Religion in School

[Haiku32]

Today, my Religious Education teacher decided to give us some proof of God. He took a strip of paper, twisted it, then glued the 2 ends together and proclaiming "This right here, is proof that God must exist." He assumed none of us knew of a Möbius Strip and told us that it is undeniably a 2D (he "proved" this by drawing a continually line round the entire thing) since it only has a width and 1 side. Ignoring the fact that just because you can draw a line round the entire object doesn't make it 2D, he then told us that this is evidence that God exists and science is wrong. "Science tells us everything is 3D, yet I just made a 2D object, this is proof God MUST exist."

I couldn't believe how astronomically ignorant he was being, but I was even more astonished by what the textbook we were reading from decided to show as "Proof for God." I do not have the textbook at hand, but it more or less stated under the heading "Evil and Suffering - The Case for God" that Christians should believe that God is omnipotent, omniscience and all good, and should not think about evil and suffering in the world. That was what this book was teaching us - you shouldn't think about the argument that God cannot be all of the above if there is evil and suffering in the world. You should just put it out of your head and not worry about it since it is easier to have faith that way. Honestly, I've never seen something so pathetically attempt to pass itself off as "proof" in a textbook before. The teacher then backed this up by saying that he cannot think of anything more evil than an eternity of nothingness, therefore it means God must not be evil as he makes sense of this nothingness. Considering that if you do not believe in God in the first place then you probably believe that when you die you die and there is no "nothingness" anyway, this hardly proves God to a non-believer. I guess it's a better attempt than what the textbook tried to pass off as an educated attempt at proving God.

I find that most of what my RE teacher teaches us is based purely off his own opinion. He will read the textbook and (maybe quite rightfully, considering how pathetic it is) make up his own lesson. I find this quite disturbing that he teaches children from the age of 12 his own views and not the curriculum set out for him to teach. This seems to be the only subject that teachers can decide to completely ignore what is set out for them to teach and attempt brainwash their pupils with whatever rubbish they believe.

I guess my question to you is, do you think the teaching of Religion is schools should be more enforced more thoroughly? Instead of teachers being able to make up whatever they want to teach, should tests be put in place to, I guess, prove that the teacher is teaching the pupils what is supposed to be taught?

[Lucio]

I think that Religious Education is a useful thing, but not taught in the way you were being taught!

To me, Religious Education means that pupils are armed with some bare bones facts about other religions, taught to debate their merits and flaws and can make an informed choice as to what's best for them. It also means that you can integrate better with society because you can at least know a little about a culture other than your own.

[format]

I would file a complaint.

[jim]

My memory of Christianity as GCSE was an outline of how each branch of Christianity considers various moral issues, and what they might expect in various situations. That was extremely interesting in my opinion - a lot of issues that seemed otherwise odd to me, for example the old "burning in the fires of hell" business, were explained in the contexts of various different denominations - and hence made far more sense to me, and helped to shape my own views fairly specifically.

That was all based on a syllabus, which perhaps was beneficial, so yes I agree that it needs some backbone to ensure that it's appropriately taught... with the wrong teacher it's a complete waste of time, although they usually think that they're helping the class by bombarding them with their own personal views.

[kalniel]

That's not religious education.

There is a curriculum, and if the teacher doesn't teach it (and it's not a private school) then he'll be in trouble.

On the otherhand, maybe he was employing some reverse phsycology in order to get you to think for yourselves and hoped you would prove how flawed the proof was.

[Perfectionist]

Write an anonymous letter to the headteacher and governors (look up on website(s)).

Wish I'd done it back then had a similar RE teacher, took us on visits to his happyclappy methodist church. Also made Islam sound pretty lovely, same as the textbooks, strict treatment of jihad as a "personal struggle" no mention of the real life relevance - Though that's probably more due to the curriculum specified under new labour than anything else which has always been very pro-any-religion (ofc, the other parties pursue appeasment just as much).

Thankfully I got my real RE education from books instead. Terry Pratchett's far better at it.

[Haiku32]

I agree that with the right teacher and with some structure to lessons RE can be an excellent subject. With other teachers we've had some great debates and it gets the whole class interested in various topics. I've always found it quite interesting, but this year the teacher is just pathetic.

