Religion may be out of core curriculum for primary schools

Hotblack Desiato

J C wrote: »

They are legally obliged to do what the church authorities require of them in relation to religious education and what the state requires of them in regard to everything else.

Only if you accept the ridiculous legal fiction that the church is somehow their employer while not paying their wages.

Teachers in ETs are not obliged to offer religious instruction and they do not. They are bound by the same laws as all other teachers.

How the teaching unions are happy with their members effectively being hired and fired by bishops on the basis of having to (at least pretend to) profess a religious faith and publicly be seen to conform with its so-called 'moral' doctrines beats me. They refuse to speak out against a system which is unjust in its treatment of teachers never mind parents.

Hotblack Desiato

J C wrote: »

Because, although people of no religion amount to 6% of the population, Atheists and Agnostics are only 0.16% ... Atheism/agnosticism doesn't have a monopoly on being non-religious.

As has already been explained to you, that's utter nonsense.

J C

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Only if you accept the ridiculous legal fiction that the church is somehow their employer while not paying their wages.

It isn't a legal fiction ... its actually quite common for privately run instituitions to be funded by the state to perform public services ... and this situation applies equally to all other schools in Ireland, whatever their patronage may be.
The real fiction operating here is the faux 'surprise' that more non-religious schools aren't available, when the census is indicating less than 10% of the population would want such schools (and even this 10% is so heterogenious in their viewpoints, that they probably couldn't agree on the time of the day, because of their disparate and opposing worldviews).

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Teachers in ETs are not obliged to offer religious instruction and they do not. They are bound by the same laws as all other teachers.

... and the reason they do not is because their patrons/ethos doesn't allow them to do so ... and they respect the law applying to them ... just like teachers in church run schools do likewise.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

How the teaching unions are happy with their members effectively being hired and fired by bishops on the basis of having to (at least pretend to) profess a religious faith and publicly be seen to conform with its so-called 'moral' doctrines beats me. They refuse to speak out against a system which is unjust in its treatment of teachers never mind parents.

When has a teacher been 'unjustly fired', as you term it?

MrPudding

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

J C, go away with your nonsense. We've been there, done that, you lost, get over it.

Just as one theist is banned another reanimates - quite the mystery isn't it.

smacl wrote: »

Indeed, within a couple of hours the event after no activity for three months, taking up exactly where the other poster left off. Miraculous. :rolleyes:

I am pretty sure the "new" guy was restricted some time ago to the specious nonsense thread. Anyone know when that got lifted?

MrP

J C

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

As has already been explained to you, that's utter nonsense.

Why?

Are you claiming that Atheists / Agnostics have a monopoly on being non-religious?

Some Christians are non-religious ... claiming to have a Saving Faith, instead.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by Hotblack Desiato
J C, go away with your nonsense. We've been there, done that, you lost, get over it.

Just as one theist is banned another reanimates - quite the mystery isn't it.
Quote:

Originally Posted by smacl
Indeed, within a couple of hours the event after no activity for three months, taking up exactly where the other poster left off. Miraculous.


MrPudding
I am pretty sure the "new" guy was restricted some time ago to the specious nonsense thread. Anyone know when that got lifted?

MrP

What has this got to do with the OP of this thread?

... and what has this "new" guy, whoever he is, got to do with me (other than the fact that he is a 'theist')?

... and what is the point of all these 'mutterings'?

Pherekydes

J C wrote: »

Because, although people of no religion amount to 6% of the population, Atheists and Agnostics are only 0.16% ... Atheism/agnosticism doesn't have a monopoly on being non-religious.

Again, for the 892nd time, the question on the census is about religion, not about belief in god.

For the latter information, see the link, which YOU helpfully posted, for information about belief in god:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#Eurobarometer_Polls

According to a 2010 Eurobarometer Poll,

70% of Irish citizens answered that "they believe there is a God"

70%. Not 99.99999% or 100%!!!!!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

J C wrote: »

Because, although people of no religion amount to 6% of the population, Atheists and Agnostics are only 0.16% ... Atheism/agnosticism doesn't have a monopoly on being non-religious.

