True Religious Education

I've been typing exams recently and wondering why we allow our children to be taught the crap that they learn in school, especially high school.
In science, they learn about “theories” of origin and then pick one in order to teach the rest of the curriculum. That's not science- it's assumption. It's a big game of “let's pretend”.
In history, they learn about white man's oppression. Oppression of Native Americans, of Africans, of women, of Hispanics.... of everyone. That's not history- it's propaganda.
I could go on, but it's on another issue that I want to focus my thoughts: religion.
I disagree with most people in that I believe religion should be taught in school. But before you start thinking about how you're going to argue with me, let me make my point.

What most people consider Religious Education is actually what I would call “indoctrination”. Now, I realize that this word has a rather bad rapport among most people. We hear “indoctrination” and we see images of uniform-clad, goose-stepping youth. We think that being indoctrinated means losing part of your identity or your ability to think. But indoctrination can be a very valuable tool in a family. In fact, I think it's part of our duty as parents to indoctrinate our children. I'll get back to this point in a minute.

First, I want to address what I think real religious education should be. I admit that I am an idealist and that this will probably never happen. But one can dream.

The educational establishment has failed us by convincing us that all religions are bunk (besides the teachers' pet religion of the 20th century: naturalism, or the current favorite: environmentalism). The church has also failed us (all churches have, mind you) in its educational approach of telling us that all religions except the one that they deign to ascribe to are wrong, or even stupid. The church makes fun of other religions because not everyone believes what we believe.

What the public school system should do is offer a complete look at all major religious systems: monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, atheism... etc. We can track historically the development of the major religious movements of today and investigate what different religions have in common.
For example: Most religious systems include some kind of higher being whose standard must be met in order to please him/her. The individual has to perform certain acts or live a specific lifestyle in order to please the god. The exception here is environmentalism, where Nature is the god, and the way to appease this deity is to do nothing.

I think kids would benefit about learning how Buddhism rose as a reaction to the polytheistic tendencies of Hinduism, how Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, and how Naturalism has roots in the truth-seeking quandaries of the Greeks, who are generally acknowledged to have been polytheists.

But people are concerned that kids will be taught the wrong thing. And that's where family and the church come in. It's our responsibility to “indoctrinate” our children- to teach them the fundamentals of what we believe and why we believe it. And why we don't believe what those people believe. The answer is not that “those people are stupid” but rather that they have a different world view than we do. They believe something different about God.

My point, really, is this: if all truth is God's truth, then all religions must basically be rooted in that truth. Nothing can possibly be “all lies” because lies are in their very nature a distortion of the truth. There must be a basis of truth in everything. So the value in learning about other religions, then, is that we might be able to learn from them.

Naturalism can teach us to use the senses God gave us to learn about the world around us.
Environmentalism can show us value for God's creation and remind us that we are to be good stewards of the earth.
Buddhism can remind us that we were once much greater beings and all too often focus on our fallen state, who we are, than who we were or can be.
Islam and Judaism can teach us that even though we might not feel like we have faith, just going through the motions can get us through dry spells.
Even Atheism can teach us- it shows clearly the ultimate eternal futility of a life without God.

I know that the educational system is corrupt. I know that no matter how hard we try to keep it objective, we will never achieve a truly fair teaching of the religious systems. But wouldn't it be nice if, instead of teaching our kids to ridicule those who think differently, we taught them to respect and love all people?

PS- Check out what it means to be "called to be an apostle".