What got me the most is that he doesn't give us some facts, explain them, then give us an opportunity to discuss. He merely spouts some rubbish then it's case closed. If he had told us that the strip of paper was called a Möbius Strip and actually explained it instead of just giving us some false information and calling it proof of God. Pathetic attempt at teaching.

Many people have made complaints against him. In his first year classes he gets anyone who isn't a Catholic and gives them rosary beads. He openly tells people they are going to hell for not being Catholic. He says that anyone who goes to the (Catholic) school and isn't Catholic is merely a guest and we should be very thankful that they let us go there - which is his opinion that I'm sure the Headteacher would completely disagree with. I think he has been with the school for so long that other teachers just accept that he does these things no matter how much people complain.

[ufop]

I remember being taught other peoples religious views at school! a bit wrong I think!
if your going to teach religion then you have to show them all including the view that its all stories too

[Georgy291]

i think we should be watching american dad for RE lessons be much much better

[JPreston]

Many people have made complaints against him. In his first year classes he gets anyone who isn't a Catholic and gives them rosary beads. He openly tells people they are going to hell for not being Catholic. He says that anyone who goes to the (Catholic) school and isn't Catholic is merely a guest and we should be very thankful that they let us go there...

That's a serious offence right there, certainly a sackable one for a teacher, a particularly inflammatory statement for someone in a position of authority over children to make in somewhere as sectarian as Glasgow, and very possibly even illegal under the ridiculous hate crime laws we now have (in England at least).

As others have said complain to the head, complain to governers - this man is a disgrace to the teaching profession, your class deserves someone to teach them who is not a moron (even by the moribund standards expected in RE) and the education authority should not be wasting public money paying him a wage.

EDIT:

He took a strip of paper, twisted it, then glued the 2 ends together and proclaiming "This right here, is proof that God must exist." He assumed none of us knew of a Möbius Strip and told us that it is undeniably a 2D (he "proved" this by drawing a continually line round the entire thing) since it only has a width and 1 side. Ignoring the fact that just because you can draw a line round the entire object doesn't make it 2D, he then told us that this is evidence that God exists and science is wrong. "Science tells us everything is 3D, yet I just made a 2D object, this is proof God MUST exist."

...and the more I think about it, this statement is such a ridiculous non sequiteur that I wonder if he hasn't lost all capacity for rational thought. Certainly he should not be teaching if his mind is so addled, even without the blatant prejudice he shows non-catholic pupils.

[format]

I went to a Catholic primary school when I was younger. Not because my parents were religious or anything, but because they thought it was the best school about at the time. They were possibly right too, until it got a new head mistress. She told the school at assembly that god has come to her in a dream and told her to take the job...

Anyway, my point is that I'm kind of grateful that I ended up there - it gave me a solid knowledge of Christianity and let me decide for myself that I definitely thought it was a load of sh*te.

[Saracen]

According to that tale, the teacher is, IMHO, an utter disgrace.

Besides, according to the way I was taught, there ISN'T any actual proof God exists. Acceptance of God is by faith, and it's faith he requires. If proof existed, it would be shown to us all and we'd all be in Church on Sundays. And, if proof existed, there'd be no need for faith, so why have established religions, certainly of various Christian flavours, been going on about it for so long?

Faith means nothing if proof exists, and proof negates the faith argument.

I've lost count of how many debates (and I don't just mean on forums) about religion I've had, but I regularly issue a challenge .... show me proof that God exists, and I'll become devout. Nobody has yet succeeded in rising to that challenge.

And, that this idiot of a teacher calls that "proof" most certainly doesn't mean it is ..... or at least, not of the existence of a God. It may be proof of the level of his mental capacity if he thinks it is.

[Clunk]

Just punch the teacher and tell him god told you to do it.

Edit: actually, don't.

[yamangman]

I'd show him this quote from Catch-22 personally:

"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else, He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a supreme being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when he robbed old people of their power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"

"Pain?" Lieutenant Schiesskopf's wife pounced upon the word victoriously. "Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us about bodily dangers."

"And who created the dangers?" Yossarian demanded, He laughed caustically. "Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person's forehead? Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn't He?"

"People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads."

