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Religion won't help kids with diversity, fluidity might

Teaching primary school children about world religions was on the agenda this week

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 3:18p.m.

A Victoria University academic believes teaching primary school children about the world's main religions will promote understanding and tolerance, and prepare kids for an increasingly diverse 21st century.

Has anyone else spotted the irony?

Religion is responsible for most of the world's most impacting misunderstandings and intolerant behaviour. It promotes conformity, not diversity.

They say religion is the opiate of the masses and, like drugs, people often spend money on religion they cannot afford. It causes delusional beliefs and, at times, makes people talk utter nonsense.

Groups lock themselves in dark places for many hours, then go out and try to convince others it's what they need to be happy. Religion causes violence and sometimes even provokes suicide and murder.

So, why do we want children to know more about it?

If we want children to know more about understanding, tolerance and diversity, teach them that, for God's sake. Actually, do it for their sake, for our sake.

Teach them that diversity is about uniqueness and commonality, similarity and difference. Diversity is not about what we believe, it's about how to believe, especially when we don't agree with others, or they disagree with us.

Diversity is not about age, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, disability, marital status, etc. That's categorisation and representation.

Diversity is about self-awareness, communication, inquiry, exploration. It's about certainty and confusion, knowing and not knowing. It's about recognising fear and meeting it, head on, with love and peace.

Where religion promotes fear and doctrine, diversity promotes realisation, wisdom and fluidity.

I experienced a powerful example of how fluidity is becoming more of a social imperative at a recent forum run by Rainbow Youth. Several of the young people speaking were transsexual, having either transitioned from living as a young man to a young woman, or vice versa.

When I was 19 I came out as gay and that was difficult enough. I'm still recovering. These 20-somethings had already come out as bi, then lesbian, then male and are now often mistaken as being gay when they are actually straight.

Confused? That's fluidity for you.

What saddened me was that, in a world of Boy Georges and Ellens, Melissa Etheridges, Elton Johns and Ru Pauls, it's still not safe to come out as transsexual. You may not know that the guy you work with used to be a girl, because in our "modern" society, people are still threatened with isolation, hatred and violence if they do not conform to a binary notion of gender.

And that's not just in the straight world, either. Gender intolerance exists in the gay world as well and the panel believed the change needs to be led by the gay community. I agree.

If you think we live in enlightened times, you're right. But you're wrong.

We are close and yet so far. And believe me, a better understanding of religion is not going to help.

Comments [16]

Philip

17 Mar 2010 7:48a.m.

Thanks for the comments folks. Obviously I'm taking an extreme viewpoint for dramatic and comic effect. I wouldn't condemn teaching about religion outright. But my main point is the connection made by the academic with diversity – that I do have a problem with. If you want to see a very poignant analysis of religion, I recommend the movie Zeitgeist at www.zeitgeistmovie.com You can see an interview with the film's director Peter Joseph on my blog http://wp.me/poylQ-Py

Frankie D.

17 Mar 2010 5:17a.m.

Teach all religions and teach that they're all wrong!

Teach that they came about as a way of trying to understand that which we couldn't at the time and as a way of controlling people.

@Richard - By definition, Atheism is not a religion and morality is not owned by religion, in fact it is only through religion that good people can do evil acts...

TheGlovner

17 Mar 2010 2:53a.m.

"Atheism is another religion."

Arrrggghh!!!! How many times?!

No atheism is not another religion.

A religion is a belief structure or an ideology. It has a god figure at its head, but overall it is a dogmatic rule over its followers supported by the application of fear as a device to control.

Atheism is not a belief structure, it is nothing more than a lack of belief in any deities. End of story.

Most of the argument about the definition of atheism comes from the religious not the atheist. You will find that most atheists will agree that all the term encompasses is a lack of belief in a god of any kind.

It does not tell you how to act, it does not imply what you should think, it does not indoctrinate the people that fall into this group into acting in a specific way.

It is not, I repeat, NOT another religion.

