Ignorance is shocking. (Blog number four)

Should religion be taught in schools?

Although this was not one of my questions from the previous blog I feel the need to ask this question and give my answer.

In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich talks briefly about her visit to a Christian Tent Revival, and as she comments on her experience there, I got the feeling that she was only making assumption about the preachers as well as the congregation, based only on what she had heard from movies, books, or horror stories from colleagues.  “But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist […] can never get a word out of his mouth. I would like to stay around for the speaking in tongues, should it occur, but the mosquitoes, worked into a frenzy by all this talk of His blood, are launching a full-scale attack” (Ehrenreich 68-69).

I would love to say that her abhorrent comment comes only from her ignorance on religious matters and that had she been a Christian her view of the meeting would not have been so satirical, but according to a recent survey done by CNBC, atheist and agnostics seem to know more about the bible and world religions than proclaimed ‘Christians’.  I found the results of this survey to be very disheartening, having been in church my whole life, a Sunday School Brat if you will; therefore I am able to tell you about everything from Adam and Eve, and Daniel in the lion’s den, to the life of Ruth and how Elisha called down two she bears to eat a group of children who made fun of his particularly hairless head.  I realize that not everyone has had the fortunate childhood memories of going to church every Sunday morning and night as I have, but I was still shocked to find that my fellow Christians tested lower than non-believers. It was also shown that individuals who had received a higher amount of education knew more about the bible regardless if they were believers or not. 

After the results were shown C NBC then asked whether or not public schools should teach religion as part of the curriculum.  In my opinion yes I believe that the studies of various world religions, not just Christianity, should be added to the curriculum in public schools. Not just for the sake of educating Christians on facts that they should be receiving in Sunday school, the blame for this lack of knowledge I place on churches, but for a greater understanding of all religions. For Example many of my fellow students in high school had no idea what the Muslim faith believed, so when the topic of terrorist or 9/11 was brought up the immediate consensus was to blame all Muslims; this would be the same as calling all Germans, Nazis.

We should be educating our children on subjects that majority of cultures base their whole government and societies upon. Not educating students because of wanting to avoid offending someone will only leave our generation ignorant and unprepared for the real life issues in the world.

 Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002. 66-69. Print.