Talk:Religious studies

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while religious studies tries to be secular and impartial and work without premises[edit]

At my school the RS teacher was the most openly Christian one, who usually led prayers in assembly. Sophiebecause liberals 11:34, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Sunningdale School also focuses on Christianity during religious studies. Proxima Centauri (talk) 13:05, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

In a Christian country, though, that's no surprise, and I don't see Sunningdale going outside the norm here. It's faith schools I have a problem with, where religion is the school's raison d'etre rather than one academic topic among many. Sophiebecause liberals 13:55, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
I had the opposite experience at my school - the RS professors were mostly atheists or members of various religious minorities. My philosophy professor, on the other hand, once yelled at the class for "not caring about the truth" and tried to tell me all of the following at various points:
  • That Laozi and Daoism were/are a form of protochristianity
  • That Sartre had a deathbed conversion to Christianity and therefore all of his philosophical arguments against theism were somehow invalid
  • That it's impossible to have nomization without theism
He also regularly went to the lone practicing Hindu in the course and asked her what the "Hindu perspective" was. I did have one professor who was ordained in some denomination or other, but he was quite serious about separating his beliefs from the course material and was highly critical of students who tried to play the apologetics game. It's probably largely because my coursework was more anthropology-centered than some other religious studies majors and due to selection bias on my own part when it came to which courses I took. — Unsigned, by: ORavenhurst / talkDo You Believe That? 15:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
That reflects almost my exact experience. Including Taylor, who would routinely come into class demanding to know which of us were Christians and had truth. In the schools I teach in, RLST is largely either the "exotic" religions (which in Denver were very popular subjects) or were courses critical of and challenging of the standard "god is right". My Bible Studies class for example really looked at the known history, brought in historical challenges to jesus and floods and Egyptian exodus. oddly, most of the "exotic religion" classes (buddhism, hinduism, native america, etc) crossed lines all the time, by the kids. cause they all thought it was uber hip and wanted to convert. ;-) Green mowse.pngGodotWhat is your fucking defense of automatic guns, again? 15:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

In the schools you teach! Is Godot a university academic or a school teacher? Proxima Centauri (talk) 11:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Teaching RLST[edit]

I removed the section largely cause i think it's rather self explanatory. If you are teaching a "history of the old testament" course, odds are, you're going to hear things that are largely challenging to a more fundi/literal view of the bible. If you want to include somethign like this, though, you really want to talk in terms of "trends", "best practices", etc., and not universals. There is, as with most things, no one way of viewing RLST, much less of teaching it. Green mowse.pngGodotCalibrated! let the voting begin! 19:31, 1 November 2012 (UTC)