Should Religion be a mandatory subject?

Dioluin

Just wondreing what people thought about this?


Thanks to everyone who did the poll by the way.

JayEnnis

Of course not and I'm happy it isn't.

The whole Separation of church and state business.

Dioluin

Any idea how to get out of it?

TanG411

I said no, as our society is becoming more and more secularised, religion does not play a huge part like it used to.

nadia4

I don't think it should be mandatory, people should have a choice whether to take the subject or not. However, in my school we had to take religion during the senior cycle years , which i thought was unnecessary, as it was a non exam subject. We covered areas such as the death penalty, cults, our new years resolutions :rolleyes:
I think in modern day Ireland, teenagers in second level should not be made to study religion, a majority of the people within my year thought the class was...unproductive , when we could have been doing homework, studying.
We were made to study religion up to junior cert level as well, i think we should have had a choice in the matter for the senior years. Irish society is changing and this should be reflected within the education system as well. That's my 2 cents

unknown13

Absolutely not, we live in society in which not many young people practice their own religion and which the Majority religion is in hot water. Also JC religion was the biggest load of shíte I ever did and was a massive waste of time, I hated the subject with a massive passion and there is no way I would want to do another two years of religion.

ldxo15wus6fpgm

Dioluin wrote: »

Any idea how to get out of it?

Are you under 18 and in a publicly funded school?

Dioluin

Remington Young Values wrote: »

Are you under 18 and in a publicly funded school?

Yep. You know how I could get out of it?

ldxo15wus6fpgm

Dioluin wrote: »

Yep. You know how I could?

BUNREACHT NA h&#201 wrote:

Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school.

I found this a little after I turned 18 and so I couldn't use it. It might seem a little extreme to be looking up the constitution but I had major problems with my school administration and my religion teacher.

If you're really serious about getting out of the class try the diplomatic route first and if there's no joy print that article off and hand it to your teacher. If they still try to force you to go to the class get your parents to complain and nag etc.

NOTE: Your relations with the school head/dep. head etc. WILL NOT BE GOOD after this. Just want to make that clear.

Jay P

I don't see the problem with it being mandatory, not necessarily as an exam subject though.

Some people are so narrow-minded about this kind of thing. The second they hear about it, they jump straight in and say "Oh religion is a load of balls, they're trying to brainwash/force their own beliefs on us." That's a pile of absolute rubbish. Learning religion is not like going to mass. You don't pray, nor are you forced to. You learn about various different religions, the customs related to them and how members of each religion practice their faith.

I just so happens that Catholicism is the most widely learned area of religion because that's what the teachers generally know most about. Bar one teacher I had in Junior Cert, who was a total Holy Mary and in no way reflects the way any other religion teacher teaches, I've never had a teacher preach at me about what I should believe, or how I should act. It also deals a lot with morality, and how you think is the right way to act. How is this not beneficial? It's certainly one of the more relevant topics that's studied in any course.

In Leaving Cert we had a class once a week that was called religion, but for the most part, we weren't learning about particular religions, we were learning about different topics relating to religion, like cults (who wouldn't find this interesting? It's class.), morality, mostly pertaining to drugs and sex and that kind of thing. The class was nearly always interesting and beneficial, even when we were doing stuff like spirituality and actual study of Catholicism.

Then again, the people who say religion is pointless tend to be the same people who say every other subject they study is pointless. Just because you don't like a subject and/or refuse to like it doesn't make it pointless.

Dioluin

Remington Young Values wrote: »

I found this a little after I turned 18 and so I couldn't use it. It might seem a little extreme to be looking up the constitution but I had major problems with my school administration and my religion teacher.

If you're really serious about getting out of the class try the diplomatic route first and if there's no joy print that article off and hand it to your teacher. If they still try to force you to go to the class get your parents to complain and nag etc.

NOTE: Your relations with the school head/dep. head etc. WILL NOT BE GOOD after this. Just want to make that clear.

Go raibh mile amaith agat! Not to bothered by the relations of me and my pricipale, dont get into trouble or anything like that, or get caught anyway. Ha.
Goin into sixth year now and just see Religion as a waste of time, personally and as a subject. Was going to get my parents to go in and talk to them. If they still try and make me i'll bring that passage out of An Bunreacht. Arís go raibh maith agat!:)

DavidKelly1

The whole concept is of Theology in school is totally outdated in my opinion. I attend a strict Catholic Convent and Religion is Complusory in Junior Cert., however if you are not Roman Catholic it is not. We also have to attend 3 religion classes a week in 5th but the and 6th year however I am not going to be attending these classes as they do not fulfill their purpose in teaching us about compassion, acceptance, and generosity.

