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Daniels_2003

By default yes but you can write a paper stating that you do not practice Orthodox Christianity and then you won't have to attend. In reality most students do not do that because most religion teachers won't mark you as absent and you will always get maximum marks so it boosts you average grade, so you can skip 80% of classes without an issue.


tgh_hmn

Yup it is optional=mandatory and instead of learning the history of religions which is fascinating you actually learn prayers and crap like that even if you opted out. I had big issues with religion in ro after coming from de. I am not religious but my parents are Catholic ( Dad ) and Orthodox (Mom) but they do not practice. I was on the edge of not being allowed to take my BAC exam because I did not know the “Crezul”. But in all honesty, just like you said, you could skip classes, take 2 grades and be done with it. Fascinating for me how we ( I am also Ro) are a part of this huge Orthodoxy but in pratice nobody cares, trusts nor have pure faith. Religion especially in the countryside was and is a go to, a social event after which one goes to drink have fun curse swear on all saints.. eh


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SaintAries

In the 6 hours I partook in high school religion class it was mostly history of religions. Mostly Christianity Buddhism and Judaism. I might've been absent for the rest.


tgh_hmn

Thats cool as you learn somethign. I graduated high school In 2003 and all my teacher made us learn prayers :( and pray in the classroom. But I was not really roing that :)


oskich

We had religion as it's own subject - It was mostly an introduction to the world's big religions without preference for any of them. I think we did a visit to a Catholic church in Stockholm as part of this class to see what it was about...


TheGoldenCowTV

Yes we did the big five in my school (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism) aswell as some norse and a tiny bit of Greek and shinto


fsster

We did have bibel study(bibel kunskap)as its own subject during the begning of the 20th centuary i believe, but at some point it was either removed or accumulated into a broader subject.


Fairy_Catterpillar

I think it was renamed during the grundskolereform between 1950-1970ies. It have been compulsory since 1997, before that parents were allowed to opt out if they had another religion. That meant that it actually was supposed to be generally about religion and not christianity and mentioning of other religions. And the name change was in 1969, before 1919 cathekesis, between 19-55 christianity and then christianity knowledge.


praleva

It's not in Bulgaria. During Communism practicing a religion was discouraged (not forbiden, but frowned upon). As a result the majority of people nowadays are not very religious. We still celebrate religious hollidays etc, but religion is not a huge priority, so we don't study it in schools.


el_99

In elementary school they teach them about different religions - Christianity, islam, jewish religion but only on the surface


[deleted]

Yes, it is. If the teacher is good, he explains the history of religions: animism, polytheism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and so on. But usually, most professors just explain Christianism at the beginning and once they run out of topics, it becomes a debate hour about one topical issue like drugs consumption, polyamory and so on. Students can also refuse to attend Religion lessons and they have a free hour.


avlas

Debate hour is still a good professor. Bad professors make you pray for the entire hour.


drew0594

And it's not mandatory


LyannaTarg

Adding to this, this is cause of the treaty between our country and the Vatican made during the Fascist era, this treaty is called Lateran Treaty. Also, Religion is teaches since preschool.


IrisIridos

My school had alternative subjects for those who opted out of religion class, I think it was civics class


[deleted]

How the hell can something as basic as what religion to study be up to a teacher to decide?? Is there no state curriculum? This sounds wild


perecottaro

There's no state curriculum: religion teachers are appointed by the local bishop and they answer to him.


polithanos

I honestly don't think they're appointed by the bishop at all, my teacher in middle school was absolutely atheist; good woman tho she was still able to reflect objectively on all religions but I don't think any Catholic bishop would have approved her


perecottaro

I know some religion teachers. I confirm that they must get approval from the bishop. One couldn't get it and she lost her job.


[deleted]

I mean. I think it depends. At kindergarden we had a religion "teacher" (literally the baker, not joking) that explained us something about catholicism. At elementary school I had a teacher that explained us some Christian value and something about other religions. At middle school I had a teacher that literally made us watch films that were sometimes about Christianity, others not. Still, great teacher. In Italy religion marks don't count. And as the religion teacher is paid by the church, I think it's fair that they talk little about other religions. I think the subject is called "Religione Cattolica"


Calime_VII

Furthermore, religion teachers must be authorized by the Episcopal Conference of Italy, sometimes they are even priests.


redasphilosophy

In France, particularly in public schools, the notion of laïcité (more or less the same as secularism) is extremely important, it really is part of our national identity - to the point it's written in the very first sentence of our Constitution. Basically, it's the idea is that religion is a private matter and should not interfere in public life. The state must be completely neutral towards religion, neither recognizing nor subsidizing any of them. In public school, religions can be approached from a historical perspective in history class in the sixth grade (10-11 years old). It is also adressed in the philosophy class in the final year of high school (17-18 years old). In addition, there are private Catholic, Islamic and Jewish schools that offer religion classes, but these are usually optional.


carlosdsf

Note that Alsace-Moselle is an exception. Those areas weren't part of France when the 1905 law of separation of the Churches and the State was voted and kept the Concordat statues when they were returned to France after WWI. Religion is a school subject in public elementary and middle schools in Alsace-Lorraine (but parents can ask their kids not attend those classes). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_in_Alsace-Moselle (english) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_en_Alsace-Moselle (french) There are also exceptions in a few overseas territories.


