Scalzi makes an impractical, mocking suggestion (hey, isn't that all he does?) for how to teach comparative religion:
Incidentally, there's a simple solution to the problem of teaching the history and literature of religions in public schools without "accidentally" tipping over into, you know, proselytizing: Have atheists teach the classes. Yes, that will go over swell, I know. I'm just saying.
He's right, it would never fly, but I have a suggestion that might make it work. Two rules:
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The person teaching the course may not at any time or in any way, even indirectly, discuss his or her own religion.
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All discussion of any religion must be value-neutral, that is, you can't talk about what's "good" or "bad", just state the historical and doctrinal facts.
Since most teachers are going to be Christian, that means Christianity would get short shrift, which isn't appropriate…but the obvious solution there is to have guest lecturers. Invite the local Muslim or Buddhist in to summarize Christianity from his or her perspective. That alone, of course, would guarantee that the instructor couldn't be some raving fundie—imagine a David Paszkiewicz having to sit quietly at the back of the room while a Dawkins-like atheist or a Muslim like Keith Ellison explained Christianity to the class.
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That's an utterly horrible idea.
That could work, but I'm not sure value neutral is really fair. It could lead to unnecessary relativism.
At the higher education level, comparative religion is often taught by atheists, at least at the better schools. Various eastern "Divinity Schools" are known to be dense concentrations of atheists.
If you want to stay away from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam because they are major abrahamamic religions, way over done, and so on, one way to do this is to have a hindu teach the class, and compare all religions to Hinduism. There are enough Hindus around to make this work, and there are enough hindu gods to make the comparisons interesting.
The curriculum, to make it more interesting to the students, could be based on a popular theme such as kick boxing.
Compare and contrast: Vishnu vs. Moses in a Kick Boxing Match.
And so on.
And that's even worse.
Would both Christians and Buddhists be forbidden to discuss Saint Iosaphat (alternative spellings Jehosophat, Giosophat), the Christian saint who was modeled on a story of the Buddha?
Losaphat would have been an EXCELLENT kick boxer.
A non-atheist teaching the course?
Won't work.
No religious person is ever going to bother learning much about any other reilgion, so the-one-and-true-faith gets the preferred treatment and the biggest share of time, and the few others considered will get short shrift. The vast number of religions the religious person is unaware of will be entirely omitted.
Okay, but only if the course is subtitled: a history of human credulity. Or maybe: comparative gullibility.
Truth in advertising.
For a comparison, how would a political person teach political science? The students would learn his politics by the warmth in his voice and demeanor when he speaks of the-one-and-true-faith, and his sneering while he pretends to enlighten them about his enemies.
The idea is interesting, but would fly in the face of one very important principle: That your religion or lack thereof is none of your employer's business.
Another issue is whether it is even interesting or relevant to teach religious doctrines, no matter how matter-of-factly it is done.
Doctrines, after all, are mainly interesting to the believers. The social and political behaviour of religious groups is governed by social structures that are almost wholly divorced from what they claim to be their doctrines anyway, and there is more than enough variability among the beliefs of any religion's nominal adherents to render outside knowledge of the doctrines they are 'supposed' to believe irrelevant in most personal interaction.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention that comparative religion was one of the very few classes in high school that I found booooring.
- JS
Caledonian wrote:
"That's an utterly horrible idea."
"And that's even worse."
Okay, how about we have Stephen Baldwin preach the class?
Are we losing this generation?
Actually, what worked pretty well in my high school was that the education was split into "Bible" and "World Religion". Granted, this was a private, Episcopal school. Having essentially a separate class for Christianity isn't necessarily desirable or practicable in a public school environment, but as I said it worked.
The point is, though, that we ended up with a pretty good discussion of lots of influential world religions, as well as a pretty good understanding of what the Bible really says. (The Bible class was taught by an Episcopal nun, and she and the supplemental material were both very clear to discuss the contents as literature, written by men.)
Sadly, I doubt this separation would work outside of my fortunate situation. Under the supervision of most school districts, "Bible" would become "weekday sermon" and "World Religion" would become "gawk at the filthy pagans". Oh, well.
The person teaching the course may not at any time or in any way, even indirectly, discuss his or her own religion.