Athiest/Agnostics only make up 0.16% of the population?! What in Buddha's name are you smoking??

I'd also like to know how the other 5.84% are defined, if they are can't be religious, not relgious, athiest or agnostic?

J C

Pherekydes wrote: »

Again, for the 892nd time, the question on the census is about religion, not about belief in god.

For the latter information, see the link, which YOU helpfully posted, for information about belief in god:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#Eurobarometer_Polls

According to a 2010 Eurobarometer Poll,

70% of Irish citizens answered that "they believe there is a God"

70%. Not 99.99999% or 100%!!!!!

All polls have their limitations ... the only 'poll' of the entire population is the census.

J C

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Athiest/Agnostics only make up 0.16% of the population?! What in Buddha's name are you smoking??

I'd also like to know how the other 5.84% are defined, if they are can't be religious, not relgious, athiest or agnostic?

Self-professed Atheists and Agnostics make up only 0.16% of the population.
Of course, there may be more Atheists and Agnostics out there who are too shy to say what they are (or allow their mothers to speak for them, as suggested by some posters).

Having said all that, the current ratio of religious to non-religious run schools may need some re-balancing to provide for more variety of ethos ... but the idea that all church run schools should be vacated by the churches, to achieve this, is quite far-fetched indeed.

... and is as unreasonable as if the churches were demanding that 100% of schools should be church run (which they most certainly are not demanding)

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

J C wrote: »

Self-professed Atheists and Agnostics make up only 0.16% of the population.
Of course there may be more Atheists and Agnostics out there who are too shy to say what they are.

Which debunks every point you made in which your backup was "the census": clearly you accpet that people CAN be misinterpred on the census. Which in turn debunks every point you made about religion being a core subject in schools becaue the census says that's that the majority of the population is practicing Catholic.

Having said all that, the current ratio of religious to non-religious run schools may need some re-balancing to provide for more variety of ethos ... but the idea that all church run schools should be vacated by the churches, to achieve this, is quite far-fetched indeed.

I'd agree. Which is why that's entirely different to what we're (well, shhould be discussing).

It's not the Church in schools, it's religion as a core subject in schools.

I'm of the belief that you know this and are delberately being vague in and contradcitory purely to avoid having to admit your argument is flawed and your stance is bull****.

J C

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Which debunks every point you made in which your backup was "the census": clearly you accpet that people CAN be misinterpred on the census. Which in turn debunks every point you made about religion being a core subject in schools becaue the census says that's that the majority of the population is practicing Catholic.

You're 'grasping at straws' here.

The Census law requires that people answer all questions honestly ... if they don't they are breaking the law ... this should mean that any 'mis-representation' as you call it, including interfering mammies, was minimal and vanishingly small.
... and Roman Catholics don't have to be 'practicing' (which means very different things to different people, anyway) to want their children taught the core principles of their faith in school.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I'd agree. Which is why that's entirely different to what we're (well, shhould be discussing).

It's not the Church in schools, it's religion as a core subject in schools.

I'm of the belief that you know this and are delberately being vague in and contradcitory purely to avoid having to admit your argument is flawed and your stance is bull****.

Please avoid the bad language, if you want to be taken seriously.
... and churches running schools will invariably have religious instruction as a core subject in these schools ... indeed they will be expected by the vast majority of parents to do so.

Please don't mistake magnanimity on my part (or indeed any church's part) with abandonment of my argument (or the surrender on the part of the church of their schools).

J C

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I'd also like to know how the other 5.84% are defined, if they are can't be religious, not relgious, athiest or agnostic?

... there are probably a few acolytes of the Flying Spaghetti Monster amongst them as well !!!:)

Hotblack Desiato

J C wrote: »

It isn't a legal fiction ... its actually quite common for privately run instituitions to be funded by the state to perform public services ...

Yes it is, and those organisations are clearly the employer of the staff concerned and pay their wages - the fact there is matching funding from the State doesn't negate that.

