What if...

[Autodidact]

What do you think would happen if things were run like this:
There was no such thing as religious education for children, because society felt that one needed to have reached an age of reason before one could evaluate religious claims. Then in say the last year of high school, everyone got a year's course in comparative religions, reading the holy texts of the world's 5 or so leading religions, and learning the basics of another 5 or so, including of course atheism. How do you think this would affect religious beliefs or anything else?

 

[Popeyesays]

What do you think would happen if things were run like this:
There was no such thing as religious education for children, because society felt that one needed to have reached an age of reason before one could evaluate religious claims. Then in say the last year of high school, everyone got a year's course in comparative religions, reading the holy texts of the world's 5 or so leading religions, and learning the basics of another 5 or so, including of course atheism. How do you think this would affect religious beliefs or anything else?

Sounds like an authoritarian society to me.

Regards,
Scott

 

[frg001]

Sounds like almost a good idea.
I would personally ban all non-comparitive religious education from all schools.
All religions should be taught absolutely, but none as fact.
Along the lines of..."This is what xxxx's believe"...

There is no science that would be taught as fact with so many differing opinions of what is true.

 

[Buttercup]

What do you think would happen if things were run like this:
There was no such thing as religious education for children, because society felt that one needed to have reached an age of reason before one could evaluate religious claims. Then in say the last year of high school, everyone got a year's course in comparative religions, reading the holy texts of the world's 5 or so leading religions, and learning the basics of another 5 or so, including of course atheism. How do you think this would affect religious beliefs or anything else?

I think it would be impossible to keep people from thinking of religion before their senior year. I was the most curious about God from the time I was around 12 until 18.

Also, I wouldn't want to live in a society like that. We tend to forget how much good comes out of religion. Some of the most generous people I've known in my life are devoted to one religion or another.

 

[cardero]

What do you think would happen if things were run like this:
There was no such thing as religious education for children, because society felt that one needed to have reached an age of reason before one could evaluate religious claims. Then in say the last year of high school, everyone got a year's course in comparative religions, reading the holy texts of the world's 5 or so leading religions, and learning the basics of another 5 or so, including of course atheism. How do you think this would affect religious beliefs or anything else?

Like an age of consent. I don't know how this would affect religion but I do know that there would be a rise in the busines of babysitting and child care.

 

[Autodidact]

Sounds like an authoritarian society to me.

Regards,
Scott

No, not by rule or law. I'm just saying what if that was the custom?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

What do you think would happen if things were run like this:
There was no such thing as religious education for children, because society felt that one needed to have reached an age of reason before one could evaluate religious claims. Then in say the last year of high school, everyone got a year's course in comparative religions, reading the holy texts of the world's 5 or so leading religions, and learning the basics of another 5 or so, including of course atheism. How do you think this would affect religious beliefs or anything else?

Obviously, everyone would be Christian.

:biglaugh:

 

[Popeyesays]

No, not by rule or law. I'm just saying what if that was the custom?

Well, I think the most totalitarian of all regimes is cultural norm.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Super Universe]

There are too many slight differences in religions that people take to extremes, what happens when a teacher says "baptism is when water is sprinkled on the head and..." and some parents complain that a true baptism requires complete submergence?

It would be opening a huge can of worms and besides, it's just not necessary.

 

[Smoke]

What do you think would happen if things were run like this:
There was no such thing as religious education for children, because society felt that one needed to have reached an age of reason before one could evaluate religious claims. Then in say the last year of high school, everyone got a year's course in comparative religions, reading the holy texts of the world's 5 or so leading religions, and learning the basics of another 5 or so, including of course atheism. How do you think this would affect religious beliefs or anything else?

Well, I don't think it's possible, but if it did happen, and no one received any religious instruction before senior year, I think they'd be likely to consider the claims of all the dogmatic religions equally fantastic. Probably some would embrace their ancestral religion, whatever they construed that to be, out of a sense of heritage, but most would either do without religion altogether or tend toward the less dogmatic religions, like Unitarian-Universalism and some forms of Buddhism, for instance.

A Baptist has no problem regarding the claims of Islam or Mormonism as fantastic and unworthy of credence (though he may be persuaded to transfer his allegiance and his certainty to one of them), but he sees his own religion as perfectly sensible. Without early indoctrination, I don't think he'd see the Baptist faith as inherently any more sensible than Islam or Mormonism.

 

[BucephalusBB]

It would take away the atheist's "need" to use the spagetthimonster..

It would make it less hard for the american atheist to show it's belief to others..

It would make faith more real..

 

[Mr Spinkles]

What do you think would happen if things were run like this:
There was no such thing as religious education for children, because society felt that one needed to have reached an age of reason before one could evaluate religious claims. Then in say the last year of high school, everyone got a year's course in comparative religions, reading the holy texts of the world's 5 or so leading religions, and learning the basics of another 5 or so, including of course atheism. How do you think this would affect religious beliefs or anything else?

I think it would have a huge effect on religious beliefs: it would cause a sharp increase in the number of secular Americans.

This would have an impact on many issues, from America's bias towards Israel, to global warming, stem cell research, abortion, gay marriage, science vs. creationism, medicine and 'spiritual healing', and so on.

Hopefully, if Americans became more secular, it would mean that the countless churches and unlettered ministers in our rural and urban areas would be replaced by secular forms of community and meaning, like museums, book clubs, and community leaders who gather advice from the social sciences rather than ancient myths.

However, it could be the case that religion would be replaced by an even greater emphasis on selfish material gain. I guess we ought to look at other modernized, secular countries like Japan, Norway, and France, and ask ourselves what sorts of pursuits have replaced religion in those populations.

 

[Bathsheba]

I think it would have a huge effect on religious beliefs: it would cause a sharp increase in the number of secular Americans.

This would have an impact on many issues, from America's bias towards Israel, to global warming, stem cell research, abortion, gay marriage, science vs. creationism, medicine and 'spiritual healing', and so on.

Hopefully, if Americans became more secular, it would mean that the countless churches and unlettered ministers in our rural and urban areas would be replaced by secular forms of community and meaning, like museums, book clubs, and community leaders who gather advice from the social sciences rather than ancient myths.

However, it could be the case that religion would be replaced by an even greater emphasis on selfish material gain. I guess we ought to look at other modernized, secular countries like Japan, Norway, and France, and ask ourselves what sorts of pursuits have replaced religion in those populations.

I should go to bed now so I am going to cop out and say .... what Mr. Sprinkles said.

Terrific question by the way, I grove on the fantasy, really.