Don't get me wrong I am 100% religious and a practising Catholic but the whole system needs a revamp.

Dioluin

Jay P wrote: »

Then again, the people who say religion is pointless tend to be the same people who say every other subject they study is pointless. Just because you don't like a subject and/or refuse to like it doesn't make it pointless.

Well in my opinion Religion is pointless. To me it is anyway. I genuinely dont belive in a god or follow a faith and after a while I get sick of hearing about it, and I consider it a waste of time, because it's not an exam subject, the time in school could be put to better use.
Along with that, in my class(5th year) we get shown tapes on bullying and are told to be nice to people. As if were 5 years old. Or we are told the sterotypical storys about young people and drugs.
I dont see a point in it when I could be trying to learn maths equations or french verbs, which I dont like but dont consider usless.
I usually have this class about 3 times a week. Thats 40 minutes a class. 2 hours a week. Then multiply that to how many weeks in a school year.
With the amount people need to learn for the leaving cert, and the amount you hear about studying from the teachers, Religion is a class that can be done without.
Thats my opinion on it anyway.

Orlaladuck

The school I went to was strongly catholic and despite it accepting every faith within the school it still forced everyone into mass once a week during lent and at the beginning of the year regardless. Not a single excuse could be made to get out of it. I found it a complete Waste of time especially around the mocks when your study time is taken by listening to something people aren't interested in or don't believe in. I don't think it should be made mandatory at all - The junior cert already gives us an insight into the other major religions as it is.
Though having said that, for 6th year we had a teacher who actually did religion with us, talking about various aspects of the bible and the institution of the church and basically started a debate every week which was interesting to a certain extent though we had to watch a bullying video for the sake of it but that's all we ever touched really.

nadia4

our school once told us we were going for a sports day at an adventure centre. On the day in question , we arrived in our sporty clothing to be met with a christianity retreat. I was in complete shock, they were american teenagers, who were borderline fundamentalists. They told us what to do and what not to do, no drinking, we had a girls and boys session, they informed us not to carry out certain activities :P in private, they also did some weird sh**, acting out these strange dramas. What annoyed me was the school were extremely manipulative in not telling us it was a religious event, organized by the religion department. It was incredibly ignorant, as there were people in my year who weren't catholic that arrived at the retreat. When i got back i asked the teacher who organized it, and she said if she told us what the event was going to be, nobody would go. :eek:
that's my rant over with

Orlaladuck

Now that is impressive. Surely parents kicked up a fuss over that?

Dioluin

nadia4 wrote: »

our school once told us we were going for a sports day at an adventure centre. On the day in question , we arrived in our sporty clothing to be met with a christianity retreat. I was in complete shock, they were american teenagers, who were borderline fundamentalists. They told us what to do and what not to do, no drinking, we had a girls and boys session, they informed us not to carry out certain activities :P in private, they also did some weird sh**, acting out these strange dramas. What annoyed me was the school were extremely manipulative in not telling us it was a religious event, organized by the religion department. It was incredibly ignorant, as there was people in my year who weren't catholic that arrived at the retreat. When i got back i asked the teacher who organized it, and she said if she told us what the event was going to be, nobody would go. :eek:
that's my rant over with

Went to one of them things meself last year. Told it was a day for us all to relax. Then had to listen to 5 hours of stuff like why using contraception is wrong and you should be marryd before doin anything sexually. Knew one of them nut job Americans to, one of them 'God told me to do it' types. Acctually got on fairly good with her apart from religious talk. Haha.

ChristianLC

Definitely not. The only years we were taught Religion was in 1st and 2nd year. From there on Religion was just used as a study type class.

Lawliet

Jay P wrote: »

I've never had a teacher preach at me about what I should believe, or how I should act.

Then you're lucking. Every religion teacher I've had has done exactly that. In forth year when we started discussing things like euthanasia and suicide etc. but the classes basically consisted of our teacher telling us how this was wrong and insinuating that we're bad people for thinking otherwise. After our teacher starting showing propaganda pictures of fetuses from partial birth abortions, to the pro-choice among us, I finally kicked up and refused to go to another again.

It also deals a lot with morality, and how you think is the right way to act. How is this not beneficial? It's certainly one of the more relevant topics that's studied in any course.

Why not replace religion with ethics lessons instead? I'm sure a lot of people for be for learning the kind of topics that come up in senior cycle religion without the Catholic bias.

Then again, the people who say religion is pointless tend to be the same people who say every other subject they study is pointless. Just because you don't like a subject and/or refuse to like it doesn't make it pointless.