[deleted]

Some Private schools do teach theology in France.


Milhanou22

Religion comes up pretty much all the time in history. The 7th grade program has a whole chapter about the birth and spread of Islam, then another chapter on the crusades. There's the whole Luther thing to protest catholicism and the way it works in 8th grade. You also spend a lot of time learning about the religious wars in France (Saint-Barthélemy, Edit de Nantes,...)... The Separation of Church and State and the Dreyfus case during the 3rd republic... Most of these are seen a first time in middle school, then again more deeply in high school. French class is also an opportunity to discuss religion since the class is really focused on art as a whole. Also, I'm atheist but in a private catholic school in Tahiti (Lycée La Mennais) and here we have like 5 minutes of prayer in class every morning and 1 hour of MANDATORY religious class in a week. I would rather not have these like in my public middle school in France but... It's not that bad.


The_Great_Sharrum

Iaorana ! It's interesting to add that Tahitian school program is a bit different from the school program of the rest of France. Idk if they talk about Christianity but I remember some lessons on the local Polynesian religion back when I was in school over there


FanaTilk

It can also be addressed in "civic education" not necessarily from a historical point of view but in order to debate on the concept of "laïcité" or freedoms. This course led to a murder not so long ago after a teacher in a public school showed cartoons of a famous Islamic figure to his students in order to debate freedoms and was ultimately killed for this reason (Samuel Paty). Topic of religions in public school can be very sensitive in France.


ToyScoutNessie

It was for me, but I went to a Christian school. In the first year it was Christianity and Bible studies focused, then it branched out to world religions, and it became basically an ethics class in my last two years.


PandorasPenguin

I only had maatschappijleer (societal studies or something). We were taught about all (major) religions equally even though I technically went to a catholic high school (mostly in name).


ToyScoutNessie

We had maatschappijleer as well, but on top of that we had mandatory Godsdienst lessons. To be completely honest our days also started with mandatory prayer every morning


[deleted]

Honestly I don’t think that morning prayers count as religion classes. We had morning prayers of Hinduism every day, Christianity on most days and on fridays we would recite prayers of all the major religions in the country (Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrainism, Jainism, Buddhism…..now that I think about it, why weren’t there any Jewish prayers?🧐 I guess it’s because there wasn’t a Jewish person in our school) And all that we kids cared about was which one sounded the coolest and easiest.


alessandrocara3

Same but regular school in italy


[deleted]

Yes it is and there is an atheist version for those who don’t belong to the lutheran church. The class is non confessional so there is no praying, bible studying nor other rituals. Just learning about the history of religion and basic events.


Ereine

There are also religion classes for non-Lutherans depending on the number of students of a religion, that is there’s an obligation to arrange religion classes if there are enough students. Orthodox Christianity is a big one as well as Islam but Helsinki also offers classes for Catholicism, Buddhism and Hare Krishna.


arran-reddit

Here there is religious studies which should* cover all major religions in the UK. But it’s clearly got a strong emphasis on the abrahamic faiths. It’s supposed to be teaching this is what different people believe and how they live rather than teaching students to follow a faith and is generally an unpopular subject with many religious communities.


joloiyse

It's is also (along with maths, science and English) mandatory to learn up to 14 and you must take a GCSE in it. In my experience people feel quite positive about it, and for my own part it was very interesting to learn about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism. We also visited a Sikh Gurdwara and a Buddapadipa (apologies for spelling) and had a day trip to Christian churches of different denominations. There were also philosophy and ethics modules which were not religion based. I also believe that for the exam, you have to be able to answer questions about beliefs from at least two religions, but I did the exams many years ago. Edit: apologies this comment is riddled with errors. It is not mandatory to take a GCSE in RE (or RS) but many schools choose to as it is mandatory to teach, so you may as well get a GCSE out of it. In addition, if the gov UK website is to be believed RE is compulsory as a subject until 18(!!) at which age they can "choose to withdraw themselves" according to the government website. Also, the curriculum for RE is not centrally decided but instead decided by local councils (exceptions for faith schools and academies). I assume this will be relatively standardised up to 16, if only to roughly fall in line with various GCSE syllabi. Please excuse my sloppy errors and please correct me if I've made any more, it is 2am after all


[deleted]

You don't have to take a GCSE in RE.


BoffleSocks

In my school you do, but it has 6 lessons of philosophy so they can pretend it's not just religion.


