Jesus is in my classroom?

gigglingrat

Does anyone but me think that religion classes are a big waste of time?

Raphael

But they teach us that jesus is right, and all other beliefs are evil....



Personnally i dont mind em, but i think they're ridiculous as an exam subject

americanCat

you guys hafta take religious classes??? what do you do?? i'm certainly glad i don't hafta take a religious clas..i'd probly end up sleepin through it ^__^
~cat~

halenger

Religion has good points, the subject I mean.

It's very much like civics/cspe at times. Learning about other religions etc. That's fairly important I would think. Leaves people very closed and without knowledge not knowing how different/same other religions are.

It's used for many other reasons too. I would say it's pretty important. I wouldn't be pleased with doing a state exam on it-no idea how they'll even manage that-but as a subject it shouldn't be not done.

Crash

Ah but the problem with religion is this country Halenger is that my experience of being taught it left me with little to no view of other religions. its a very secular country still and very limited in religious views when it wants to be.

Awayindahils

in my old school religion involved an old priest coming in and lecturing us on God, while finding it impossible to look above our chests. the rest of the time it involved the teacher who was highly pious trying to convert the aethesit in our class.

it was a great class for sleeping and doing other work in but apart from that it was a load of bs.

article6

Religion class is grand - at least, if you're in a normal, ecumenical-Christian school like my alma mater. I seem to remember watching "Little Buddha" twice and "Shrek" three times. Maybe the religious orders in the private Dublin schools do it differently, though. There's no point saying "it leaves you ignorant of other religions" if you, yourself, know that other religions exist. Except, of course, if we're taking the elitist standpoint - that it's the ignorant masses at stake. (It's acceptable on this forum, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it.)

But why oh why are they examining it as a subject? There are too many Junior Certificate subjects already, and religion isn't exactly the sort of stuff you only learn from a textbook.

Liquorice

I used to despise religion class, but now it's not so bad. We're covering more parts of the course now, like morality and attitudes to religion, which are quite interesting. I don't like the book, but our new teacher doesn't really use it so all is good. Yes, we do cover a lot more Catholicism than we do other religions, but I'm in a Catholic school so I can't complain. The subject(as I'm taught it, at least) doesn't pimp Catholicism, but more explores all aspects of religion. At first it seemed a silly idea for a class, but now I think that it's more about different beliefs, different attitudes towards ethics etc. more than an excuse to convert atheists to Catholics.

KlodaX

I'm a fairly open minded person that went to a Catholic school.

I asked my religion teacher for some more indept material ... *I was finding what she was saying too unrealistic ... you had to have had understood the basic principles and teachings before the rest* ...

she gave me it ... and I didn't think much of it...

I don't think much of lying ... and when she asked me what I thought of the papers she had given me *not many people had expressed an intrest... and when someone did so did she* .... I told her what I thought ... I still needed conviencing ...

I didn't believe in "God" .... I failed the year.

I even traveled to Lourdes to understand her beliefs .. but that didn't matter ... cause I didn't agree ... I failed the year!?!!?

I'm just glad its not an exam subject in the Leaving cert.
If religion should be included in the course .. I don't see why politics shouldn't be.

Spenguin

No one in my school takes religion seriously, and everyone is always questioning the teacher. We only learnt about christians last year, and in our text book it shows how it split into three groups, and in the diagram the catholic religion takes up more room then the other two and its in the middle at the top. Then my R.E. teacher decided that she didnb't like the text book because it was too biased, so she taught us about Judaism from sheets of handout paper this year. Unfortunately, theres this one b*****d in my class who is so prejudice against Jews, and my R.E teacher once called him a racist asshole.

halenger

Well Neil it's a pity it's not that way so.

In my school we spent a lot of 5th and 6th year religion dealing with different religions and what they were about. I quite liked that and I felt it broadened my knowledge of other religions quite a lot.

I assumed it would've been pretty similar everywhere, if not that's rather a shame.

Religion was also used to cover sex education too.

I guess it does really depend on the teacher you get. Some are quite dedicated to it and teach it well, as with all subject. And others... well I'm sure they're good at something!

Barry Aldwell

In religion we watch videos on Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and the birth of the universe. Our teachers believe that we "leave school with a comprehensive knowledge of particle physics, but no knowledge of morals or ethics"

Scarinae

I'm in a multi-cultural, non-denominational school so the way they used to do it was anyone who was Jewish or Muslim or whatever was exempt and the rest of us had to do it. It didn't really matter though because we didnt really do religion at all, we studied conflict resolution and mediation and stuff, and watched videos. Now I'm in fifth year its an optional subject (I do it cos the other choice was PE - pah) but its great! We've got a different teacher now who lets us decide what topics we want to talk about and we debate them and things. So far we've studied Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism and have discussed topics like whether gay people's marriages should be acknowledged by the state and churches, what religion means to different people, cults, terrorism and the burning of Harry Potter books and Pinocchio videos by devout Christians in the US - I think the problem with having it as a subject for the junior cert is that you have to follow a course, not talk about what you're really interested in. Thats the thing with religion, its a personal thing so being taught a certain syllabus isn't going to enlighten people much... And bible-thumpers who force their views on everyone should be banned from education, not only is it rude but it puts people off. And I don't blame them, when their only experience of religion is scary, angry, intolerant priests or nuns.

Whats everyone elses opinion on the celibacy thats forced on priests and nuns btw?

vikki

I personally hate religion class as its pointless because nobody listens to our teachers ramblings about what a good person jesus was... funnily the one person who does listen is muslim... the rest of us dont care, actually half of my class have given up all their religious beliefs because of our teacher... oh it is useful because we can do homework or sleep through class i suppose that is a benefit of doing such a pointless subject!!! and now that there are so many different religions in the country it makes you wonder what the person who originally came up with the idea of introducing religion as an exam subject was on at the time...

Vikki*;)

twirly sponge

I think religion class is great if you have a good teacher. I do and we do loads about other religions and attitudes to religion and morals and ethics and that kind of thing. It is a bit biased to Catholicism but my school is Catholic so i don't really care about that. I just realised I'm basically repeating everything Scarlett said but that's cos I agree with her totally. And KlodaX, we do politics in CSPE.