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[TD1]

My R.E. class wasn't about a religion. It was based on the philosophy and arguments against/for religion in general, or I never would have gone to it. Compulsory up to GCSE at at least Short Course.

[10ebbor10]

Truly, the only thing I remember about primary school RE was that we had to be careful with the candles. For some reason, what appears to be the buildings only smoke detector was installed straight above the table where we did those lessons.

It went off about 6 times a year.

[TheDarkStar]

I lived in Germany for third and fourth grade, and they had mandatory RE with a choice of what to take - there was Catholic class, a Lutheran class, and then a class for everyone else about world religions in general. I took the latter, since I am not Catholic or Lutheran. It was an interesting class, since there were people who belonged to almost every religion that we talked about. The teacher often asked people about what they believed, and we visited a mosque part of the way through the school year. It was informative and actually helped us see what other people believed.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't remember Christianity being discussed very often, but that might be because so many more people are Christian in that area than other things.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

I'm a 23 year old American, and this is the first time I've heard of 'R.E.'
lol europe, u so wierd.

[TD1]

Says the contemplative monkey. Think how much more he would have to think of if he'd been properly educated. *Sighs.*

[XXSockXX]

I lived in Germany for third and fourth grade, and they had mandatory RE with a choice of what to take - there was Catholic class, a Lutheran class, and then a class for everyone else about world religions in general. I took the latter, since I am not Catholic or Lutheran. It was an interesting class, since there were people who belonged to almost every religion that we talked about. The teacher often asked people about what they believed, and we visited a mosque part of the way through the school year. It was informative and actually helped us see what other people believed.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't remember Christianity being discussed very often, but that might be because so many more people are Christian in that area than other things.

Yeah, that is an Ethics class, Christianity is not discussed that much there. Mine was mostly philosophy. How RE classes are can vary a great deal depending on the teacher. I had protestant RE classes until the higher grades because Ethics classes were not available before then at my school. Some of it was history of religions, the religious stuff itself was mostly boiled down to "be nice to each other". Biblicial history was explicitely declared a methaphor and when I told the teacher that I didn't believe in God, Jesus, the afterlife or any of it I got great grades for critical thinking.

[Graknorke]

RE as I was taught it focused more on moral issues in the context of major world religions. So there'd be an introductory explanation of why there's a problem and then how it's resolved by people of different religions and then everyone has to participate in some way that gets repetitive after 3 years of it.

[scriver]

In practice, I've never heard of a religious education program that didn't seek to indoctrinate those in it. Religion's only place in schools is as part of history courses.

Swedish Religion class teaches about world religions, and is basically considered a sister-class of history.

So now you have heard of it.

Surely you must have somebody trying to unravel secularism and make young people religious zealots, even in Sweden.

(Anyway, I maintain my view on them being unnecessary. Sweden is so far the exception rather than the rule when it comes to religion.)

Well, I'm sure there's individual teachers and religious private schools that do that (or at least try to), but that's not the rule for theu state run facilities. Here the argument is mostly contained to whether semester ending ceremonies should be allowed to be held in churches or not.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Huh. I'm always surprised by the kind of things that are secularism issues in Europe, because despite the generally less religious population they tend to be things that would never, ever fly in the US. You can sometimes get away with referencing God in graduation speeches, but holding school ceremonies in churches?

[Owlbread]

We held school ceremonies in churches all the time, but end-of-year ceremonies and big events like prize-giving often involved the school chaplain who'd pray for us or something. We always had an Easter and Christmas service at school which involved either going to church to sing hymns, or singing the hymns in the assembly hall after various Easter-related sermons from the school chaplain and bible readings from students. The Easter Service and Christmas Service were important events. The school brass band would always perform.

At least it's not as bad as when my mother was in secondary school in London in the early-mid 70s; she used to have to say a prayer of some kind at the end of every school day along with the whole class.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Huh. I'm always surprised by the kind of things that are secularism issues in Europe, because despite the generally less religious population they tend to be things that would never, ever fly in the US. You can sometimes get away with referencing God in graduation speeches, but holding school ceremonies in churches?

This, let alone 'Religious Education', RE vs PE. That concept is on the befuddlement level of 'wat?' in the states.

[XXSockXX]

Huh. I'm always surprised by the kind of things that are secularism issues in Europe, because despite the generally less religious population they tend to be things that would never, ever fly in the US. You can sometimes get away with referencing God in graduation speeches, but holding school ceremonies in churches?

There is actually a theory that it is the institutional lack of separation of state and church (Germany for example has a church tax, mandatory RE and pays huge amounts of money, like the salaries of bishops in some states, to the churches as compensation for secularized church property from the 19th century until forever) that has made the population that secular. Religion in the US (and elsewhere) comes from below, from the people, in a grass roots kind of way, in most of Europe historically it comes from the government / ruling class / establishment / institutions, so people have become less engaged in it.