This is not the case for teachers. Their wages are paid directly by the Department of Education. Their payslips are issued to them by the Department of Education.

The real fiction operating here is the faux 'surprise' that more non-religious schools aren't available, when the census is indicating less than 10% of the population would want such schools (and even this 10% is so heterogenious in their viewpoints, that they probably couldn't agree on the time of the day, because of their disparate and opposing worldviews).

There is no question on the census pertaining to one's preferred school patronage model for one's real or hypothetical children, so your continual reference to the census is disingenuous at best.

As you well know the figures for religious belief in this country are heavily skewed by OAPs. They don't tend to have children of school going age. We should be asking twenty- and thirty-somethings what they want - but we already know - demand for ET places is overwhelming.

... and the reason they do not is because their patrons/ethos doesn't allow them to do so ... and they respect the law applying to them ... just like teachers in church run schools do likewise.

What has any of that got to do with law, as you claimed?

When has a teacher been 'unjustly fired', as you term it?

Teacher fired in the 80s for becoming pregnant.

I have heard of some who feel obliged to be seen to attend church services etc. if they want to be considered for promotion.

Many gay teachers who are in the closet at work.

Many non-believers who are forced to peddle nonsense as truth at work.

Hotblack Desiato

J C wrote: »

Why?

Are you claiming that Atheists / Agnostics have a monopoly on being non-religious?

Some Christians are non-religious ... claiming to have a Saving Faith, instead.

Claiming that a person with a religious faith can be 'non-religious' is an abuse of the English language.

Pherekydes

J C wrote: »

Self-professed Atheists and Agnostics make up only 0.16% of the population.

How have you calculated this percentage?

Please do not refer to the census, as this measures religious affiliation, and not belief in god. There's that statement again! Soon it'll sink in (well, maybe not soon).

Recite to yourself (over and over): the census measures religious affiliation, not belief in god. It doesn't tell me how many atheists live in Ireland.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

J C wrote: »

You're 'grasping at straws' here.

The Census law requires that people answer all questions honestly ... if they don't they are breaking the law ... this should mean that any 'mis-representation' as you call it, including interfering mammies, was minimal and vanishingly small.
... and Roman Catholics don't have to be 'practicing' (which means very different things to different people, anyway) to want their children taught the core principles of their faith in school.

Completley irrelvant and doesn't challenge my point, as we're not talkign abotu leglaity here- why do I have to keep telling you things you already know?

Please avoid the bad language, if you want to be taken seriously.
... and churches running schools will invariably have religious instruction as a core subject in these schools ... indeed they will be expected by the vast majority of parents to do so.

I make no apologies for the "bad" language. My point is the same. If you don't take it seriously, it's because you have no rebuttal.

Church running shcools need not have it as a core subject, they can present it as an optinoal one. Or cease accpeting funding. I've stated it several times to you over the course of this thread. The Department of Eucation calls the shots in public schools, not the church. If I build myself a house, I still have to obey the law while I'm inside.

J C

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Yes it is, and those organisations are clearly the employer of the staff concerned and pay their wages - the fact there is matching funding from the State doesn't negate that.

This is not the case for teachers. Their wages are paid directly by the Department of Education. Their payslips are issued to them by the Department of Education.

The state pays many people ... e.g. people on Social Welfare ... but the state doesn't use such payments to control what they personally do or believe.
The same logically applies to schools in a liberal democracy.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

There is no question on the census pertaining to one's preferred school patronage model for one's real or hypothetical children, so your continual reference to the census is disingenuous at best.

If you are a self-professed Christian, it is reasonable to assume that you would prefer a school with a Christian ethos to one with a non-religious ethos.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

As you well know the figures for religious belief in this country are heavily skewed by OAPs. They don't tend to have children of school going age. We should be asking twenty- and thirty-somethings what they want - but we already know - demand for ET places is overwhelming.

OAP's are the grandparents ... and the parents often value and act on their advice. Your ageism doesn't become you.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Teacher fired in the 80s for becoming pregnant.

