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I think the notion of 'religious education' needs to be examined pretty carefully to adequately answer the question posed by Nina in the abstract...
Most responses to the thread so far are concerned with the notion of educating young minds as to the trappings of the different faiths, what they advocate, hold sacred, their respective histories maybe, and so on, and this is all valuable and certainly accounts for a relevant and maybe even vital branch to a general knowledge of the modern world, how it arrived, and how it is functioning from this angle.
But how do people feel about the aim of all of these finger-pointing exercises? The common ground which they all share, the moon being pointed at, however abstractly, poetically and culturally colored the teaching may be? The moon itself, as it were? Yes, for a better, more tolerant world it's a very good idea, I think, to educate people early on about the various methods of pointing to that moon which cannot, really, be pointed at (as it is also doing the pointing, and so on etc. etc.)...
But what of the moon itself? Should, for want of a better term, spirituality be a part of the education system? By which I mean, connecting pupils with Spirit, devotion and God/Allah/Jehovah/etc.
It is a rare and esoteric minded teacher who would have it that religion is literal - a reunion with One, advaita, indivisibility of the subject-object fallacy - though this would, in fact, dovetail neatly with the tail end of a secondary school physics curriculum. The dissolution of self and other back into Unity. From what I recall of the attempts to educate me about religion when I was at school, it (they) came across none too succesfully as llittle more than a moral code and stricture I at the time saw no requirement for Divinity to possess and support, predicated on the notion of (future) punitive action from Deity if not adhered to...This being because the authority of writing and tradition in at least the He God Monotheistic Three precludes and takes precedence over self examination leading to gnosis. This might not be such a bad thing if, in the case of Christianity at least (which I am sort of referring to largely here, speaking from experience of learning in a Christian country), the standard text were not such a hopelessly corrupted and mistranslated mess.
It's a tricky idea, and one most folks seemingly reject out of hand these days, because everybody is very much attentive to the various fingers, and the moon is a distant and forgotten memory, or considered 'too awkward' or politically sensitive to openly educate about. Describing and testing at the end of term what date this and that happened and who said x to y, and the Chinese astrological system and the various festivals etc. is the limit of the current remit and the consideration of this thread so far.
Is this right? Or should it be the responsibility of tax payers and schools to at least try to instil Spirit into young hearts, or is that strictly a matter for the family and community? Does that work? Do people have a common understanding of what I mean by 'Spirit' here?
I wonder why, as a society, we have become so totally alienated from any sense of Divinity or wonder at our basic premise here. People have more faith in Science and the Authoritative (human) Other than themselves and their own Inner Teacher, higher self or sense of alignment with Nature, and it continues apace in spite of the obviously cataclysmic results being wrought on the environment and society by this attitude. Or are these so obviously results of that attitude? To me they are, but I guess I'm making some pretty hefty assumptions there.
What do you think? |
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