Don't forget, this means that it'll be up to some fundie to describe atheism. Likely to get ugly.
I don't think that the specific religious orientation of the lecturers is as important as their intellectual honesty and curiosity. And, rather than have the guest lecturers brought in to discuss religions with which they are probably unfamiliar, bring in actual adherents to the "other" religions. The balance will come from the fact that you'll see multiple points of view honestly and forthrightly presented. It'll be harder to imagine that all muslims are terrorist monsters if you've seen a calm, articulate muslim telling you about his religion. Plus, you'd get a chance for students to be exposed to a real, unapologetic atheist for once.
Running this sort of curriculum well would be challenging, but not impossible.
I agree with jimBOB. Having people talk about a faith/religious tradition that they haven't experienced when they actually *have* experienced another is a waste of resources. Since tolerance of other ideas would be a great goal for these kinds of classes, exposing students to real-life people of other faiths would help push that along. However, I think that the idea of guest lecturers (at least done consistently) is an idea that mostly works at the university level. I can see some parents complaining that a teacher doesn't actually do anything if s/he "just" brings in other people to teach the class (an argument I don't buy, but others could).
There's another side to that. It is an obligation of the employee to take reasonable measures to see to it that his/her religion does not interfere with performance of the job. In the present example, evidence that this obligation is not being met by instructors of religion is abundant.
Don't forget, this means that it'll be up to some fundie to describe atheism
Nope, because it's a Comparative Religion class, and atheism isn't a religion.
Wait a minute there, PZ! Aren't those the rules we all subscribe to for public school education?
I'm sticking by my original suggestion...teach relgion as a subtopic of HISTORY and be inclusive. Greeks, Egyptions...they all had their fundamentalists. Just set them side by side. Its really the R word that sets off alarms.
Maybe there are precedents. Have any actual Zeus or Thor worshipers attended a mythology class? Or have any atheists attended an atheist course taught by christians? - (now that could be fun).
I like the idea of guest speakers. The Religion class could have a different speaker each week with a sincere representative of a different religion (or denomination). The parade of equally sincere, yet disagreeing apologists would help students to appreciate varieties of religious conviction.
Leaving aside the question of whether comparative religion classses are desirable, I don't see how that's justified. Maybe you want to avoid the teacher being too positive about their own religion, even unconsciously. I agree that would be a problem.
But if a given teacher can't avoid showing bias for their own religion, aren't they just as likely to show bias against other religions (or no religion)?
Either teachers can keep their personal beliefs out of the classroom, or they can't. If they can't, they wouldn't be suitable to teach comparative religion in a public high school under any circumstance.
I agree with Monado, primarily because there is no practical way to enforce PZ's imperatives. For instance, Alvin Plantinga describes pantheism in what looks like a neutral way:
"Pantheism is the doctrine that all is God--not, absurdly, that each thing is God, but that the totality of things is somehow God. ('Somehow', since it is not easy to see how the totality of things could be able to do or know anything at all, let alone be almighty and all-knowing.)"
As Quentin Smith points out, though, this is a misdescription--and whether intentional or not, it's a misdescription that suits Plantinga's own religious cause well (viz., by making one of its competitors appear prima facie ridiculous). Since among even naturalist philosophers like Smith Plantinga is considered a highly competent philosopher, that level of neutrality is about all we can reasonably hope for, and so it would seem this kind of partisan shading is ineliminable.
That being said, I doubt the fact that we can't insulate the topics from religious bias really makes that much of a difference. I went to Catholic school, and received religious instruction from a Catholic. I was and still am an atheist. The lesson to be learned (I think) is that a little bit of religious indoctrination at school probably won't have the desired effect without supplementary brain washing at home.
Correct.
I believe the solution to that problem can be summed up in three words: Fire his ass.
- JS
I've argued in behalf of setting up a senior seminar in philosophy and comparative religion at my high school. I believe that I could teach such a thing objectively, without proselytyzing. I think bringing in guest speakers, actual representatives of the world faiths, is absolutely essential.
Would it be difficult to teach such a course? Sure. It would require skill, and a rigid adherence to a prior understanding of what constitutes appropriate conduct by all parties. Would it be impossible to offer such a course at the high school level? I don't think so.