References please.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I have heard of some who feel obliged to be seen to attend church services etc. if they want to be considered for promotion.

Many gay teachers who are in the closet at work.

Many non-believers who are forced to peddle nonsense as truth at work.

Many attend church because they want to ... and many don't.

Plenty of gay teachers are out of the closet ... and personal disagreement with what you have to peddle at work is not unique to teachers.

J C

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I make no apologies for the "bad" language. My point is the same. If you don't take it seriously, it's because you have no rebuttal.

Using bad language is indicative of being unable to properly express yourself as well as being gratuituously offensive to your audience ... and therefore resorting to it, loses credibility for any person who uses a foul tongue.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Church running shcools need not have it as a core subject, they can present it as an optinoal one. Or cease accpeting funding. I've stated it several times to you over the course of this thread. The Department of Eucation calls the shots in public schools, not the church. If I build myself a house, I still have to obey the law while I'm inside.

... but only an exceedingly over-bearing state would implement laws banning you teaching your children about your Faith within your house, just because they gave you a grant to buy it.

Ditto with a church run school.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

J C wrote: »

Using bad language is indicative of being unable to properly express yourself as well as being gratuituously offensive to your audience ... and therefore resorting to it, loses credability for any person who uses a foul tongue.

The credibility of the argument is uneffected by the language, again, as you well know.

... but only an exceedingly over-bearing state would implement laws banning you teaching your children about your Faith within your house, just because they gave you a grant to buy it.

Ditto with a church run school.

Please, either point out where I'm suggesting we ban all religion in schools, or admit to presenting a strawman argument.

Here's the post again - note the bit in bold:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Church running shcools need not have it as a core subject, they can present it as an optinoal one. Or cease accpeting funding. I've stated it several times to you over the course of this thread. The Department of Eucation calls the shots in public schools, not the church. If I build myself a house, I still have to obey the law while I'm inside.

J C

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

The credibility of the argument is uneffected by the language, again, as you well know.

Of course your credibility is affected if you use foul language ... tut ... tut .
... and that is one of the reasons why foul language is considered to be un-parliamentary language which is usually banned within formal debate. Indeed it is banned on the Boards ... something that can only be gotten around by using asterisks or some such device.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Please, either point out where I'm suggesting we ban all religion in schools, or admit to presenting a strawman argument.

Here's the post again - note the bit in bold:

The bottom line is that it is none of a secular states business to interfere with what/how a church teaches its religion in a church run school.
Making conditions like asking for it to be optional or banned are both equally unacceptable interference.
Secular states don't have the competence (nor should they have the inclination, if they are truly secular) to involve themselves in the religious instruction in a church run school.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

J C wrote: »

Of course it is affected if somebody can't string a sentence together without using foul language ... tut ... tut .

The argument remains the same whether I use the word "bull****" or "rubbish". The former is stronger and merely emphasies said point, and is reserved for occasions when the point made to me is particularly bad, out an outrageous lie.

Again - I make no apologies for it.

End of swearing discussion. We're not here to talk about swearing.

The bottom line is...

You are at this point declining to show me where I stated this in my post, so I assume your accepting it's a strawman. Thank you.

... that it is none of a secular states business to interfere with what/how a church teaches its religion in a church run school.
Making conditions like asking for it to be optional or banned are both equally unacceptable interference.
Secular states don't have the competence (nor should they have the inclination, if they are truly secular) to involve themselves in the religious instruction in a church run school.

If the State passe a law, all citizens are oblighed to obey it.

J C

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

If the State passe a law, all citizens are oblighed to obey it.

... but only an opressive illiberal state will pass opressive illiberal laws.

... and a law requiring church run schools to cease teaching religious instruction would be opressive and illiberal IMO.

... and Secular states shouldn't have the inclination to pass such laws, in the first place, if they are truly secular.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

J C wrote: »

... but only an opressive illiberal state will pass opressive illiberal laws.

... and a law requiring church run schools to cease teaching religious instruction would be opressive and illiberal IMO.