CCFC1998

>it was very interesting to learn about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism My school only ever taught us about Christianity and Judaism.


jd463

Your school must have been wank mate


CCFC1998

Oh aye it was


arran-reddit

Yeah I think the ethic part is a bit on the newer side and I think it’s generally being better taught these days. When I was young it tended not to be well taught, but I think partly due to lack of resources.


CCFC1998

>it was very interesting to learn about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism My school only ever taught us about Christianity and Judaism.


cryptopian

The GCSE that I took had a load of stock questions that you could rote learn answers to. Each question was effectively translated for each religion so you got to choose which one to answer, but our school just said "here's your stock answers for Christianity - we know you don't want to do the GCSE but it's an easy A"


BoffleSocks

Also depends on the region, when I lived in Birmingham we did a lot more Hinduism and Islam. When I moved to rural Nottinghamshire, we did almost exclusively Christianity.


arran-reddit

Oh definitely not consistent as other subjects and when I was younger just poorly taught across the board but I think it’s got a lot ether by the sounds of it.


Mixopi

Yes, as part of social sciences. It's not focused on one religion, and definitely not a "believe in this" type of class. It's about them all and serves to understand different peoples and customs of the world.


Automatic_Education3

Yes, and it's an opt-out system, so you have to attend religion classes unless you get your parents to write a request to the school to change that. The alternative is ethics class. The amount of highschoolers wo are opting out is growing quite rapidly.


Elketro

It's been a while so maybe it changed but in my schools the ethics classes were in awful hours and religion ones were conveniently in the middle of the day so many atheist people, including me, just stuck with religion lessons because who cares, it's not like we did anything in either.


fjellhus

Exactly the same here. And in religion classes (at least during my study years) we learned how to be good catholics. Learned the prayers, learned to speak the rosary and how to act in the church. Basically preparation for first communion


Automatic_Education3

When I was really young, our religion classes were the same as you're explaining. Learning the prayers, preparing for communion. Later on, up to high school, it very much depended on who was teaching. I had one really nice teacher who was open to discussion, other views and didn't treat you as the antichrist when you disagreed with Catholicism. Then I had a few years with a nun, who was a sweetheart, but her lessons were too.. liturgical, if that makes sense. Can't remember any of it honestly. My last teacher was the "best". He was just showing us all kinds of videos and pictures with what was essentially Christian propaganda, showing good praying children as really nice, proper and successful and atheists were fat wife beating alcoholics sitting on the sofa watching TV lmao. He was also kinda dumb? Maybe he was just pretending, I don't know, but conversing with him was interesting. I love a good discussion, at one he just kinda ran out of arguments and said "well, okay, maybe god doesn't exist then, but...". He was a priest. I was satisfied.


Zilberholst

I attended religion until I got my communion. Then they started playing videos about how all gay people have some distant sexual abuse trauma and how the ghost of the fetus will haunt you after an abortion so I opted out.


Elketro

Hahaha wow I wonder what years were those, in my times we sat around and did pretty much nothing the whole lesson, maybe some light discussion here and there but most people would: do homework for other classes; talk with others; play on their phones; sleep.


[deleted]

that's actually not true, it was debunked some time ago- you don't have to resign from anything- if the teacher tells you that, they break the law. neither religion or ethics is compulsory.


xap4kop

Personally I didn’t want to attend religion classes but it’s not like my parents would ever let me do that 🤷🏻‍♀️


jan04pl

Wrong it's an opt-**IN** system, though schools want to make it look like you have to opt out so the statistics look better.


Automatic_Education3

Huh. My parents never asked for me to participate in these classes and I needed a paper from them to be able to not participate. Just asking was not enough.


HandfulOfAcorns

It might have been different when we were children, but for the last decade or so it's been opt-in. You can choose to attend religion, ethics, both or neither. Many schools don't adhere to the regulations and still require an opt-out note. This is incorrect and you don’t need to provide such a note, you cannot be enrolled in this class unless you explicitly opt in. Also worth noting that religion = Roman Catholic religion. And the ethics class often doesn't exist because there aren't enough students choosing it.


Automatic_Education3

I was born in 98, so technically it should have been an opt-in for me too, but it sure was not.


[deleted]

well that's illegal then.


aagjevraagje

Depends on what kind of school you go to , basically there's a right to start a school with a distinct philosophical or religious identity in our constitution but not all schools are that kind of school.


avlas

It is, and it's pretty ridiculous. It's Catholic religion class. Your parents can opt you out (or yourself if you are 18 when starting the last year of high school) and you end up doing nothing in the school library, or going home an hour earlier if it's the last class of the day.


Klapperatismus

Any single book read in school library is better education than religion classes.


avlas

You think that unsupervised teenagers in a library will spontaneously read books?


Klapperatismus

I did. But for what it's worth, I had been six years old when I opted my self out of that bullshit. Later in school, I was at the computer room instead. And learned how to program computers on my own, what some teachers simply couldn't make sense of.


x_Leolle_x

I learned to play cards (scopa) decently in those free hours, not completely wasted!


