Religion classes in school - Megathread

I don't really care what the church says; official government statistics are what actually matter 😁 besides, neither I nor my child attend services 😁
he was baptized, but unless they start taxing it, he won't be signing any paperwork to change his status 😁

rowdypanther12 said:I don't really care what the church says; official government statistics are what actually matter 😁 besides, neither I nor my child attend services 😁
he was baptized, but unless they start taxing it, he won't be signing any paperwork to change his status 😁

The thing about those government stats is that atheists get lumped right in there too. Their parents just list them as Catholic, and when the census workers come around, they don't wait for everyone to be home—they just ask the parents.

My sister was actually away on a study abroad program in Europe when the census happened, and my parents just checked the "Catholic" box for her.
A whole bunch of her friends ended up the same way.
And probably tons of other people, too.
Besides, this whole census thing feels pretty pointless anyway.

Haha, I honestly don't think our local politicians—who act more like clergy than public servants these days—will ever actually give us the option to decide whether we want to fund those medieval living fossils or not...

Susan James said:The thing about those government stats is that atheists get lumped right in there too. Their parents just list them as Catholic, and when the census workers come around, they don't wait for everyone to be home—they just ask the parents.

My sister was actually away on a study abroad program in Europe when the census happened, and my parents just checked the "Catholic" box for her.
A whole bunch of her friends ended up the same way.
And probably tons of other people, too.
Besides, this whole census thing feels pretty pointless anyway.

That's easy for them to say, but most people think you're Catholic simply because you aren't Protestant—mostly just because you celebrate Christmas on the same day.
Good grief, I had a friend claim he was Orthodox once. How can you call yourself Orthodox when you've never even stepped foot in a church or been baptized?
Well, yeah, we follow the old calendar at our house.
😂

it’s because around here, people basically treat being American like it’s just another branch of their religion 🙄

And honestly, terms like atheist or agnostic? Most people don't even really get them, let alone feel like they fit inside those little boxes. I can't for the life of me remember if there’s actually an "other" category on the census forms.

Feel free to say whatever is on your mind. You could write about Jedi, Faith of the Seven, or honestly, just anything else you feel like

rowdypanther12 said:That's easy for them to say, but most people think you're Catholic simply because you aren't Protestant—mostly just because you celebrate Christmas on the same day.
Good grief, I had a friend claim he was Orthodox once. How can you call yourself Orthodox when you've never even stepped foot in a church or been baptized?
Well, yeah, we follow the old calendar at our house.
😂

🤦
😁
In my opinion, a huge number of kids sign up for religious ed classes just because they don't want to feel left out or like they're somehow less than their peers. But it totally backfires. You end up with 99% indoctrinated little ones, and all the church really does is dull the public's intellect, making everyone easier to control. Instead of focusing on actual science, we're stuck obsessing over Noah's Ark and this idea that all the animals were suddenly peaceful... like foxes weren't eating chicks, or bears weren't hunting fish... 🤦

What really gets to me, though, is this stuff:

https://6yka.com/novosti/zadarski-sv...totinu-djecaka
Ireland, the United States, Australia...

Why isn't any of this being taught in those religion classes?

http://www.nytimes.com/News/US/Politics/t9I6gR1slxoJ0U

more on this textbook nonsense

They're broke. 🙄 And on top of that, they keep whining about discrimination. 🤣

steelmarlin93 said:🤦
😁
In my opinion, a huge number of kids sign up for religious ed classes just because they don't want to feel left out or like they're somehow less than their peers. But it totally backfires. You end up with 99% indoctrinated little ones, and all the church really does is dull the public's intellect, making everyone easier to control. Instead of focusing on actual science, we're stuck obsessing over Noah's Ark and this idea that all the animals were suddenly peaceful... like foxes weren't eating chicks, or bears weren't hunting fish... 🤦

What really gets to me, though, is this stuff:

https://6yka.com/novosti/zadarski-sv...totinu-djecaka
Ireland, the United States, Australia...

Why isn't any of this being taught in those religion classes?

Because religion class is supposed to be the study of faith?
This is stuff that should be covered in social studies. 😁

And just to offer some "comfort": those kids aren't "indoctrinated," believe me. At least not the vast majority of them. Especially the ones who only show up because they don't want to wander the halls alone, or because everyone in their small town goes, or because there's "pressure" to finish up their sacraments.

Kids aren't stupid. By the 7th and 8th grade, they think attending religion class is the absolute dumbest thing ever. They know perfectly well they're only doing it because the old guard wants them to for whatever reason.

It gets pretty hilarious when they start talking about it.

I'm speaking from experience here—I work with large groups of kids outside of the school system, so we have debates on all sorts of topics all the time. Since I'm not "part of the establishment," they're incredibly open and free about sharing how they really feel. 😉

Peter Rogers said:http://www.nytimes.com/News/US/Politics/t9I6gR1slxoJ0U

more on this textbook nonsense

The New York Times dug up the numbers on payouts from the last five years—specifically from 2014 through 2019. They calculated that the Catholic Church received about $250 million. But hold on, that’s just scratching the surface. Once you factor in teacher salaries, funding for ministry, money for restoring Catholic cultural sites, and support for religious schools and universities, that total jumps to roughly $550 million. We're talking about nearly $110 million every single year.