... and Secular states shouldn't have the inclination to pass such laws, in the first place, if they are truly secular.

Well, ANY oppressive State will pass oppressive laws.

Points two and three (on which I would agree with you) are irrlevant to the discussion.

Hotblack Desiato

J C wrote: »

The state pays many people ... e.g. people on Social Welfare ... but the state doesn't use such payments to control what they personally do or believe.

The church can't control what teachers believe either - but it does control what they do.

One would think that religious believers wouldn't rather outsource the religious instruction of their children to teachers who may be agnostics or atheists just doing it as a condition of their job. One would think that any rational religious believer (bear with me) would rather have an adherent of their faith, whether a lay person or an ordained person, perform this task - Educate Together schools facilitate precisely this. So what's the problem?

If you are a self-professed Christian, it is reasonable to assume that you would prefer a school with a Christian ethos to one with a non-religious ethos.

But there are so so many catholics sending their kids to ET schools, why is that? We can only conclude that the census question on religion is precisely useless as a guide to the school patronage preferences of the population.

OAP's are the grandparents ... and the parents often value and act on their advice. Your ageism doesn't become you.

A parent who does not trust their own judgement is a fool. Advice is welcome, direction is not.

References please.

You're on the internet, it's very easy to find.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/teacher-who-learned-the-hardest-lesson-26476675.html

Many attend church because they want to ... and many don't.

Plenty of gay teachers are out of the closet ... and personal disagreement with what you have to peddle at work is not unique to teachers.

Teachers are unique among public servants, in any proper republic it would be unconstitutional for a religious test to be applied to a public office of employment, but this is Ireland :rolleyes:


Oh and as for your aversion to other posters' supposed bad language, I'd rather be accused of using bad language than bad logic.

smacl

I see Bruton to announce school admission reform options. A small if positive move, which hopefully will at least put a halt to unwanted baptisms as a necessity to getting an education for our children.

evolving_doors

J C wrote: »

I agree that a broad liberal education must encompass information about all faiths and none.
... but this shouldn't mean that particular schools cannot also teach children about the faith under which each particular school was set up.

This has become the general consensus in debates ie teaching 'about' religion being acceptable.
I wonder then should we be teaching 'about' fairies, angels, healing crystals, cosmic ordering ,chem-trails , aliens, illuminati etc.
Whats the difference?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

smacl wrote: »

I see Bruton to announce school admission reform options. A small if positive move, which hopefully will at least put a halt to unwanted baptisms as a necessity to getting an education for our children.

Gebgbegb wrote: »

J C wrote: »

I agree that a broad liberal education must encompass information about all faiths and none.
... but this shouldn't mean that particular schools cannot also teach children about the faith under which each particular school was set up.

This has become the general consensus in debates ie teaching 'about' religion being acceptable.
I wonder then should we be teaching 'about' fairies, angels, healing crystals, cosmic ordering ,chem-trails , aliens, illuminati etc.
Whats the difference?

Aliens and chemtrails are religions now...?

Bass Reeves

Gebgbegb wrote: »

This has become the general consensus in debates ie teaching 'about' religion being acceptable.
I wonder then should we be teaching 'about' fairies, angels, healing crystals, cosmic ordering ,chem-trails , aliens, illuminati etc.
Whats the difference?

It is interesting to note that even though the aboriginal people of Australia, New Zealand, America and those of isolated islands whom had no contact with mainland Eurasia were mainly thiest. Most belived in Deity's and or a Supreame being. The majority also believed in an evils deity and in good and evil spirits.

It is interesting as most of these peoples had no contact with Eurasia fo two to three thousands of years. In the case of the aboriginal Australian's this was 70k years ago. Yet they all believed in some form of a God and an afterlife.

smacl

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Aliens and chemtrails are religions now...?

Last time I checked, Scientology was considered a religion by this state and believes we are all descended from aliens. Can't help you with chemtrails I'm afraid.

Advbrd

smacl wrote: »

Last time I checked, Scientology was considered a religion by this state and believes we are all descended from aliens. Can't help you with chemtrails I'm afraid.