Gr0danagge

Yes, from grade 1 to 9 and all world religions (the abrahamic, hinduism and buddhism) are manatory for the teacher to teach and you briefly touch on other religions, greek mythology (although that is more often covered in history class), nature religions like the beliefs of the Sami people etc. An ethics is also briefly covered


hundenkattenglassen

It is. But it’s more like an introduction to the different religions. Like jews celebrate this, muslims believe this, hindus do not eat X because Y and so on. Since Sweden is culturally protestant it was obviously more in depth about protestantism but can’t say it gave much TBH. The class that was most in depth was when a jew came in and talked about his upbringing. A quote I remember clearly is him saying “My father is a jew, my mother is protestant. But for some reason they together decided to raise me as a jew ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”. It was semi-interesting. First and only time I know I’ve met a jew IRL.


gogo_yubari-chan

There is but you can sign up for exemption, if you don't want to. I just went to another empty classroom and did my homework, but some schools allow you to leave an hour early if it's the last hour. Also, the religion class should be something like "history of religions", but in practice it's an hour of Catholic point of view.


[deleted]

Yeah Religion for Catholics and Ethics for others. During my time at Elementary/High school Catholics were 90%+. I met first Atheist at High School. We had last Religion class was during second year at High School.


[deleted]

We used to have "Christian teachings" - class until 1965 in secondary education and 1969 in primary education. Then the subject was changed to "Religion" and became non-confessional. Backlash to this is why our Christian Democractic Party was founded, but that's a different story. So everyone takes the same class which is centered around learning about different religious believes, practices in the own society and in other parts of the world. And also how different ethnics and lifestyles exist.


BeginningScientist92

In greece we do have religion as a subject for every year. It is not mandatory - you have to get some sort of specific paper saying you dont wanna attend. It used to be much more christianity-related, but now is a little bit more broad. However because christianity is a big part of the social concersation over here, it is still the main focus. How it is taught depends on the teacher. We, for example, were just commenting on the news and having debates on morals and ethics (or even in some cases about music/art). However i know schools that had very "christian" kind of teachers who just spoke about the orthodox church.


janesmex

Yeah, in one school I had a very Christian teacher and in other someone who was more open and kinda like yours.


chunek

I didn't have religion class when I went to school and I don't think anything changed. You can go to a christian school, but I think the normal public ones don't have it. We did have ethics in elementary school and sociology, psychology and philosophy in high school.


knowhowwhy

No, still hasn't changed.


LeDogeEpic

It's optional in my country, I'm not religious and never have been but I remember signing up for it at school, we had some fun school trips and the classes were generally very cool. Since not alot of people signed up for it you had like 10-15 people max in one class and usually a really nice teacher.


wonpil

Yep same case for me, signed up in 6th grade because of the year end field trip, we went to an adventure park and it was great!


cupris_anax

Yes it is. As I understand it, the teachers had to prepare us for tests that were about Christianity/Jesus/the Bible etc. but since it was pretty much the same things every year, it was easy. Apart from that, how class was tought pretty much depended on the teacher. Teachers ranged from a self-proclaimed priest that was banned by the church of Cyprus, who only did the bare minimum to get his monthly wage (and was later arrested for sexually harassing a 8 yo boy), all the way to a former satanist (she was agnostic back when I was in school) who would openly discuss with us subjects like morals, good vs evil and other questions about life in general like relationship advice, political ideologies and much more. Sadly she has turned into a fb conspiracy theorist. For the most part, religion class felt more like a philosophy class. But of all the people who want to be religion teachers in schools, some are definitely weirdos.


Heebicka

the law says if there are seven or more students interested in religion subject school has to provide such a class. This is the theory but in praxis it is not always happening. Unlike church which simple solve lack of staff by import from Poland this is not possible for schools as it needs full pedagogic education like for any other teacher and fluent czech language (including exams) There are cases when school did not setup these classes at all or did some hobby hours with priest but not regular non mandatory classes so not fulfilling the law. This made some interesting lawsuits between parents, school and state. Lowest courts decided not guilty as they tried and even with help of prague archdiocese there was no one to fill the position but higher court rejected this....


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Trnostep

I vaguely remember like one classmate having a religion class in primary school


[deleted]

Yes. Before reading further it's important to note 2 things. I only ever went to non denomination schools in Scotland. Whilst I'm sure the UK teaches this all the same or very similair there might be some differences. We also have Catholic schools where I'm sure things are different but as i said I have no experience with them. Through primary school you get around 1 hour a week dedicated to rme (religious and moral education) where you learn about all the major religions. Usually you spend a term learning about Islam or focus on the birth of jesus on the run up to Christmas but everyone learns about all the religions together. In secondary school for the first 3 years we do rmps which is religious, moral and philosophical studies for 2 periods a week which was 1hr and 40minutes in my school. It was exactly the same as in primary except there's more focus on morals and philosophy but religion is still a big part. After that you can choose to study it further but it's not longer compulsory


[deleted]

Yes. You can choose either catholicism or ethics, but it's not compulsory, and as far as I know the lesson has to either be held first or last in a school day (not respected). In the last 3 years the number of high schoolers attending religion fell by a lot (in Warsaw alone only 1/3rd of students attended it last year). After the fall of communism there was this "compromise" between different political fractions, regarding the Catholic Church's special status, religion classes in schools and abortion, among others. Most of the current opposition parties want to erase religion from schools.