SH
I wish we had a comparative religion class in my high school. of course it would probably have been very bad as this was the school district where a parent was trying to get funding cut for the gifted learners class (5 kids) because they obviously got more than the ed students (about 20 kids). they still wouldn't stop even after it was shown that the ed students had 2 times the money spent on them than normal students and the gifted kids had less than normal students.
Now my college comparative religion would have a class taught by the instructor, and then a member of that religion come in and talk and take questions. i see no reason why this wouldn't work in high school. i think some of our kids problems these days is that they aren't treated adult enough.
I agree that faith traditions are best understood by those who grew up in them. You don't, however, want supposedly neutral religion classes taught by people who are inclined to proselytize. Therefore, it stands to reason that lapsed people are more likely to do a good job than believers. I would be so immodest as to suggest that I could do a perfectly decent job of giving some introductory lectures on the Roman Catholic strain of Christianity, having been steeped in it for the first quarter-century of my life. You might, though, want to weed out people who have a jilted lover attitude toward their childhood faith; they'd have trouble being even-handed.
My mother, though, has her own suggestion: "Wouldn't if be okay if people just taught the things that are true?" Yeah. Capital idea.
Guest Speakers and Comparitive Religion classes, for some reason it reminds me of college recruitment days with people coming to tell you what is best about their school/dogma.
I realise that this website deals with the most stupid people in religions but they are not all stupid like that in fact I think anybody could teach the course as long as they weren't morons. Treat it like SexEd. and get permission from parents along the way when neccesary but don't ignore the whole point of religion (good vs. bad?).
I just think it would be impossible to teach the class with out addressing those questions because of the inquistive and constantly pushing way that students are.
The thing you probably need to be looking into is Asatru.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/asatru.htm
http://www.asatru.org/
There seemed to be some adherents over on the BBC site.
PZ, I got to bullshit on this. Only an atheist can be neutral when teaching about religious text?
Not every Christian is a Falwell Christian. I believe God is merciful, and doesn't need me to proselytize people, an Omnipotent God can do much better than me.
I laugh at some of the religious people out there that think they are so important they have to go around converting everyone. I wonder if they really believe in the same God I do, who loves everyone. There are really no bad people, just sinners, in the eyes of God, and he came for sinners.
Wow, but you really have a profound reading comprehension problem. Are you drunk again?
Incidentally, there's a simple solution to the problem of teaching the history and literature of religions in public schools without "accidentally" tipping over into, you know, proselytizing: Have atheists teach the classes. Yes, that will go over swell, I know. I'm just saying.
Sounds pretty strait forward to me.
Are you always a ass, PZ, when talking to or about Christians, just wondering?
Why, no. I'm blunt, harsh, and unkind when talking to asses.
There's nothing in that quote that says only atheists can be neutral about religion. There's nothing in my two proposed rules that says atheists are somehow special in that regard.
But I'm sure you'll just start babbling incoherently again, and it really doesn't matter what I say. Go on, hang yourself again.
School is about learning what we know as true. It's about learning of other people's cultures & ideas. It's about critical thinking. The question is why are people threatened by this?
incidentally, there's a simple solution to the problem of teaching the history and literature of religions in public schools without "accidentally" tipping over into, you know, proselytizing: Have atheists teach the classes.
I may be a stupid Christian, but I know what words mean.
Yes. Yes, you are. Now go sleep it off, please.
You lose!
Roy wrote:
This statement is utterly dumbfounding to me, since it is contradicted by my own experiences. Just the most blatant example would be my old Buddhism professor. She was passionate about the academic (i.e., non-belief-related) study of religion, and the study of Buddhism in particular.
She also happened to be a convert to Judaism.
And I, an atheist, took a whole bunch of Asian religions classes with her.
And from what I've heard from those who went to religious/private high schools, cross-enrollment in religious history classes was the norm. Why take a class in what you already know, when you'll be bored silly? So the Jewish kids took the class on Christianity, the Christian kids took the class on Islam, etc.
I admit that there are many people who will, in fear and hostility, fight any exposure to a religion not their own. But they represent a particular brand of religious person, not the only sort.
Australian public schools have had religious instruction classes for about 50 years. This is why there are many agnostics, atheists and people of "no religion" in Australia.