Yeah, it's hard to fathom how people believe in scientology. If you take the bible for example... oh, wait...

MrPudding

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It is interesting to note that even though the aboriginal people of Australia, New Zealand, America and those of isolated islands whom had no contact with mainland Eurasia were mainly thiest. Most belived in Deity's and or a Supreame being. The majority also believed in an evils deity and in good and evil spirits.

It is interesting as most of these peoples had no contact with Eurasia fo two to three thousands of years. In the case of the aboriginal Australian's this was 70k years ago. Yet they all believed in some form of a God and an afterlife.

I do agree that it is interesting, it is interesting that religions seems to be somehow geographically restricted and people from certain areas tend to follow the same religion... weird that. Also, have you ever heard of Agency Detection? It does not surprise me in the least that a belief in gods is widespread. No one has ever said that Eurasia has the monopoly on lazy thinking and superstition.

MrP

robindch

Gentlefolks -

Bristolscale7 wrote: »

Bull****.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Crapz Bull54!

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Part of the day my arse.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Really shows your standard of education or again maybe your capability to understand [...]

J C wrote: »

The mega-thread on the Christianity Forum is discussing and providing evidence for this very issue.

recedite wrote: »

Good point, Jeremy Corbyn.

It would be nice to see some politeness, or at least, something which the framers of the Forum Charter would recognise. If the forum charter is too hard to follow, then try Mark Twain instead, with particular reference to points 1, 2, 5, 8 and 9:

http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~lim/twain.html

Thanking youze.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

smacl wrote: »

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Aliens and chemtrails are religions now...?

Last time I checked, Scientology was considered a religion by this state and believes we are all descended from aliens. Can't help you with chemtrails I'm afraid.

Ah, but Scientology doesnt worship aliens as gods (so they?? )

As to why it's a religion, well that's purely a financial reason.

smacl

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

As to why it's a religion, well that's purely a financial reason.

Not purely financial. Much like Catholicism and other more mainstream religions, its as much about power as it is money.

Mark Hamill

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It is interesting to note that even though the aboriginal people of Australia, New Zealand, America and those of isolated islands whom had no contact with mainland Eurasia were mainly thiest. Most belived in Deity's and or a Supreame being. The majority also believed in an evils deity and in good and evil spirits.

It is interesting as most of these peoples had no contact with Eurasia fo two to three thousands of years. In the case of the aboriginal Australian's this was 70k years ago. Yet they all believed in some form of a God and an afterlife.

Nearly every culture has dragons in their mythologies too. Dragons real?

King Mob

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It is interesting to note that even though the aboriginal people of Australia, New Zealand, America and those of isolated islands whom had no contact with mainland Eurasia were mainly thiest. Most belived in Deity's and or a Supreame being. The majority also believed in an evils deity and in good and evil spirits.

It is interesting as most of these peoples had no contact with Eurasia fo two to three thousands of years. In the case of the aboriginal Australian's this was 70k years ago. Yet they all believed in some form of a God and an afterlife.

But the concepts of supreme beings and afterlifes in these cultures are entirely different and completely exclusive to the concepts present in the western cultures. They are so different in their descriptions and rules that they cannot possibly be interpretations of the same thing.

Even with cultures that did have contact with Abrahamic religions, their concepts are incompatible.

If there was one real actual god and afterlife, then this wouldn't be what we would see.

oldrnwisr

Gebgbegb wrote: »

This has become the general consensus in debates ie teaching 'about' religion being acceptable.
I wonder then should we be teaching 'about' fairies, angels, healing crystals, cosmic ordering ,chem-trails , aliens, illuminati etc.
Whats the difference?

