Thought of the Day 05.24.10

For a moment, I’d like you to try picturing a completely different way of doing education in America. Imagine that one of the required classes for every child was on the religious and doctrinal history of their parents’ choosing. Catholics, Baptists, and Methodists would learn about Christianity. Orthodox and Reformed Jews could learn about Judaism. And Muslim students could learn about Islamic history. The children of atheists could even read Ayn Rand or Bertrand Russell.

Now, obviously, one major effect of this would be the declaration to students that religion (or its lack) is no less important than math or geography, but it would do so in a way that honors the diversity of viewpoint of their parents. Perhaps you don’t think that this could work in a pluralistic democracy like ours. But then again, maybe you’ve just never learned from our “news” media that some other countries do it precisely this way…such as Israel.

That’s right, in a Jewish nation, the government subsidizes the religious education of Muslim and Christian children, which naturally raises a good question: which of our two countries really has the most freedom of religion?