The only reason there is a need for the word "atheism" and its varients is because of the unfair status given to religions that they can be treated as factual without bothering to provide any facts to support themselves. If it wasn't for this unfair treatment there would be no need for the term atheist as it is just the natural state of a human (or any animal) before any indoctrination into a belief structure can be applied.

If the special status of religion was taken away there would be as much requirment for the term atheism as there would be for a word to describe people that didn't believe in fairies, dragons, magic, goblins or any other supernatural thing you care to mention.

Once more to clarify, atheism is not a religion no matter what you might like to believe.

GSW

17 Mar 2010 2:03a.m.

@richard: Do you really think he (&we) haven't heard all this before? If you don't worship a god you must be religious because not worshipping a god is a religion etc... ... and your "fears of the faith" comment sounds a little too like the claims of islamaphobia to me. However, I as an atheist, will admit that I do not wish to see any religion gain sufficient power that I need be afraid of it. Fortunately, here in the west, your faith is no longer legally permitted to burn witches, torture heretics or hang blasphemers and homosexuals (although this is still done in theocracies). Please, do not try to persuade us that your religion is all love and light because it isn't. You STILL have women forced who have been raped forced to give birth at risk of their own lives. You STILL have persecution of homosexuals. You STILL talk of sex between consenting adults as though it was something disgusting, while your own priests are raping small children - which IS disgusting. Hypocrisy is rife in the worlds religions and misogony predominant. NO THANK YOU.

GSW

17 Mar 2010 2:03a.m.

Corban

16 Mar 2010 10:47p.m.

I think it's unfortunite to think that there us such a push for secularism despite the west experiencing the benefits, Judeo-Christian principles have provided. People are pushing for a world where there are no rights or wrongs yet they feel morality is defined by legislation or 'modern philosophy. How so these same people fail to register the trends of increased crime on nearly every scale - with on going liberal approaches to destroy what had previously been working and defined as moral especially in the biblical sense. Nanny state politics such as the extreme state religion of Nazi secularism were resonsible for well over 10 million lives. Starlin and Mao also rejected ultimate authority being devine, yet these men slayed over 100 million people. Why do people insist faith in God and belief in absolutes is narrow minded and out of date? If we let history teach us any lesson, it should be that never should we reject the Devine and to trust in state run secularism. Ideas from Atheism, Marxism, secularism and the humanist agenda are a bigger threat to NZ that most people realise. Diversity? It's just a word used to try reengineer society :)

Tim

16 Mar 2010 6:55p.m.

What a good thought-provoking piece and follow-up comments by participants rather than the biased nonsense usually placed as comments on this website. I also agree with the general comments by all. Teaching religion won't necessarily be a bad thing as long as it is done impartially and covers all major areas including judiasm, Hindusim, Buddism, Islam, paganism, etc. It will aid to understanding where others may be coming from and in this age of knowldege it is something that definitely seems to be lacking. Just follow any debate on the internet and see how quickly some of them denigrate into insults and personal attacks.

richard

16 Mar 2010 6:49p.m.

Atheism is another religion. You have to teach kids morals. New Zealand was built on it's strong association with the christian faith.. Anchor kids in the faith and you will have a society that teaches love and personal character that puts others first. Sorry about your personal grievances perhaps a Christian counsellor might help to overcome your fears of the faith?

Jeremy Elwood

16 Mar 2010 6:45p.m.

Nice article Philip, and good points well made. However, Corin also has a very good point in that for good or ill, knowing at least something about the major religions is vital, not just for history and current events, but also to understand many classic books, films etc. My new festival show argues the point that the Bible, Koran and Torah should be studied, but under the banner of Literature, alongside the other great works of fiction.

Tones

16 Mar 2010 5:51p.m.

Great article Philip. Our communities have a long way to go to become as inclusive as we would like. I (similar to a question you posed) wonder what 'the community' will be like when the older members move on ... and the young ones now are in their 50/60/70s, will there be similar segregation of will people of my generation (Y) have increased levels of tolerance and acceptence of the diverse colours/shades of the 'rainbow'. I hope so and I'm happy to hold that hope.