Well, there is a utility in teaching children (and adults) "about" religion. As I've said before, the more you line up different religions next to each other, the more they all look ridiculous. I don't often indulge in personal anecdotes but I think one might be useful here.
When I was about 12 my parents bought me a book on World Mythologies which covered everything from Native and Mesoamerican myths to Slavic and Norse and Chinese myths. However, the further I got into the book the more I realised that I was reading the same stories over and over again. There was a flood story in the Bible but then there was also one in Norse, Chinese, and a wide variety across America. All of these stories tell of a flood wiping out most of humanity but they all differ in size, impact, cause etc. to the point that they cannot all be either retelling individual historic events or recounting the same tale in different ways. It became clear to me that all of these flood stories were fictional, designed to relay a deeper message (although not the same message).
Teaching children about different religions shows up the same human instincts, the same misguided ideas about the universe and our place in it and the same tired arguments. Once you see them side by side it becomes much clearer. That is the value in teaching children "about" religions. You see, the religions which have managed to remain unaffected by modern society like the Amish or Hasidic jews do so by sheltering their community from any information related to the outside world. It's much harder to maintain your religion as absolute truth when there is open access to different or contrary information.

As for crystal healing, homeopathy, reiki etc. while I'm not suggesting that we start classes in any of these, they can be useful teaching examples. As Ben Goldacre says in Bad Science:

"Then we will move on to homeopathy, not because it's important or dangerous - it's not - but because it is the perfect model for teaching evidence-based medicine: homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody everything you need to know about 'fair tests' of a treatment, and how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is."

Homeopathy and other 'woo' topics are useful teaching tools because they are examples of what wrong is and what bad arguments are and teaching children to identify and dismantle bad arguments is about the most valuable thing you can teach them. It will insulate them against all kinds of bullsh1t from religion to pseudoscience.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It is interesting to note that even though the aboriginal people of Australia, New Zealand, America and those of isolated islands whom had no contact with mainland Eurasia were mainly thiest. Most belived in Deity's and or a Supreame being. The majority also believed in an evils deity and in good and evil spirits.

It is interesting as most of these peoples had no contact with Eurasia fo two to three thousands of years. In the case of the aboriginal Australian's this was 70k years ago. Yet they all believed in some form of a God and an afterlife.

Well, not that interesting really. If all or even most of these cultures had independently and spontaneously developed concepts of a monotheistic god with roughly the same morality and backstory, that would be interesting. However, that's not what we see. At all. Most primitive cultures both historically and currently have a polytheistic outlook on life. Everything that impacts their lives that they can't explain becomes a god or a good or evil spirit. It's a form of agency detection as MrPudding pointed out earlier.
If you read Hawking's The Grand Design you'll see the story of Skoll and Hati recounted from Norse mythology. At that time, people didn't understand what was happening when a solar eclipse occurred so they believed that wolves called Skoll and Hati continously chased the sun and that whenever they caught them there would be an eclipse. As a result people used to bang pots and pans and generally make noise to try and scare the wolves away. Later as people began to understand why there was a solar eclipse the belief died away.
Similarly, if you look at Greek mythology you can see that the polytheistic culture remained but that because of their increased learning and knowledge of the world their gods became responsible for more intangible concepts like wisdom (Athena), beauty and desire (Aphrodite), music and the arts (Apollo) or inevitability (Ananke).
Gradually as people investigated the world more their gods had to become more ethereal, interacting less with the real world and moving from living in the sky to living in some alternate planes of reality.

Finally, it should be pointed out that while beliefs in gods are an emergent property of human development, the same can't be said for an afterlife. Not all cultures have a concept of an afterlife. The Hadza in Tanzania don't have an afterlife in their culture and neither does the Old Testament:

“When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up."

The word Sheol above means grave although by the time of Jesus it had evolved to mean a portion of the underworld thanks to books written in the intertestamental period like The Assumption of Moses.

Then there are the groups which have a concept of an afterlife but one which is radically different from the traditional picture of an ethereal existence after death. Buddhists and Hindus believe in reincarnation, Jehovah's witnesses don't believe in the idea of an immortal soul but believe that instead there will be a bodily resurrection and second physical life after Armageddon.

As King Mob points out all of these ideas vary so wildly that they can't be reinterpretations of the same idea. It's not possible for all these different concepts of god and the afterlife to be right, of course it's very easy for them all to be wrong.