If religion comes into schools it should not be via endorsement, but simply as cultural information. it is hard to explain much of history without touching on how religions affected various parts of the globe.

Funny thing is I went to 13 years of Catholic school... they always had a "religion" class, but we had all of the sciences (including evolution and such), and the only time anything that ran counter to this was discussed was in Religion, where they essentially shared the faith's perspective on such things.

Even with a class specifically called "religion", none of us were denied a proper education with the latest sciences and such, and while some of us were either fond of religion or even embraced it, what we were taught in Biology/Chemistry/Astronomy/History etc always seemed to take precedence in our minds when it conflicted with Religion, which was treated more like a calling and culture. The point being, essentially, that kids are smarter than we give them credit for.

Obviously religion shouldn't be taught as a "truth" in public schools, but I do believe we need to stop being phobic about teaching kids about the various different influential religions of the world.

Much of our flawed ideas regarding foreign policy are rooted in a lack of understanding of the cultures and faiths of other parts of the world... In a strange twist, I learned more about Islam in Catholic school (such as via a book called Understanding Islam that I have to this day that explains the history and interactions of the many different branches of Islam) than many college-grad senators, governors, and presidents know.

It is vital to improve our understanding of the world's most prolific and influential religions/cultures, and that doesn't mean teaching them as if they were true; rather, we just need to stop launching some social-media-fueled "FIRE THIS TEACHER" campaign every time a student is given some assignment about Islam in general.

I went to a Catholic school too and this sums it up perfectly.

Religion and history is what shapes how people respond and act today.  To just ignore that body of work out there and belive its not useful is to always fall into the same traps history will show as failures.  Religion is a huge part of the world today and in the past and teach it gives a person a better insight why people do what they do whether you agree with what they do or not.  To forget the past is a instane case to repeat the wrongs in the future.

What I mean is that it's odd to call the entire community Christian. In America, the kinds of Christians you see are generally protestants. When you ask a Catholic what they are, they say Catholic, not Christian. You are correct in saying that a catholic IS a christian, and that the difference is between protestants and Christians, but I'm specifically referring to the "USA is 70% Christian" demographic.

I personally do not like the protestant group, but they are the majority of Christians, and it kind of paints US Christianity in a certain light. I don't know if I'm explaining myself correctly, but I guess it would be similar to saying 50% of Americans are Republicans, but making the distinction for alt-right, or tea-party groups. They believe in the same things for the most part, but are very very very different from what has historically been painted as republican.

Oh, you know what. It's like when I invented the term on this site called traditional core. The word core generally means "what is bought by the majority". So in the Wii days, I would say something like, the wii is missing core gaming. People would take a problem with this, because core for nintendo had changed. So I created traditional core to refer to the kinds of games that used to be core for nintendo in order to make the distinction.

I think the situation is more closely affiliated with order. Religion's major impact of the time was to create an all powerful law enforcement at a time when it was nearly impossible. Religion simply kept people from killing each other.

Agreed, it was the same at my school.

This is definitely something that I think is great about Catholics. Catholics do not take the Bible as word for word history. Most catholics understand that the Bible is just a book, and that times change, and what's important is knowledge.

I think this is one of the major reasons I dislike the other half of christianity, because to me, Catholics and Protestants are so diametrically opposed that I really don't think of them as the same religion. To me, it's like saying Judaism is the same as a Christian.

Only not used against another nation. Something like 1700 nukes have been dropped since hiro-saki

Lets put this in more relative terms.  You have a business.  You do 2 things right and 3 things wrong.  What do you do next time you make a decision.  Do you do the 2 things right and remember the wrongs so you do not do them again.  You have a lot of text that really means nothing because people have shone to do the same thing wrong multiple times with the same result.  Another case in point, when a country goes to war, they do 2 things right and 3 things wrong.  When they go to war again what do you think they are going to do.  In other words just because someone chooses to continue to do the same mistakes over and over again does not dismiss knowing history.  Instead people have a record or HISTORY of how dumb these people were and the smart ones do not repeat the same mistakes because they actually LEARNED something.

I have no problem with history of religions being taught in schools, but anything other than that? Fuck that.