I strongly disagree. In my experience it's quite the opposite. I wasn't the only student to refuse to go to religion, three other students did as well and all of us were the quite keep-your-head-down-and-get-on-with-your-work-types. Known of the apathetic students who regularly complain about having to learn maths etc. were bothered by religion.

DancingQueen:)

nadia4 wrote: »

our school once told us we were going for a sports day at an adventure centre. On the day in question , we arrived in our sporty clothing to be met with a christianity retreat. I was in complete shock, they were american teenagers, who were borderline fundamentalists. They told us what to do and what not to do, no drinking, we had a girls and boys session, they informed us not to carry out certain activities :P in private, they also did some weird sh**, acting out these strange dramas. What annoyed me was the school were extremely manipulative in not telling us it was a religious event, organized by the religion department. It was incredibly ignorant, as there were people in my year who weren't catholic that arrived at the retreat. When i got back i asked the teacher who organized it, and she said if she told us what the event was going to be, nobody would go. :eek:
that's my rant over with

I think those people running the retreat came to my school (Were they from Canada?), I thought they were a bit too forceful talking about religion but overall I had a good day, they were a bit of a laugh

In my school we don't do Religion for the Junior or Leaving but we had classes every week. In 6th year we had a triple religion once a week and i'll be honest I looked forward to it. Our teachers arranged guest speakers and we watched films and played games. It didn't feel like a religion class at all. It was a nice break from all of the work. People could argue that you it would be better a free class where you could study instead(some people just didn't show up for it) but I really enjoyed it. It worked well in my school anyway.

kev9100

No, religion shouldn't be mandatory. People have a right to completely ignore religion if they so wish.

Then again, my religion class in TY was one of the best classes I ever had. We didn't talk about religion as such, but we still had some really great classes.

EuropeanSon

NO. If I want fairy tales I'll read Grimm, thank you very much.

ruadhan

Religion isn't even an option in my school, in senior or junior cycle. Which is brilliant in my opinion. The only thing was for junior cert, was that because like nearly all other schools have it compulsory for junior cert, to have us doing eleven subjects art is compulsory or junior cert in my school. Which for me was a disaster.

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

Religion shouldn't be mandatory anywhere. I attend mass every week and I do believe in God but I would hate studying it as a subject. In my school we had 3 classes a week (a single and double) but it wasnt really religion as such, rather a society class where we discussed racism, sex, drugs, etc.. It was the highlight of the week for most as it was very relaxing and a nice distraction from the LC. I believe everyone should have the choice to study religion as much as they have the choice to study physics, business and geography. Anyways, I think as people get older they will start to believe in God more and more, especially when they lose friends and family.

ldxo15wus6fpgm

I'd really like to hear the opinions of the 3 people who think it should be mandatory.

Nutcases :pac:

unknown13

The way my timetable worked out for non exam religion. I had to do my resource classes when religion was on.

Jay P

Dioluin wrote: »

Well in my opinion Religion is pointless. To me it is anyway. I genuinely dont belive in a god or follow a faith and after a while I get sick of hearing about it, and I consider it a waste of time, because it's not an exam subject, the time in school could be put to better use.
Along with that, in my class(5th year) we get shown tapes on bullying and are told to be nice to people. As if were 5 years old. Or we are told the sterotypical storys about young people and drugs.
I dont see a point in it when I could be trying to learn maths equations or french verbs, which I dont like but dont consider usless.
I usually have this class about 3 times a week. Thats 40 minutes a class. 2 hours a week. Then multiply that to how many weeks in a school year.
With the amount people need to learn for the leaving cert, and the amount you hear about studying from the teachers, Religion is a class that can be done without.
Thats my opinion on it anyway.

Well that's fair enough, but I'm coming from a school where religion was a broadly positive experience for me.

Lawliet wrote: »

Then you're lucking. Every religion teacher I've had has done exactly that. In forth year when we started discussing things like euthanasia and suicide etc. but the classes basically consisted of our teacher telling us how this was wrong and insinuating that we're bad people for thinking otherwise. After our teacher starting showing propaganda pictures of fetuses from partial birth abortions, to the pro-choice among us, I finally kicked up and refused to go to another again.

See above. I can't really argue against your experience, can I?

Why not replace religion with ethics lessons instead? I'm sure a lot of people for be for learning the kind of topics that come up in senior cycle religion without the Catholic bias.

Well you could argue my religion class pretty much was an ethics lesson a lot of the time, but I wouldn't agree with replacing it altogether. I found actually learning about religion to be interesting. Maybe not the boring stuff about Mass or whatever, but there were parts I really liked.

