year if we had of had enough people who wanted to sit it as a Leaving Cert subject we would have done it for real realz and not for play play.

 

[Bvenged]

I personally think of myself as the Anti-Christ to all religions, but not the bad kind. I had to do Religious Studies as a short-course GCSE and it was one of if not the most hated subject of mine.

The funny thing? I got 1A*, 5B's, 4C's a D and an E grade for my GCSE's, can you guess which one was the Religious Studies grade? Yeap, it was the A*.

I was so convincing that religions were all too similar; that morals are not tied to just the religious, that winning the lottery had no implications on how the money's spent whether you're Atheist or religious; and that I was so compassionate and opinionated when it came to discussing a situation for a Sikh and Jew stating that both were wrong ethically and then explaining what my personal opinion was, that I got an A*.

Basically, I tore religion right down to it's bare bones and picked away at it's individual overarching elements whilst proving Atheists are technically more free in life, so much that the Welsh Joint Education Committee's Religious examiner had to ace me for showing extreme understanding in the subject. I hardly ever paid attention in class either. I don't do it because I hate the religious, I do it because I hate the ignorant, the fundamentalists and the churches.

 

[Thomas Eshuis]

From the Netherlands.
Had a choice between 'Religion' and Humanism in the last two years of primary school.
'Religion' actually being an overview of the big religions: Abrahamic, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism.

My parents told me to take 'Religion', which I did.
The second time (last year of primary school) I chose it again, since humanism was to limited imo and we had a great and enthusiastic teacher (who was an atheist btw, which I found out later.)

'Religion' was interesting for me as I'm a history fan. It also reaffirmed my suspicion that religion is inherently a human invention.

Edit: Public primary school.