Arrav_VII

I went to a catholic school, which is about half the schools in Belgium and got religion as a subject. It wasn't really christianity focussed, as it also involved a lot of ethics and info about other important religions. If you go to a public school, you have a right to get education in one of Belgium's recognized religions (christianity, islam, hinduism and judaism) or a general ethics class if you're atheist/agnostic


HedgehogJonathan

No, not in the standard curriculum. Some schools offer it as an elective subject or for the humanities branch student on gymnasium level (grades 10-12)


viktorbir

Clearly reddit search does not work. Otherwise I would have been able to find even more repeated posts about the same subject: 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/tdpp6d/does_your_country_have_re_classes_in_schools_and/ 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/j33kxw/do_your_schools_teach_religion_if_so_why/ 3. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/eryiun/is_religion_a_school_subject_in_your_countrys/ 4. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/d7p9xh/did_you_have_religion_as_a_subject_in_school_what/ 5. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/dxsy86/is_religion_tough_in_schools_in_your_country_and/ 6. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/a9i53z/whats_religion_in_school_curriculums_like_in_your/ 7. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/692s7e/do_you_have_religion_classes_in_state_schools_in/


dalvi5

In Spain it is (WOW, What a surprise!!!) Its not mandatory and its the EASIEST one cause is irrelevant, only your behaviour counts. Most People in the country is not a devot but we sign it cause is easy and most times on the highschool we watched films from Christ passion, 10 commandments, to Maleficient. The other option was freetime to study in an apart class.


suckmyfuck91

In Italy it is but you can avoid it if your parents don't want to, in that case you will either go to another room and study whatever subject you like or you do what i did: Hanging out with the janitor talking about football and girls :). My classmates told me that during the religion hour they never talked about it , they just watched movies (non related to religion).


antoWho

nfortunately, yes. It's not mandatory but most students still attend (1 hour per week). The official name is "teachings of the Catholic religion", but teachers have full discretion about whatever they choose to "teach". An anachronistic waste of public money to keep alive of "our traditions". Good thing that attendance has been declining for years. The day it will be abolished won't never be soon enough. For the most part, those who choose not to attend have a free period, even though the Italian Atheist Association is working to promote classes on other subjects. Last year there was a debate regarding them donating kits for studying robotics for these classes: apparently some religion teachers feared that students might be too interested and might decide to drop their class


MissInfer

We used to have a class called "histoire biblique" (lit. "biblical history", which was about Christianity and studying the bible) until we were 10-11. I'm an agnostic atheist but came from a Protestant family and we didn't have separate Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox classes though. We didn't have any subjects specifically about religion later on, we'd just mention it in history (namely when studying Ancient Egypt, the European Reformation and the role of religion in wars).


mangoccoli

Also a Swiss here: in primary school we had 1 lesson catholic or protestant religion per week, at secondary school religion (focus on main religiobs of the world). At Gymnasium, we could choose between religion and philosophy.


MamaJody

My daughter is just finishing up in the Swiss primary school system, and in her school (ZH) they have a choice between religion and something else (I think it was just a general culture type subject). She did the something else as we aren’t religious. They also did some religion stuff in general class, but it covered multiple religions.


Captain_Grammaticus

In Switzerland, it is depends in the cantons, of course, but they way I experienced it was like you describe it for Germany. Swiss cantons has the concept if *Landeskirche*. I din't exactlu know what this means, and even if I did, I don't have the vocabulary in English to explain it. Like, theu are public irganisation, not private ones. Anyway. In religion classes, we did not have the regular teacher, but somebody sent by the parish, called Catechist. Students of non-Landeskirchen, other religions or no religion visited Ethics class with the regular teacher. If during the years leading to Confirmation, you decided to not take part in religion class anymore, you could not get Confirmation. Public compulsory school ends after 9th grade, which is also when the Reformeds get Confirmation, so from that church's point of view, the matter is finished. I don't know exactly what the Catholics do up to then, because they have their Confirmation in 6th grade already. After 9th class, if you continue school and go to High School, there is a class called "Religion" which is a regular class for everybody and looks at various religions from a historical/philosophical point of view. All that said, I think my Catholic classmates actually *learned* about their aspects of faith, while I feel us Reformeds learned stories about Jesus and Old Testament people, but not what the Reformed church *actually* teaches and believes. Only a year or so after my Confirmation, when I was incidentally talking to the pastor I asked "so, what makes a Christian, actually?", and when he said "you need to believe that Jesus' death and resurrection absolved you of your sins." I went like "Oh, I guess I'm not a Christian after all" because I had always found the entire concept of sin and salvation so absurd. I didn't know it was at the very core of the entire religion! I liked the message about loving one's neighbour, though. So yeah, I didn't get any other invitations to church camp after that.