Public schools have the option to bring in members of the religious community (various religions - whatever sexpresses the needs of the school), and have them take a religious instruction lesson once a week.
The classes are not compulsory and students require parental permission to attend. The majority of children would prefer to have an eye poked out with a burnt stick, than to attend Mrs Mc Gurty's rendition of Noah's Ark.
"sexpresses"? oooops >> expresses
As an undergrad at Purdue University, I took a class called The Philosophy of Relgion. Of course, the students played the guessing game as to whether our instructor, the philosopher William Rowe, was religious or not. He never let on. Most such as myself guessed in the affirmative because he laid out the case for God so eloquently. On the day of the final, he told us that he was an atheist. I was awe-struck. Agnostic at the time, my respect for him and atheism in general grew from that day forward.
Just curious, I know how one can have a respect for a man, but how can one have a respect for a negative? (atheism)
I'm an atheist and I teach a course on World Religions, and I think I do it rather well. I tell my students on the first day that my religious beliefs are irrelevant to the course. Throughout the class I frequently need to remind my students that their beliefs are equally irrelevant. They're there to learn about different religions, not to reaffirm their own beliefs.
The problem here is we all sound anti-christien. That is not the point. Athiests are realy about being religion neutral, we are not superstitious. All religions have the same fundamental root, supertstition.
PZ recently tosted a religious historian, sorry I don't have the link or the name of the author, I have it on my other computer at work. I read it before I read PZ's takedown and my take is that the author and PZ have missed the obvious. Religion is based on superstition we all can agree to that, and, religion is tied to war, specifically political war.
The root of all religion is Animalism in which humans belive all things have human traits (watch the cartoon channel) a bush may have a good spirit, heaing 0r provide a food source; or a bad spirit, thornes or poision.
Religion raises these ideas to gods who control destiny. Why? When humans developed beyond subsistence, Kings and Despots bent on conquest needed to provide followers with a reason to risk life and limb. What could that be? Life after death? Might explain how a despot could convince someone to risk their life for a cause. Die in my war and you will live forever.
Religion is based on superstition we all can agree to that, and, religion is tied to war, specifically political war.
Not my religion anyway.
Life after death? Might explain how a despot could convince someone to risk their life for a cause. Die in my war and you will live forever.
Most people die for their country, not their religion. "I refgret that I have but one life to give>.
Dennis wrote:
Are you familiar with a book called "
The Lucifer Principle
A Scientific Expedition Into The Forces of History,"
by Howard Bloom?
Bloom fits war into his take on the function of religion.
I think PZ is a spandrel guy, right? There is no evolutionary function for religion. I don't think he buys this line of thought.
A Blog from Hell
Freudian slit? :P
The Physicist, as far as I can tell the biggest incompatibility with your interpretation of PZ's words and his meaning--even assuming the statement was unironic--would be the "only" you've somehow conjured into your summary.
Last I checked, you're some kind of Catholic, TP. So, I take it you're under the impression that the Crusaders either stormed the "Holy Land" with baskets of flowers, or attacked with arms against the fervent exhortations of peace-loving Bishops? Or perhaps that the "War" in "Thirty Years' War" is purely figurative?
The Physicist wrote:
I despise the beliefs of the Westboro Baptist Church and the people who hold them - as I'm sure does everyone here - but I respect their right to hold them.
It's the same for atheism. No one expects you to agree with or even respect the view itself, just allow that people have a right to believe that there is no God if they choose.
As for respecting a negative, I'm sure we both respect the views that epileptic fits are not caused by demonic possession or that the Sun does not go around the Earth.
P Z Myers wrote:
Sounds good but how do you ensure or even measure value neutrality?
Physicist: I remain troubled by your posts on this blog. There are no privileged beliefs in science. I don't have any desire to publicly trash you, but your comments here are profoundly unhelpful, and that comes from someone who (it might interest you to know) is not an atheist.
Rather than dress you down here (which is really a waste of this site's bandwidth), I'd like to invite you to correspond with me in private: epigene13@hotmail.com
I don't know how else to say this without sounding like an arrogant jerk, sorry. I hope you will consider this a sincere plea from someone who has your welfare at heart. Sincerely....SH
The serious study of comparative religion requires not only objectivity but a willingness to suspend one's opinions in order to arrive at a sympathetic understanding of the beliefs and values of others. Hurrah-for-our side and know-your-enemy approaches, whatever their polemical value, teach us nothing new. They are elaborations of prejudice, not encounters with something outside ourselves and our tribe. But that's the political problem: a good teacher necessarily communicates what's attractive about an alien religion--or lack of religion--and that's intolerable to a great many people.
