Were you taught Religious Studies at school?

[StrangerMouse]

That I was. During primary school, me and the other students were subjected to Christian education every Thursday. I say "subjected" because most of the teachers (for some reason we went through a lot) were mean-spirited, lying old crones.

Now, some were very nice, and mostly just concentrated on Jesus's messages of love and peace, which I liked. I always found those lessons fun. Most, however, were not so benevolent. There were some that told of the INFINITE torture that awaited us if we questioned God's eternal love, which struck me as a tad absurd. Others sought to push their hyper-conservative political agenda upon the myriad of 11 year-olds.

I remember tales of how single-parent families were "abominations", which I now realise was rather shocking in light of the fact that several students came from such families. One woman I remember above all others. A vile, cruel old avatar of hatred who, among other things, said that the earth was only 6000 years old, and that Charles Darwin (as if he was the only person to document biological evolution) was "making it all up for attention". She was apparently unaware that the majority of "attention" he got during his lifetime was from people like her, and it was the sort of attention that nobody would ask for.

I recall that the other students seemed to like the lessons, although, as they payed little attention, I suspected that their approval was more likely due to the time spent not doing maths problems.

I am now an atheist, but I still hold a deep affection for the religious environment in which I was raised, namely, the messages of love, hope, peace and acceptance. The messages of hatred, prejudice, anti-intellectualism and cruelty, however, I can definitely live without.

 

[NightHawk21]

I went to a Catholic primary and secondary school in Canada so we did Catholicism courses (mandatory) for 12 years. Mind you the courses were easy and were essentially along the lines of "Would you like a free 90%".

 

[Pegghead]

Went to a Catholic primary school and am currently in a Catholic high-school (Australian btw). Only difference between that and public school is having a Catholic focus in whatever sort of religious unit they do and occasionally going to Mass, we learn about safe-sex and evolution all the same (oh...well there is prayer most mornings and middays for my school now, but they don't push it because obviously not everyone there is Christian). Catholic schools are fairly common in Aus, so not all of them follow the "private school = kids of people with six-figure paychecks" formula.

I'm Catholic m'self so it's really no skin off my nose, but aside from learning such things as Norse religion in history during high-school I can only remember really learning about world religions in a term-long unit back in primary. I thought that was quite interesting, and I'm pretty much the only person I know who takes religion class somewhat seriously at my school (then again, my friends are everything from Sikh to Atheist). As for what we learn there, beyond the actual units centred around Catholicism and just Christianity as a whole (i.e the structure of the church, or the different sub-divisions of Christianity) depending on the teacher it's either actually learning practical Christian teachings and their implications from people who have a lifetime of experience or the biggest bludge you could ever imagine (our teacher for last year once spent a good few minutes saying how he thought the moon landing was a hoax, and kept calling Presbyterians "press buttons").

 

[rob_simple]

UK, didn't have RE through primary school although we did do the Lord's Prayer every morning up until primary 6 I think, when it mysteriously stopped.

Had RE for four years in high school with a heavy Christian bias and I got thrown out of the class every single week for calling it superstitious nonsense.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Traditional English education. RS from the start to GCSE covering Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism. There was hymns and prayers through First and Middle school but that stopped when I got to High school. As soon as GCSEs started we did more of a basic philosophy and ethics RS than the normal one, the teacher wanted us to think about religion and it's impacts rather than just learn about it.

Then it stopped because I do A-levels. The school tried to get us to do an RS course that wouldn't provide us with a grade so that we looked good for OFSTED but nobody bothered turning up so it sort that never really happened. I do wish I had taken philosophy and ethics ate A-level, rather than business studies though, despite how much I hated RS.

 

[craftomega]

Sadly no, i live in Alberta (Canada) and we never did, even though i believe we should.

 

[SextusMaximus]

All the way through Primary and Secondary school! Have to do it for GCSE; on the bright side our teacher is fairly good and pretty funny.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

Yes, and I fucking hated it even back then xD. I can't really remember anything about it too much because I'd deliberately get myself into trouble to be excluded from the class, but yeah.. it was a long time ago . This was primary school by the way, we didn't have RE in high school (the school I went to was only very small, combined primary-high school), I guess they realised by that point most of us wouldn't buy into it.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Same, went through the catholic system in junior and senior high (even though at the time I was Anglican) the classes were mostly dull, taught by teacher who were about as pious as a drunken sailor in a whorehouse . Most of it was a basic run down and a free a+.

Though I did find it interesting enough to make my degree in university out of it.

 

[Keepitclean]

In years 6 and 7 I did scripture. I went to a public primary school and the course was optional. The program wasn't about Christianity, it was endorsing it. It was a fun thing we did once a week that was more about teaching us to be good people than it was about preaching to us.

The teacher was very engaging, he made learning about the bible genuinely fun. He didn't use any cheesy, watered down cartoons of bible stories. When whenever he explained anything to us it was done in a way that an 11 year could relate to. A great example was when he told us about God's love for us by using parts of Finding Nemo. I learned a lot from doing that class.

I'm not religious and never really have been. My obsession with paleontology from a young age ruined that. I enjoyed doing the religious studies though, the only people that didn't participate in it were the Jehovah's Witness children.