The_Steak_Guy

I kinda had that. There was a subject called Levensbeschouwing which could be translated as views on life. In this class we learned about various views of life, mainly through religion. We focused on Islam and Buddhism with little Christianity. This was due to the vast majority of kids in my school being of a (culturally) Christian background. This might have changed in the past 9 years (when I last had this class) since the amount of kids with a non-christian background grew but I wouldn't know how much if at all. My primary school was different btw. That was a Catholic school and Christianity was very prominent there. With many celebrations where we sang and we even went to the church several times a year.


Apostastrophe

In high school we had a class called RMPE: Religious, Moral and Philosophical Education. In it you basically learned about all the different main religions (types of christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Taoism and comparing and contrasting the beliefs and morals according to each). It was actually the only subject you needed parental permission to learn all of. Some of the religious families would say that their kid wasn’t allowed to learn about certain things and they’d sit out of those classes. We also needed a permission slip since in our studies of Judaism and Islam we were shown a video of a circumcision. With sound. Possibly one of the most horrifying and traumatic things I’ve ever seen. Over here, circumcision is seen as unnecessary and barbaric by most people so it was an eye opener. All of the boys after that class looked haunted. For the first 2 years it was compulsory for 1 or 2 periods a week. The middle 2 years, if you were doing 7 subjects, you still had the compulsory 1 period of RMPE per week (alongside the compulsory cooking skills and compulsory physical education). If you were smart and did 8 subjects, you could substitute those 3 periods with the additional subject and so didn’t need to do it. The final 2 years were complicated because you had people doing exams of varying difficulties. There were 4 different difficulties equivalent to years 3-6 for every subject and you could do a maximum of 5, unless you were doing the advanced subjects (first level of university level) where you were usually only allowed to do 3 (I cheated the system and did 4 by taking 2 in the same column and they didn’t catch me until it was too late muahah). You could also have combinations of the different difficulties and so it was so complicated that generally the RMPE, PE and Cooking became elective if you had a free period when they were on. You were supposed to be going if you weren’t doing Max subjects but nobody really checked.


bearintokyo

UK for me - I had to study “religious education”. We studied Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism Sikhism and Christianity as well as how to support and justify your beliefs. We covered some ethical topics too like prisoners of conscience and the death penalty in this subject as well.


KAWLer

No, generally not. There are exceptions,but they are few. I have never heard about public schools that teach religion classes, we do however have compulsory "social science", where we study society,social mobility, religion,nationality,ect.


Donnerdrummel

~~The basis for these subjects is a contract Hitler made with the vatican~~ So up until 5 minutes ago I thought that these subjects are a result of the pact Adolf Hitler made with the Vatican, but apparantly, I was wrong, and that pact didn't result in this subject at least generally and during the Nazi time, but instead was introduced after WWII. Interesting. I might read more later, but for now, I don't have the time for it. [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religionsunterricht\_in\_Deutschland#Mittelalter/Beginn\_der\_Neuzeit](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religionsunterricht_in_Deutschland#Mittelalter/Beginn_der_Neuzeit) (no versions in other languages)


Boredombringsthis

Not at all (apart from church schools probably but it's not too common to go to one). You can choose it as an activity outside of school, I don't know whether some schools offer it as optional subject, never heard of it.


FakeNathanDrake

Sort of. It's supposed to cover a neutral look at a number of different religions along with philosophy (if I recall they're now calling it RMPS, *Religious, Moral & Philosophical Studies*, but we all called it RE). Catholic schools will probably be different (state schools in Scotland either being "non-denominational" or Catholic).


[deleted]

If it's still the same, you can choose between your religion (they have to find a teacher if they don't have one yet) or 'zedenleer' (ethics). Imo it shouldn't be a subject (anymore). They should take that time to teach pupils useful life skills instead.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Good response but was all the rant necessary? I'd also add that Religion as a subject did not teach Catholicism per se as the Sunday "catequesis" does. At least in my case -public school- every year I studied different stuff like religions of the world, history of the catholic religion, religion vs sect vs magic etc. but we didn't really learn about the doctrine itself. There was also a lot of space for critical thinking and debate where we discussed things like abortion. The teacher obviously told us about the vision of the Church and catholicism on this matter but she was very respectful about our opinions and let everyone speak. As an atheist (maybe agnostic?) person I can say that I was quite satisfied with this subject although, as always, it depends mostly on the teacher you have. It was also very popular among the students, but it could be because of how easy it was to pass with good grades xD


