Many seem to think that, so long as a faith school is providing children with knowledge of other faiths, that's good enough.
It isn't. Here are 3 reasons why:
1. For a start, knowledge of other faiths does not necessarily lead to a reduction in friction between faiths. In fact, often the most vicious and violent religious conflicts are between groups with detailed knowledge with what the other believes, e.g. Catholic vs. Protestant; Shia vs. Sunni. Mere knowledge of other faiths does not produce tolerance and respect. Actual interaction with members of other faiths (and none), on the other hand, probably does have a beneficial effect.
2. Mere knowledge of other faiths, in the absence of any robust critical thinking about faith, often also promotes a very intellectually flabby sort of relativism. Pupils presented with a range of faiths are likely to realize that, as these faiths all contradict each other, most of them (perhaps all of them) must be largely false. Teachers who want to avoid endorsing this conclusion may be tempted to sidestep the issue by taking a relativist stance: "Well, that Jesus is God is true for Christians, but false for Muslims". Relativism conveniently makes the religious beliefs of all believers come out as "true"!
3. Most importantly, unless children acquire the sort of critical thinking skills and robust intellectual defences that I'm arguing all schools, religious or not, should foster (and which traditional religious eduction often works so hard to suppress) schools provide the perfect, gullible fodder for the charlatans, snake oil salesmen, cultists and religious zealots waiting outside the school gates.
It isn't. Here are 3 reasons why:
1. For a start, knowledge of other faiths does not necessarily lead to a reduction in friction between faiths. In fact, often the most vicious and violent religious conflicts are between groups with detailed knowledge with what the other believes, e.g. Catholic vs. Protestant; Shia vs. Sunni. Mere knowledge of other faiths does not produce tolerance and respect. Actual interaction with members of other faiths (and none), on the other hand, probably does have a beneficial effect.
2. Mere knowledge of other faiths, in the absence of any robust critical thinking about faith, often also promotes a very intellectually flabby sort of relativism. Pupils presented with a range of faiths are likely to realize that, as these faiths all contradict each other, most of them (perhaps all of them) must be largely false. Teachers who want to avoid endorsing this conclusion may be tempted to sidestep the issue by taking a relativist stance: "Well, that Jesus is God is true for Christians, but false for Muslims". Relativism conveniently makes the religious beliefs of all believers come out as "true"!
3. Most importantly, unless children acquire the sort of critical thinking skills and robust intellectual defences that I'm arguing all schools, religious or not, should foster (and which traditional religious eduction often works so hard to suppress) schools provide the perfect, gullible fodder for the charlatans, snake oil salesmen, cultists and religious zealots waiting outside the school gates.
Comments
Irrational thinking is not confined to religious subjects; it exists in many areas of everyday life.
Of course, we all "live by faith" to an extent - such as assuming that the sun will rise tomorrow morning - but it is incumbent on education to develop critical thinking skills which will enable children to evaluate the degree of sense or nonsense in their own and others' beliefs.
I totally agree. All people must be taught to view all propositions critically and logically. As Stephen said, we can't let religion shelter behind the "it's all true" relativism, nor shall we suffer any other dogma to live. Critical thinking and logic are vaccinations against fallacious thought, and they should be required in all schools just like other vaccinations.
In the case of religious schools, the tests themselves must be also passed through some sort of filter to ensure that they do not give an implicit bias towards a specific viewpoint e.g. asking "How many Gods are there?" and expecting the "correct" answer to be "only one" in a Christian school is I think unacceptable but if the question is framed as "According to Christianity, how many Gods are there?", I see no objection.
This is possibly quite easy to deal with in multiple choice where the exam may easily subjected to external scrutiny but I can see things being much harder to police where essays are marked by the staff of a faith based school.
Indeed, it is amazing the lengths that the religious will go to, not just to prevent knowledge but also to ensure that their ideology (calling it faith only belittles the notion of faith) is not tainted by contact with those of other beliefs.
Humans learn from one another through interacting with one another, without that interaction how are people supposed to learn to understand others? I suppose it could be argued that's where the inculcating of faith comes in! Although we need to subvert more normal methods of learning in order to accept this as a valid position.
What do we replace religion with is something that religionist sometimes use as a point against having freedom from religion, the answer seems to be nothing more than ensuring that people can interact with one another: The school is the place for that education to start!
To the extent that the gulf between these two types of 'faith' is greater than their similarities implied: one is based in reality and can be know from the honest application of higher human abilities, the other is based on desire and has no such safe guards against being misused.
Calling them both 'faith' is little more than an equivocation of the highest order.
Call it 'trust' instead of 'faith', if you like.
The 'supernatural' and 'faith' in it makes no sense to me.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/
2008/01/24/school-merger-plans-would-fence
-off-catholic-kids-86908-20295970/
Critical thinking about religion is the best way to end this stupidity
I would advocate critical thinking, for all... atheist, theist, whateverist...
Why? Because it is something we can share and it is a skill that avoids having to use sticks to prove a point.
Ibrahim Lawson - if he is still reading your blog - will doubtless dismiss this as my "pseudo-liberal bigotry"......