I was born into an English family which is vaguely mixed with Christian and Agnostic members. I myself found I was an atheist somewhere in my preteen years which was about the time I moved to the U.S. and became a part of the U.S. Education system and a notable difference between the British and American Education system is religious education or the lack of it in the U.S.
Religious education in the UK was started by the Church of England as an attempt at indoctrination but it backfired in a big way. Kids where taught ideas and viewpoints from different religions and even Atheism. It covered multiple areas of theology and many areas of Philosophy and Ethics. I've recently moved back and I'm taking a religious education course at community college now simply because I find it interesting.
My question would be do you think European style religious education should become a part of the U.S. Curriculum? And what kind of affect do you think it would have? From what I've seen the only religious education Americans seemed to get where from there parents and churches. I think this doesn't allow the kids to have an open mind and see other religious viewpoints. I think religious education is a very large reason that Britain's population is a lot more atheist and agnostic than the USA's
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I live in Sweden and we also have a specific subject for "Religious Education", where you read about the significant religions and other world views from a global and historical perspective.
"My question would be do you think European style religious education should become a part of the U.S. Curriculum?"
Absolutely!
To not teach about the different religions and world views, is to keep the students in the dark about the competition. Then they are only subjected to the religion of family and/or the surrounding society.
Well, there is a few problems with inserting the European style religious education into the U.S curriculum. In the U.S we have the separation of church and state. But , in the U.K for example, the state and religion are one. (in a way) So it would be more indoctrination than education as far as we see it. We do learn about religions in school, we call it social studies. In America we view that freedom of religion, MUST include freedom FROM religion. In our early history only Atheists could hold certain positions in government, simply because Christians of different denominations refused to trust one another, and rightfully so, as Catholics and Protestants constantly tried to screw each other over, so it got to the point that only the man with no 'God" in the fight could preside over congress, to name one example.
Our Constitution, which was the envy of the world for a long time, was founded on the values of the enlightenment, our founding fathers were very clear about where religion can get on and get off, and this is felt very deep within our culture. So to attempt to incorporate a state sponsored religion into our schools would be, to use a very common American expression, like sticking your penis into a bee hive, sure you can try, but it will never end well.
@AlphaLogica
"to attempt to incorporate a state sponsored religion into our schools..."
Wait, what?
I understood it as learning about all religions, not a single religion. And only learning facts about them, not that one of them are "true" and should be practised.
It depends, really. I don't have a problem with teaching about religionS(capital for emphasis) as long as it is done in an impartial and historical perspective. There is, however, a great risk that a zealot teacher might co-opt such a class to attempt to indoctrinate children into their religion. The most major religions in the world tend to have a proscriptive rule that believers HAVE to proselytize.