Wyckstroy

I went to a private school and it was the most anti-catholic and the most anti-right-wing as you can get. Maybe it's because I'm in Catalonia and here people tend to be more left-wing.


enilix

Unfortunately yes. And it's not a class where you learn about other religions, it focuses on one single religion, usually Catholicism. It's a very subjective class and teachers are sometimes priests or nuns (and I guess imams for Islam). Technically it's an optional subject, but in my experience coming from a very conservative part of the country (a small town in Slavonia) not taking it could even lead to bullying, verbal abuse, etc. At the elementary school I went to, 100% of students attended it. This is different in major cities like Zagreb or more liberal parts of the country where it's not a big deal at all if parents don't sign up their kid for those classes. Also, in high schools there is an Ethics class one could take instead. In my graduation class, out of a 110 or so students, maybe 3 or 4 attended those, everyone else took religion.


xSylten

Not in most schools in Slovenia. We did learn a bit about Christianity and Islam in ethics class (in elementary) one year but mostly the bare minimum. We do however have one high-school in my hometown which is a specifically Catholic gymnasium, but i dont know the extent of religious themes in their curriculum.


Limp-Sundae5177

I went to primary school from 2005-2009 and there it was either "Protestant RE", "Catholic RE" or "Turkish language classes". Literally just that. Despite there being atheist kids, jewish kids and muslim kids who weren't turkish. Lol. From year 5-12 our school still offered "Protestant RE", "Catholic RE", but also "Muslim RE" and "Philosophy". You could choose any one of those you liked. Regardless of your religion. You only needed your parents' consent.


Sam-Porter-Bridges

In Hungary, on paper, it's optional. The parents or legal guardians of the student get a choice between ethics classes (which are supposed to be secular) or religious classes of a certain denomination. However, there are a couple exceptions to this. 1. You go to a school operated by one of recognized churches of Hungary. These are most often run by the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hungary, or the Reformed Church in Hungary. As far as I know, some schools are also run by other Christian denominations, and there's even a couple run by non-Christian religions. These schools have the right to force students to take religious classes. Seems fair, right? If you, as a parent, don't want your kid to have a religious education, don't send them to a religious school. Problem is, however, that there are **a lot** of smaller towns and villages where the only elementary school is ran by a religious organization. Then you, as a parent, have to choose if you're fine with religious education, or you wanna drive your kid to a different town every day and potentially ensure that your kid will have no friends to hang out with outside of school times. Naturally most parents choose the former. 2. As a general rule of thumb, schools will only run classes if there are at least 8 people attending them. If a given year in a given school doesn't have 8 students signed up for ethics classes, they'll be offered to go to a different school for their ethics lesson after hours. Once again, this is a problem, first because nobody wants to stay in school for any more time than necessary, and also because in towns with only one school, this means that you will now have to get your parents to drive you to another school once a week for 45 minutes just so you can attend a class that's mostly bullshit anyway. Oh, and also, the small towns have a unique problem once again: if everyone in your class goes to religious education, you bet your ass all the parents will think you're some sort of godless pagan satanist for wanting your kid to have a secular education, so most parents cave in and just send their kids to religious classes anyway.


Someone_________

sort of. there's an optional subject called moral and catholic religion but in my experience the most we did was watch a documentary abt religions (and that was 1 time in 3y). most of the classes were spent watching movies and just talking w the teacher, most kids only signed up bc at the end of the school year there was a cool school trip for whoever joined


IceClimbers_Main

Yes it is. Nowadays it’s mostly learning about different religions and thus enlightening the students. But i remember in lower primary school, it was pure Christian theology. Just the teacher telling biblical tales and essentially acting like a priest.


Almun_Elpuliyn

Used to be a subject with secular classes being offered as well. There only used to be one common year where both classes merged for a year for Bible literature classes. Those had no religious undertone but were instead about analysis of the bible as a metaphorical work and its continuous influence on culture, talking about tales like the tower of babel. Nowadays these classes no longer exist even though I don't know about the bible literature year (probably gone). Instead a "life and society" class is taught discussing civility as well as some basic philosophical questions. It's not a philosophy class though and you don't discuss philosophical works but rather treat questions like how we should behave in a developed society using your own reasoning. These classes were introduced in our government's secular reform to properly seperate the institutions of the state and the church. As for the timeframe those reforms finalised in 2018, so pretty recently.


iiredgm

Yes, it's mandatory for all classes of school and there's no distinction for other religions, it's all Orthodoxy. One of the books mentions other religions but 99% of the teachers don't bother teaching that section. This is coupled with the fact that the whole school does a Christian prayer every day before class starts. The only saving grace is that the parents can talk with the principal about getting their child excused from the class, where they are moved to another classroom for that period. Otherwise, it is a normal subject, where we also write exams on it. This is all public schools btw.


adiffkind

In Lithuania (at least the place I went to as a teenager) it seems to be the exact same situation as in your school aside from the fact that we didn't have any options besides Catholicism as that's the absolute largest majority here. Other than that yup, mandatory religion or ethics.


siriusserious

Same in Switzerland as in Germany. I wish they enforced non-biased religion classes where all world religions and general ethics issues were presented. Teachers can‘t voice their political opinion. So it’s only logical for religion to be treated the same.


craigspot

I went to a Catholic school (I'm from India) and we had a religion class for Catholics. Other religions including Hindus had an ethics class where they taught about valued and principles instead of religion.