Isn't that where you think of one thing but say amother?
Totally off topic- We all heard about the christian version of wikipedia, now there's a christian version of youtube! it's called http://godtube.com/ And look, our old friend kirk from the atheist's nightmare is making an appearance there- http://tinyurl.com/2caa9d
PZ posted about godtube last week...
I happen to enjoy the other point of view that Physicist gives to this forum. I don't happen to agree with him very often, but we can't just be reading this to hear our own opinions validated. Some dissent must be encouraged, right?
Also, I'm drunk. And we drunkards don't appreciate the dismissive tone we seem to get from you. Without drunks, the internet would get pretty boring, especially after local midnight.
As to the topic at hand, the best soloution would be to have children exposed to a variety of worldviews within their peer group. I consider myself very privileged to have grown up with friends of Jewish, Hindu, Buddist, Catholic, and various protestant faiths. After all, it's with their friends that kids are most likely to discuss the big questions.
Physicist, the quote about only atheists teaching the classes was from another site. P.Z. was quoting the other person as an introduction to his idea.
This entire thread seems predicated on trained teachers not being able to teach religious studies professionally without their personal faith dominating the class. Now, we've seen a few of reports of outrageous behaviour by teachers in various schools but is that really typical, or are the vast majority of teachers (of civics, history, literatire etc.) actually quite capable of teaching a religious studies class without bias?
I live in the UK, so I only have UK teaching to base my experiences on, but you seem to have a very low opinion of the professionalism of your high school teachers in the USA.
It's a nice fancy that someone could sleep off being a stupid Christian (presumably then becoming a somewhat smarter atheist?). However, even if it were that easy, some people would just go ahead and get drunk on it all over again the next day.
Guest lectures and field trips are the key. The trick is time management... Ideally, you could have both a confessional representative and some outsider points of view, but you only have so much time. Maybe if the class was about 'religion in our town' or something, you get all that detail into the course.
The only other option, I think, would be focusing the course on particular themes, and collecting readings, movies, and guest lectures from different traditions around particular issues.
Most of it leads to more work than the average high school course generally demands of students, I think.
I don't even know how most high schools decide who teachs courses like religion... Would they hire someone specifically for this type of thing? or would one of the core program teachers have to pinch-hit?
Most vocal parents treat private school as an investment, but public school as an imposition. So it's not hard to imagine that would work well for a private school and be a disaster for a public school.
In the USA, the thinking goes like this: Teachers don't get paid enough to live off of, so there aren't any good teachers. Since no teachers are any good, there's no justification to pay them a living wage.
It's circular, it's full of holes and bad assumptions, it's a dangerously wrong over simplification of real problems, but it was nailed to a cross and mounted on an alter back in the 1980s.
To complicate matters, some teaching mistakes can have high impact even if they are very rare, and the American news media is always on the lookout for irrelevant minor mistakes that can be transformed into appalling PR disasters.
My mother, though, has her own suggestion: "Wouldn't if be okay if people just taught the things that are true?" Yeah. Capital idea.
Posted by: Zeno | March 11, 2007 07:47 PM
So much for teaching religion; or was that the point, & I blew by it?
Another point: When I think about trying to get or teach a balanced & realistic sex ed course in public schools, then give further thought to teaching a balanced & realistic comparative religion course, I've got a better chance of winning the lottery than either happening, I posit.
o
o
I am one of few people to take a course on atheism. Such course are not that common. My instructor was an atheist.
oh really? whoooppss! I must have missed it because of spring break. Sorry!
I'll confess, I've often thought that religion should be taught as an etiquette class. Textbook "How to be a perfect stranger" and just teach people how to behave respectfully, rather than matters of dogma.
PZ, I'd have to bow out of your second rule. Speaking as a historian, I don't just teach "historical fact". Facts are few and chancy when we go back this far. We're putting pieces together and doing a lot of interpretation. I spend a lot of time teaching and encouraging discussion over the development of the Petrine doctrine or women's marginalization in the early medieval church, say, not just leading close readings of Leo I's statements on the former.