Also while state schools do have ceremonies in churches and religious services at the end of the year, they are not that pushy about religion and most people don't care about it or even take it particularly serious. It's an empty ritual really.

It used to be different though, and still is in private schools. Until a few decades ago, when my parents were young, there were even separate schools for Catholics and Protestants. (Which might be another reason for the popular secularism, people don't like to be told who they can hang out with or marry).

[scriver]

Also, in other news, today the prime/state ministers of Germany, Dutchland, Britain, and Sweden met to decide how to best fuck over the rest of the EU. Because clearly that's four people capable of decide the future of EU's economic policy.

Also Reinfeldt showed the whole world he's never sat in a rowboat before. I'm so very proud of you, mister minister.

Huh. I'm always surprised by the kind of things that are secularism issues in Europe, because despite the generally less religious population they tend to be things that would never, ever fly in the US. You can sometimes get away with referencing God in graduation speeches, but holding school ceremonies in churches?

Well, when you have an actually secular people, stuff like that doesn't matter as much (I myself am often surprised by how in your face and quarrelsome Americans always act about religion/areligion). And besides, lots of places don't have any other locales big enough to hold hundreds of kids+parents at the same time while also being as well suited to singing and music.

It's pretty much like how Americans have their kids swear an oath of loyalty every morning, something that would never be accepted over here.

If you still do that, that is. You still do, right?

Huh. I'm always surprised by the kind of things that are secularism issues in Europe, because despite the generally less religious population they tend to be things that would never, ever fly in the US. You can sometimes get away with referencing God in graduation speeches, but holding school ceremonies in churches?

This, let alone 'Religious Education', RE vs PE. That concept is on the befuddlement level of 'wat?' in the states.

...Isn't PE physical education? As in sports and such?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, when you have an actually secular people, stuff like that doesn't matter as much (I myself am often surprised by how in your face and quarrelsome Americans always act about religion/areligion).

It's the principle of the thing. Put a chip in the wall of separation and more will leak through later. (And there's really little choice in the matter with how sharply divided it can be. People like me and people like Pat Robertson, for example, essentially have no common ground to find when it comes to religion and can only have an adversarial relationship.)

It's pretty much like how Americans have their kids swear an oath of loyalty every morning, something that would never be accepted over here.

If you still do that, that is. You still do, right?

Depends on where you are. In most places it is a fully informal tradition, so it may or may not happen even down to the preference of individual teachers. The courts have had to deal with a few nasty conflicts between nationalists and anti-nationalists regarding saying it in the past, so legally students have the right to essentially do whatever they want. In my high school it was once a week rather than once a day, some would say it and others wouldn't. When the mood struck me to bother with it I would always go with the old version of it that doesn't have "under God" pointlessly imposed in the middle of a verse.

...Isn't PE physical education? As in sports and such?

It is indeed.

[XXSockXX]

Well, when you have an actually secular people, stuff like that doesn't matter as much (I myself am often surprised by how in your face and quarrelsome Americans always act about religion/areligion).

It's the principle of the thing. Put a chip in the wall of separation and more will leak through later. (And there's really little choice in the matter with how sharply divided it can be. People like me and people like Pat Robertson, for example, essentially have no common ground to find when it comes to religion and can only have an adversarial relationship.)

I would very much like to have some real separation here. On the other hand, we don't have as many Pat Robertsons over here, so it could be much worse. The worst issues here are rather practical things, nothing overtly ideological, like the churches being involved in the health and education sectors and getting away with work contracts with moral clauses that would never fly in the private sector.
In practice it really depends on the people. I even went to a Catholic kindergarten with actual nuns, but they had books about evolution and Greco-Roman mythology there, so I didn't exactly feel indoctrinated.

Many politicians are somewhat religious (the Christian Democrats even have it in their name), but they rarely mention it and, while they don't really try to separate state and church more, you get a lot less religious vibe from them than from the average US politician.

Depends on where you are. In most places it is a fully informal tradition, so it may or may not happen even down to the preference of individual teachers. The courts have had to deal with a few nasty conflicts between nationalists and anti-nationalists regarding saying it in the past, so legally students have the right to essentially do whatever they want. In my high school it was once a week rather than once a day, some would say it and others wouldn't. When the mood struck me to bother with it I would always go with the old version of it that doesn't have "under God" pointlessly imposed in the middle of a verse.

It was actually like that when there were religious services in school, you had to be present for it, but that was it. The RE teachers would say something nobody would care about, there might be some singing and stuff, but not much more, pretty informal.