I strongly disagree. In my experience it's quite the opposite. I wasn't the only student to refuse to go to religion, three other students did as well and all of us were the quite keep-your-head-down-and-get-on-with-your-work-types. Known of the apathetic students who regularly complain about having to learn maths etc. were bothered by religion.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree then, because that's not how I saw it at all. The "keep-your-head-down-and-get-on-with-your-work-types", as you called them, did exactly that. They were the ones who got on with the work. The ones who kicked up a fuss about doing the subject weren't the most diligent workers. The vast majority of people weren't pushed about it.

HQvhs

I have to agree with the above post. I also had a broadly positive experience of religion in secondary school. Our school decided to stop doing it as an exam subject the year before I started, so for my 6 years we had religion classes which involved a lot of dossing interspersed with classes on other religions, ethics and other topical issues like that. It kind of merged with CSPE and SPHE in junior cycle.
In fourth year we had a fantastic teacher (who was also a history teacher) who spent the year teaching us about each of the major religions (including Christianity). It involved each of us doing a project on an aspect of Islam which was very beneficial.
Fifth and Sixth year we mostly spent covering topics like the end of the world, morality etc, but by sixth year they mostly became study classes which suited me fine.

Overall, we only had a handful of religion classes a week, but I liked them and appreciate them in hindsight. It was nice to learn about things that weren't for an exam. And, in the real world, it has actually benefited me I think. I'm not a religious person at all, but like it or not religion plays a big role in the world still. I think at the very least a person should know the aspects of their own (if any) and other people's faiths so that they can empathise with them. An increased understanding of different faiths would promote understanding and reduce intolerence (whilst it won't stop it completely - education does play an important role).

The people who dismiss religion out of hand with contempt probably think of themselves as cultured, modern, caring citizens. But, to me, they just come across as intolerent. If you don't like something, you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. You have to face that people have different views, and learning about these and seeing the other side is important.

So, for only a few classes a week I don't see the harm - unless you do theology in college you probably won't learn any of this again. (However, as people have said above, some do have bad experiences with teachers forcing their opinions down students' throats - this carry-on shouldn't be accepted. But that's no reason to abandon the subject altogether)

Lawliet

Jay P wrote: »

See above. I can't really argue against your experience, can I?

No but my experience is not unique. If you're going to base your argument off your own positive experience you should at least take into account the negative.

Well you could argue my religion class pretty much was an ethics lesson a lot of the time, but I wouldn't agree with replacing it altogether. I found actually learning about religion to be interesting. Maybe not the boring stuff about Mass or whatever, but there were parts I really liked.

But you could still learn about religion in the ethics classes, learning about other cultures and religions isn't the issue. The main problem I have with mandatory religion is that it is so Catholic focused, and it leaves out people with other beliefs. In many school students who are church of Ireland, Jehovah's witnesses, Muslim, Hindi etc. are left out of these lessons and have either separate classes or just sit in study hall for the duration. Having this kind of system in 2010 is just ridiculous.
All inclusive ethics classes would be a much better system.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree then, because that's not how I saw it at all. The "keep-your-head-down-and-get-on-with-your-work-types", as you called them, did exactly that.

Let me put it another way, religion is a deeply personal thing, it's your core beliefs that define you and when someone insults those beliefs you are going to react, no matter how quite you usually are.

KnifeWRENCH

Remington Young Values wrote: »

I'd really like to hear the opinions of the 3 people who think it should be mandatory.

Nutcases :pac:

If you want them to reply to you, you should not refer to them as nutcases. There will always be different opinions here; don't insult other posters for having different views to yours.

On topic, religion could be a good enough subject if taught right. The problem is that a lot of teachers just want to force their own beliefs onto students. My religion teacher in 5th and 6th year was grand though; he tried doing some stuff with us but when he realised no-one in the class had the slightest bit of interest he just let us study and do our homework. Those two study periods a week were quite helpful.

HQvhs

Lawliet wrote: »

No but my experience is not unique. If you're going to base your argument off your own positive experience you should at least take into account the negative.



But you could still learn about religion in the ethics classes, learning about other cultures and religions isn't the issue. The main problem I have with mandatory religion is that it is so Catholic focused, and it leaves out people with other beliefs. In many school students who are church of Ireland, Jehovah's witnesses, Muslim, Hindi etc. are left out of these lessons and have either separate classes or just sit in study hall for the duration. Having this kind of system in 2010 is just ridiculous.
All inclusive ethics classes would be a much better system.



Let me put it another way, religion is a deeply personal thing, it's your core beliefs that define you and when someone insults those beliefs you are going to react, no matter how quite you usually are.

Then the issue isn't really "should religion be abandoned in school?", it's more "how can we improve the subject of religion?"