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Paul Campbell3 said:The New York Times dug up the numbers on payouts from the last five years—specifically from 2014 through 2019. They calculated that the Catholic Church received about $250 million. But hold on, that’s just scratching the surface. Once you factor in teacher salaries, funding for ministry, money for restoring Catholic cultural sites, and support for religious schools and universities, that total jumps to roughly $550 million. We're talking about nearly $110 million every single year.

☕

This is just awful...

The Supreme Court already made its stance clear back in February: Congress actually has the power to vote on this, to basically pull religious education out of public schools if they wanted to... but clearly, there's no actual political will here. It's not about principle, it's about interests... it's about cushy jobs, money, power, and egos. And I'm not just blaming the current administration, either... even the previous quasi-liberal leaders didn't have the guts to touch anything "sacred." They could have renegotiated the Vatican Treaty while they were in charge, or maybe pushed for curriculum reform, but they just didn't...

It would be so incredibly interesting if they actually built a school specifically for kids who don't participate in religious studies. If they did that, the percentage of kids attending those classes would probably drop by half overnight...

Robert Rodriguez9 said:They're broke. 🙄 And on top of that, they keep whining about discrimination. 🤣

Publishers are getting dispatches straight from the Vatican regarding updates to non-religious textbook content, and now they want me to foot the bill for catechisms too? Honestly, they can just pay for it themselves.

steelmarlin93 said:This is just awful...

The Supreme Court already made its stance clear back in February: Congress actually has the power to vote on this, to basically pull religious education out of public schools if they wanted to... but clearly, there's no actual political will here. It's not about principle, it's about interests... it's about cushy jobs, money, power, and egos. And I'm not just blaming the current administration, either... even the previous quasi-liberal leaders didn't have the guts to touch anything "sacred." They could have renegotiated the Vatican Treaty while they were in charge, or maybe pushed for curriculum reform, but they just didn't...

It would be so incredibly interesting if they actually built a school specifically for kids who don't participate in religious studies. If they did that, the percentage of kids attending those classes would probably drop by half overnight...

The thing is, we already have plenty of those—they’re called public schools. And sure, the government claims to be secular; at least, that’s what the Constitution says. But then again, Krivousti signed that famous Vatican Treaty back in '96, and we've had religious zealots running the show for thirty years now. They have zero interest in fixing this "little issue." If it actually hit their wallets, they would have found a way to bypass the "stone-carved" rules long ago.
Meanwhile, the state keeps marching "forward": hallways turned into death traps, the unvaccinated, the immunocompromised, a flatlined economy... you name it.
All they care about is sending out surveys asking if kids want elective computer science next year. You can bet they won't send out the same garbage regarding religion. Not that anyone cares about any actual reform.

The 13th century was more progressive than the United States in the 21st.

My little girl absolutely lives for her religion class. For her, it’s basically a built-in recess—just drawing, reading, and hanging out with a few friends from her grade who aren't part of the program. Most of the time they just hole up in the school library while the rest of the class sits there wishing they were doing what they're doing. She’s constantly checking the schedule to see when her religion block is (which is really just when everyone else *isn't* in it), and she practically counts down the minutes until that sweet, sweet gap in her school day.

brightfox7 said:My little girl absolutely lives for her religion class. For her, it’s basically a built-in recess—just drawing, reading, and hanging out with a few friends from her grade who aren't part of the program. Most of the time they just hole up in the school library while the rest of the class sits there wishing they were doing what they're doing. She’s constantly checking the schedule to see when her religion block is (which is really just when everyone else *isn't* in it), and she practically counts down the minutes until that sweet, sweet gap in her school day.

It's honestly great when they let them just do their own thing like that. My partner and I actually had to sit in the classroom with all the other kids while they were listening to the lesson. We had to stay completely silent and couldn't even move. We were there for every single one of those sessions, except we weren't getting any grades for it. 🕺

Kids only attend religious education classes if their parents allow it. I personally would never let my child sit through a religion class. It happened once when they were three due to a weird set of circumstances, so I didn't make a scene at the time. But if it ever happened again, I wouldn't just let it slide.

rowdypanther12 said:Kids only attend religious education classes if their parents allow it. I personally would never let my child sit through a religion class. It happened once when they were three due to a weird set of circumstances, so I didn't make a scene at the time. But if it ever happened again, I wouldn't just let it slide.

When you've got a small school with maybe 300 students and only three kids aren't attending religion class, the administration doesn't even bother asking the parents. That's just how things work in those tiny rural towns. 😁 Parents have gone to the principal several times trying to explain that their child doesn't want to participate, but it's totally useless... I mean, do you really want your kid being pulled away from their classmates and friends just because they aren't into it? What are they supposed to do during those 45 minutes? Where do they go? What if something happens? Who’s watching them?! It all seems designed just so the rest of the kids don't drop the class (half of them didn't even realize religious ed wasn't mandatory 😵), because why bother opting out if they still have to sit there anyway? At least they get an easy A at the end of the year.

Since kids aren't required to take religion classes, nobody can force them to stay in the classroom during those periods. I get that smaller schools might not have the resources to set up special workshops in the library for students who aren't participating, but they absolutely have to let them go outside or head to the library instead.
If the school refuses, there's always a higher authority you can appeal to. My kid wouldn't push it that far—they certainly wouldn't go all the way to the White House over this.