On the other hand, I know that it's profoundly troubling for some of my Catholic students to hear that the primacy of Peter wasn't always accepted and I can get my Protestant students in an equal tizzy with just a few well-chosen questions about Luther. If I don't want believing students to shut me out (and I emphatically don't), I have to work carefully to encourage them to open their mind to new information and interpretations. It means I have to be respectful not just of the historical material and debates, but also of the force that these concepts have in our contemporary culture.
I like Scalzi's idea better for the simple reason that it will cause less weaseling and whining.
[Disclaimer: I'm not in the US.]
But even then... We did comperative religion in philosophy course. (Everyone who opted out or religious instruction had to take that course, and we thought comperative religion would be useful, so we put it on the curriculum.) We agreed that we should cover the main flavours of Christianity, because few of use felt very clueful about the whole thing. I suspect our teacher was culturally Lutheran and personally agnostic (so was most of the class), I know he was a professed Kantian. He mostly threw source texts at us and had us discuss and analyze them the same way we did with the writings of Aristotele or Marx or [shudder] Heidegger. That included the occasional discussion on personal preferrences, be it in terms of "makes sense" or "good". Without those discussions, the course would have been half a year of very dry book learning...
More important than the teacher's personal beliefs are IMO their teaching skills. They should know the difference between teaching and preaching, know their topics and be able to keep a discussion constructive and on-topic. Our teacher had degrees in history and philosophy, probably a useful combo.
J.S. Another issue is whether it is even interesting or relevant to teach religious doctrines, no matter how matter-of-factly it is done.
I feel that understanding doctrine helps a lot to get cultural references -- I know that having done comperative religion came useful in geography -- , and gives a framework for the "practises" part. Plus, comparing doctrines is IMO more educational than comparing practises alone.
To the people who think this is just impossible: many, many colleges teach very good classes on Comparative Religion or World Religion or Philosophy of Religion or whatever you want to call it. My class at New Mexico Tech (lo, these many years ago) was excellent. Granted, it's probably easier for an atheist to be objective about religion, but I don't think it's necessary to teach the course.
As an atheist I'm currently seriously considering going back to university and taking a teacher training course in order to teach the relatively new Religious, Moral and Philospohical Studies course in Scotland. I never thought that the idea would appeal to me until thinking about it from a comparative religion standpoint.
The subject fascinates me and it will be a great chance to expose kids to the huge array of religious beliefs out there so they can see their particular local brand of indoctrination for what it is. It's also a chance to have some philosophical teaching alongside it - History of Christianity followed by a bit of Bertrand Russell anyone?
FYI my background is an MA in Mental Philosophy, that's what initially spurred me on. As well as that despite my frequent rants about religion I'd never use such a post to denigrate a child's beliefs, no matter how vehemently I disagree with them or the people who indoctrinated them. I just want to make them think.
1) Religious people quite often ARE eager to learn about other religions. I am Buddhist, and I read constantly about as many of the world's religions as I can. There are things to be learned from all of them, even if it's not always factual.
2) Obviously, there are ways that religion CAN be taught in a neutral, objective fashion in public schools, but the question is, WOULD it be? How would you make sure? I teach (math) in a small Iowa high school, and there is NO WAY the community would allow a religion class that did not stress the superiority of Christianity. I would love to see good high school studies in religion, but I don't believe it will happen.
quork, why did you lead us to Freeperland in comment 4?!? Here's the direct link.
Dammit, Physicist! You made me lose the Game!
I TA'ed a religion course a few years ago, and am agnostic. I never mentioned my own lack of faith, and the students never asked.
It seemed to work just fine, though I think teaching about religion becomes much more difficult the younger the students are, as they, the students, and their parents get freaked out.
Scott Hatfield: There's a lot of merit to teaching both philosophy and comparitive religion to high school students at the senior level. However, do you think you have time to do both in one course?
chuko: I dare say there is a fundamental difference there, between high schools and universities. University students are at least somewhat there because they want to be. Moreover, the standard of knowledge required on the part of the instructor is usually much higher.
quork, why did you lead us to Freeperland in comment 4?!? Here's the direct link.