 

[Sexy Devil]

In primary school there was a religion class once a week for Christianity (these are Australian public schools). You had to get your parents to opt you out if you didn't want to take it, and even then as a sort of punishment they made you do chores around the school. Took until grade 6 where it occurred to me that I could just refuse to do the work for my parents to get the message that I was never going to believe in God and opt me out of it.

And for the record, I wasn't just being a little shit, they were teaching us about Noah's flood and other stupid stuff.

 

[Jamster003]

I went to a religious primary school so we were taught all about christianity but it was never forced on anybody.

In highschool we had religious education every year, but I managed to get myself kicked out of the class for mentioning another religion that is not Islam.

 

[StorytellingIsAMust]

I live in the United States. I went to a Catholic school from kindergarten to 8th grade, so religious education was required. All we did was study the Bible in greater detail as the years went by. Thankfully, I didn't have to sit through any "you will go to hell", "sex is evil", or "gays/abortions are bad" bullshit at school. That was mostly when I went to church. Thankfully, I've found a more accepting parish (at least, a less openly judgmental one, anyway), and I haven't had any religious education forced on me in high school or at college, aside from history classes teaching basics about world religions as part of studying ancient civilizations and the like.

 

[teebeeohh]

for about half a year and about three weeks at the beginning of secondary school. it's not mandatory or anything here in Germany(at least not where i live but apparently we have our backwards places where they teach this shit too) but you can take it if you want to and i did so because i thought it may be interesting. The first semester was taught by a nice lady fresh out of university and she was going for a "general information about all world religions" kinda deal, which was fun.
But she left after that and was replaced by an old evil crone who basically wanted to convert us heathens(one guy out of the ten of us was christian, the rest were there for the fun of it). I left after three weeks.

 

[El Presidente]

In Primary school, we were taught about several different religions in RE, accepting them, etc. but outside of it it was a very Christian school and would actually punish children for not praying/singing hymns.

I did "RMPS" (Religious, Moral And Philosophical Education) in first and second year of high school, and promptly dropped it when I got the chance.

 

[Jodah]

Not the actual religious aspects but we did delve into the historical points. Like when they were founded, main players both within the religion itself (IE Jesus, Allah, Buddha) and those that teach it (IE Various Popes, priests, etc), and some historical events caused by or involving said religions (Crusades, Jihad, etc.)

We probably spent more time on mythology, however. I remember at least one English section and one history section that involved Greek and Roman mythology.

I did take a philosophy course in college that went into religion from a moral point of view. Much of which was silly. You don't need religion to be a good person and to say you do implies you can only do what someone else tells you is a good idea. But here I am rambling...

Edit: I'm an American and was raised Catholic though I now consider myself Agnostic.

 

[Syzygy23]

In years 6 and 7 I did scripture. I went to a public primary school and the course was optional. The program wasn't about Christianity, it was endorsing it. It was a fun thing we did once a week that was more about teaching us to be good people than it was about preaching to us.

The teacher was very engaging, he made learning about the bible genuinely fun. He didn't use any cheesy, watered down cartoons of bible stories. When whenever he explained anything to us it was done in a way that an 11 year could relate to. A great example was when he told us about God's love for us by using parts of Finding Nemo. I learned a lot from doing that class.

I'm not religious and never really have been. My obsession with paleontology from a young age ruined that. I enjoyed doing the religious studies though, the only people that didn't participate in it were the Jehovah's Witness children.

Why would paleontology ruin your religious beliefs?

As for me, I live in Washington, a very much "Blue" state in the US, i.e. high concentration of democrats, and by that extension so-called "Liberals". (Kind of a broad brush to paint people with, but they all tend to the same way of thinking in my experience)

Seperation of church and state was strictly enforced. I got my Bible learnin' in Sunday School and my standard education in Hell... er, High School. Sorry, I get them confused sometimes!

Joking aside, I did go full atheist in high school. Found myself back in the Christian pool two years into college after I had a chance to meet with and talk to several of my childhood heroes. Realized most of my problems with my faith were rooted in the Old Testament, and I was shown to have been ignorant of a part in the New Testament where Jesus himself denounced the Old Testament as outdated and wrong.

Hey, if even Jesus himself could point out that the world was NOT made 5000 years ago, then he must've been smarter than I gave him credit for. Perhaps a little TOO smart... almost... Omniscient...

The way I see it, if a human can design and build a desktop computer, why can't there exist someone/thing existing on a larger scale capable of creating universes like our own? It feels arrogant to assume that we know enough to disprove God. Our brightest minds haven't even been able to colonize any planet(oid) other than our birth-planet. It's 2012 and STILL no flying cars or martian terraforming in the works, and I'm told there's no God? It's the blind leading the blind(er).

 

[Akimoto]

My country keeps religion out of the education system. Any teacher or principal caught trying to teach even the mundane aspects of anyone religion can be reported.

In short, nope. Even my Christian kindergarten was careful on the topic of religion.

 

[Wintermoot]

a bit then again in Holland Religion and State are separated.
Although my sister told me they do have bible studies in her Christian school.

 

[GoldenFish]

In my (New Zealand) Primary school (years 1-6) for most years we would have a term (quarter of the school year) of religious studies. These religious studies had to be paid for by the parents for each individual student and were optional (parental consent needed). It pretty much consisted of Christians coming in once a week to discuss Christianity (no other religions). My school was not Christian nor a private school.