America, Devout Yet Dumb

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/28/my-take-why-american-public-schools-need-religion-courses/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/28/dont-know-much-about-religion-youre-not-alone-study-finds/

As someone who alternates between considering oneself an atheist, apatheist, ignostic and Buddhist, the results of the recent survey of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life make sense in hindsight. The top scorers were atheists and agnostics, with Jews and Mormons filling out the top three spots. With Jews and Mormons, I imagine the reasons for high scores are due to their emphasis on education and tradition, the Jewish and Mormon cultures both having historical precedence that would motivate believers to desire that their faith would persist through persecution that still exists today against them. With the lowest scorers appearing in the Christian faith, Catholic or Protestant making only slight difference, it makes one wonder how effective their indoctrination is. Catholics are well known for having an alleged record of strong education, which is no doubt why I was enrolled in a Catholic school for two years after kindergarten. With public school education from third grade onwards, I can at least recall how the class was structured and what we learned. With Catholic school, as seriously as they took their religious education, the secular educational aspect seemed to be lacking, since all I really took out of Catholic school was knowledge of the weekly chapel visits; the other things I could’ve learned just as well at public school without slowly numbing my mind. I don’t have a personal experience of how confirmation classes progress, but one has to wonder if that would even stick in one’s mind with the apparent subpar education I got otherwise. This isn’t to say I have any ill will towards my Catholic background anymore than I have resentment towards my Protestant roots. The deeper problem according to the survey is that people don’t genuinely have religious memory as to the texts and doctrines of their faith. The experiential aspect, as valuable as it is, seems to be overemphasized against the equally valuable religious practice of rereading and reexamining the words from which your faith is drawn. The real value of religion courses being offered in public school alongside those in private schools is that it would present religion as a social phenomenon, something that affects everyone’s lives in some way, regardless of shared beliefs.

There are such courses that already exist, as I noted, in private schools and in public schools, religion is not completely exempt in studies. English courses are permitted to teach the Bible as literature and make notes about other literary references to the Bible, such as in Shakespeare or Beowulf (Grendel’s descent from the Biblical Cain). But even a course in sociology that I took in high school was not a detailed enough study on religion, even though it was what got me interested in the phenomenon of religion, social or otherwise. With private religion courses, I only have my younger brother’s experience and such that I can glean from. It was certainly an academic study, but the difficulty is determining whether there was any bias (intentional/unintentional) towards the Christian tradition. With the use of Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions as a primary text, I imagine there was a potential emphasis within the parochial school’s standards that Christianity was still to be emphasized in some way as more “natural” to humanity or at the very least more relevant in Western history, which I could grant them (not so much on the natural part). But if this is the case, then one has to wonder how to get around the legal tape that exists for teaching religion or even involving religion in government sponsored public schools. I admit it’s perplexing, but it’s not as if there aren’t religion courses in state sponsored colleges or even graduate level education in religious studies in those same public colleges/universities.

Part of the distinction is that with primary and secondary education, it’s legally mandatory to attend, but college and beyond is voluntary and optional. Therefore, the detractors from the suggestion by Stephen Prothero for public schools to have religion courses would argue that high school or junior high level religion courses would be violating the principle of separation of church and state or at least the favoring of one religion over another by the federal government.

If anything, it’s not about whether the government would favor the religion, as opposed to purposely designing the class as such. The primary difficulty is moreso structuring it in such a way that there isn’t a leaning towards one religion or another, but a study of them as social phenomena first and foremost. A good start would be taking the example of a sociology class that isn’t completely focused on religion and then orient it in a way that you can study religion itself in a public school setting as something relevant in society and history. The first few weeks would be investigating the difficulty with defining the term religion as well as its effects on society (positive and negative), then considering the aspects and beliefs of those systems that we generally call religions, not making judgment values or normative claims about what is right and wrong. Instead we should analyze it descriptively and in terms of what is shared in common by the systems we call religion. I could imagine this actualized, albeit no idea is without potential for tweaking. Here’s hoping that America might overcome the imbalance of their devotion to religion and not forget that discernment (Christian or otherwise) is just as valuable in having faith. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha

Minority Advantages and Majority Advances

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/16/hfr-for-friday-religious-minorities-is-the-disadvantage-the-advantage/

As something of a self identified Buddhist in the Bible Belt (of all places), I have felt (potentially unrealistically) a sense of isolation and separation from a genuine sangha or even a community of lay Buddhists. With only a single professor in the religion department at my college significantly trained in Buddhist thought, it was equally difficult to find education in the religion. Although on a separate note, one would observe that any beliefs in Buddhist tenets that I have are incidental to what is a more modern synthesis of other philosophical/religious systems, such as Discordianism (parody religion that it is) as well as Satanism (the Laveyan variety), so my claims of being in a minority religious group are problematic. If I was more of a full-fledged Buddhist, then my claims would have a stronger backing. But even without a significant personal connection to the issues spoken about in the article above, I feel I can relate to them with the education I’ve gotten through the religious studies department.

With Jews and Muslims being the two larger groups that possess difficulties, the issue that appears the most important is education on Abrahamic religions and correcting misinformation about them. If this is done, then the problem will still exist, but on the level of the individual and community confronting the difficulties of a more Christian biased culture and rolling with the punches so to speak. There are, if you will, two conflicting positions with a middle ground that has been posited. The first extreme is an isolation approach, where one views one’s culture and religious community as possessing of a particular solidarity that enables one to become separate and unique from the culture. This is especially problematic because it lines up with a more fringe element that is apparent with psychological cults, such as those in Texas that were in the news less than a year ago. The other extreme is an assimilation approach, where one suggests that one should submit to the dominant culture and let the truly unique parts of one’s faith and culture stand out as they will. This is troubling in that it doesn’t allow for individualization in the form of clear distinctions that exist between what are still common worldviews, such as Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Even with such Eastern faiths as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and others, the common ground can be discovered with time.

The middle ground position is how this begins. One accepts that demographically, Christians will be the majority in America, but also notes that America possesses a value of tolerance and acceptance of diversity with no disrespect meant to the majority but no favoritism granted either. As one that was raised Christian but has basically become an apostate (going for purely social reasons, conformity being still valued as a way to keep relationships between more traditional family members at least tolerable), it’s not as if I can’t understand how one feels with non Christians who don’t celebrate the majority holidays. Though honestly, with Jews in particular, the Christian community rarely seems to care. With the Muslim Ramadan, there is less familiarity, so Christians are more potentially hostile towards the faith that has been presented in a less than flattering light since 9/11. With this in mind, a Muslim in America possesses an ideal state to educate people about Islam and try to be a good example for how Islam can be in agreement with American ideals and values, however exotic and foreign it may appear to be, not unlike when one is Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, or Taoist for other “Eastern” faith examples. The overall goal is not complete assimilation to the exclusion of any standing out as someone who is indeed not Christian, but is not opposed to the values of religious tolerance and freedom, nor is it complete isolationism, leading to dangerous ideologies such as Zionism or Islamic Dominionism among others. Instead, there is an attempt to meet in the middle and both accept differences and embrace commonalities that exist between the varying faiths we hold. That is certainly my hope for the future where my children and my friends and family’s children will inherit. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.