"They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupified with morphine, don't they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power he had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It's obvious. He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!"

"You'd better not talk that way about Him, honey," she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice. "He might punish you."

"Isn't He punishing me enough?" Yossarian snorted resentfully. "You know, we mustn't let him get away with it. Oh no, we certainly musn't let Him get away scot-free for all the sorrow He's caused us. Someday I'm going to make Him pay. I know when. On the Judgement Day. Yes, that's the day I'll be close enough to reach out and grab that little yokel by His neck and -"

"Stop it! Stop it!"

"What the hell are you getting so upset about?" he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

"I don't," she sobbed, burting violently into tears. "But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be."

Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. "Let's have a little more religious freedom between us," he proposed obligingly. "You don't believe in a God you want to, and I won't believe in a God I want to. Is that a deal?"

[Haiku32]

I went to a Catholic primary school when I was younger. Not because my parents were religious or anything, but because they thought it was the best school about at the time. They were possibly right too, until it got a new head mistress. She told the school at assembly that god has come to her in a dream and told her to take the job...

Anyway, my point is that I'm kind of grateful that I ended up there - it gave me a solid knowledge of Christianity and let me decide for myself that I definitely thought it was a load of sh*te.

That is the same reason I went to a Catholic primary and high school. I believe I know a lot more about Christianity than most of my Christian peers. Religion is something that interests me, so I am glad that I could grow up in an environment that I could see exactly how Religion is taught. It is beyond me how people can still follow their religion after the amount of absolute bull**** I've heard RE teachers say. I mean, the teacher I'm talking about certainly takes the prize in sheer idiocy, but most others aren't much better at basic understanding of the world. I swear I remember one RE teacher saying (that in her own opinion) evolution is wrong since it doesn't give us the answer to how life began. That's like saying the instructions on the back of a tin of baked beans are wrong because it doesn't help you speak Spanish. Actually understand what you are trying to ridicule before you start trying to disprove it with something completely irrelevant.

The thing that annoys me so much about him (and most Religions) is that according to him he actually has four degrees (English Lit, Theology, some sort of physics and something else) that he got when he didn't believe in God. It seems that as soon as he found his faith and became an RE teacher, all logic and reason went out the window. I hate how Religion can stifle science so easily, even in todays technological world. Balls to actually understanding the unknowns in the universe, since we are all too weak minded to actually accept a world in which we have unknowns, lets just replace them with "God did it" or maybe a flying unicorn that spouts rainbows out its arse, doesn't really make much difference does it? I'm all for being able to believe in anything you want, as long as it doesn't get in the way of scientific research and development.

Edit: Good quote.

[Brucelles]

That's like saying the instructions on the back of a tin of baked beans are wrong because it doesn't help you speak Spanish.

Nice line.

I have no problem with studying religion; my daughter chose to do a module on Religious Philosophy during her degree, after we discussed it. We both agree that knowing some strong arguments, both for and against religion, is a pretty nice weapon against religious twits.

I also tend to agree that the dumber an RE teacher the better. No chance of a prat like that accidentally converting anyone.

I think that the importance of religion, even in a fairly civilised country, like Britain, is such that we need to have at least some understanding of it. If you decide to live in a benighted, backward, third-world theocracy like Iran or America you can't really afford not to understand something of religion.

The thing is that it should be taught as a social phenomenon, like politics, or history, rather than as a means to expanding the flock of the faithful. I have no problem with people sending their kids to Sunday school or whatever, though it's cruel and stupid, but actual religion has no place in most schools.

When you consider the quality of some religious schools, it is obvious why people send their kids to them, even if they are atheist (or Pastafarian, Jedi, or whatever ), and I think that a school that calls itself "St. Steve's Catholic School" should be expected to be allowed to preach a bit of silly dogma in morning assembly, and perhaps some Bible study, and I think that parents should then expect the inculcation of religious beliefs into the impressionable minds of their kids, but it's a choice you make by selecting that school.

It still doesn't justify some dick using a Möbius strip as proof of God, though. Descartes "Maker's Mark" argument is unconvincing, but it's at least a good intellectual exercise. Drawing lines on a piece of paper is not. It really is indicative of something amiss in the head department.