<i>It's elitest to only learn about one religion - the one we are born into - and that too, in bits and pieces.</i><p>Okay, so my point is - the current methods via which we learn about religion are limiting and biased. All of us learn about only one religion - the one we are born into - and that too, in bits and pieces. Thus, we are a.) equipped with half-knowledge about our religion, and b.) criticize other religions without any knowledge about them. A deadly combination!<p>If religions would be taught in schools, everybody can realize that moral lessons are common across all religions. Just knowing this one fact will remove the elitist mindset that most of us grow up with.<p>The hypothesis is instead of teaching one religion to a kid, if he/she is taught about all religions and then asked which religion he/she would like to choose, chances are they will choose not to choose any one religion. And a generation later, we'll have a world free of religion-based hatred.
Religion is taught in school here in the UK.<p>It certainly not about converting people or asking them which one they want to choose (that would be scandalous) but to foster cultural knowledge and understanding.<p>Moreover, certainly we don't all have a religion, it would be quite unacceptable to assume that we have.<p>The gripe I have with it in the UK is that they start too really, as it starts in primary school, at a time when many children are not even clear whether Santa or unicorns, etc are real or not.<p>It would be better to wait a bit and to teach children reasoning, critical thinking, and science first.
In my youth, we learned about Greek and Roman myths. We also delved at least a little into various Nordic myths. So why not also Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc myths as well? Notice however, that I would treat them all the same. Myths teach you a lot about mindsets of people living in the times when those stories were emerging and becoming established.