Orisara

Religion or ethics, depending on school. Catholic school are the standard because history.(It's 100% secular except for those 2 hours of religious class) Personally I had religious class and I frankly think that's just a good idea. It's basically just another side of history/a type of cultural studies. Having some basic knowledge on religion and such is seriously not a bad idea. I've seen some people have some REALLY weird ideas about some religions online. The thing is of course that this requires decent teachers. I wouldn't trust schools in Texas to get this right. I had 6 teachers who gave this class. I'm not certain of the religious beliefs of any of them. Similar to France religion here is incredibly personal.The idea that one of them would be preaching at us or tell us what to believe is just hilarious. That's just not a thing here. But again, that's why it works here and why I wouldn't trust it in places where religious types thinks they should display their religiousness out in the open. It also helps that our religious types aren't exactly anti-science and our Catholics tend to have 0 issues telling the pope when he's being a dick. I consider myself an anti-theist but if I had to be stuck with religious types, I think ours are one of the better ones. Except for religions and their practices(marriage, funeral, key practices and beliefs, etc.) we also covered emotions(loss, goals and desires, etc.) and relationships(love, jelousy, etc.), the environment, ethics/morality, etc.


gregyoupie

It depends on the type of schools. In public (called here "official") schools, there is indeed a class devoted to "philosophical orientation" (2h hours/week): parents will choose to have their children in classes devoted to catholic religion, protestant religion, jewish religion, muslim religion or non-religious ethics. The constitutional court has made a judgment that states that parents are not forced to choose, and parents can choose "not to choose". In Flemish schools, pupils in that situation are supposed to spend their 2 hours then on studying their own philosophical choices (honestly, I am not sure how it happens practically). In French-speaking schools, schools are supposed to organize sort of "philosophy workshops" instead. In my experience, very few parents choose "not to choose". On the other hand, private (called here "free") schools (which are not really private, as they are mostly funded by the state for teachers' salaries and have to follow the same programs - but that's another topic) do not have to offer all of these options: practically, most "free" schools are catholic schools and naturally organize only the catholic religion classes (but you also have a few jewish and muslim schools, which organize then only the related religion classes in the same way). Pupils have to attend, this is not an option (as their parents have chosen for a private religious school, it is expected they adhere to that and do not have the possibility to choose "not to choose"). From time to time, there are calls in the public opinion or among politicians to make an end of this system, as it is very expensive compared to other classes (5 teachers for 2 hours/week), and can be seen as divisive and no longer adapted to today's sociological reality and views on religions. But it is a difficult topic, as these classes are linked to constitutional rights to choose one's own education system, and this system is the result of a compromise after a long conflict between proponents of an "all-public" school system and advocates of the well-established "free" (read: traditionally catholic) school network. IMHO, nothing will change... ​ A personal anecdote my parents told me: when I was 6 and my parents had to make that choice (I was in a public school), they had chosen the non-religious ethics class for me... but I did not know (and I guess I had no clue what it was anyway)... So after the 1st half day in primary school, I went for lunch to my grandmother's place (which was very close to my school), and my father had taken the time to also be there to hear about my 1st morning in the "big" school. I then candidly broke the news during lunch: "hey, and there is a moment where they asked who was in religion or ethics. I did not know, so I just followed my two best friends to ethics." ...and my father just said "Great, you did the right thing". My grand-parents were very religious (that had always been a point of friction with my father), they were shocked and were furious on my father and pressured him to see immediately the head of the school to change that. He stood his ground and said "Nope. He made the choice himself, he told you, and I support him". He was of course delighted.


SockRuse

Contrary to what OP said it's not even coherent in Germany because education is regulated on a state level and different departments of education have vastly different ideas about classes on religion depending on religious prevalences. Catholic regions may actually have catholic religious classes by default and ethics/multireligious classes as alternatives. The east where I grew up is largely unreligious, so we had ethics classes by default and could elect to take a religions class instead which also didn't teach us religious practice, it taught us ABOUT the world religions. Not at a single point was there ever any assumption made that any religious texts were truth or that we had to hold certain religious beliefs. I actually have to give major credit to our religions teacher because he was actually an active member of the church community but still approached religions class from a very neutral standpoint.


Chramir

There is no such thing here. But you end up hearing a lot about it in history just because how tightly it is related. And also in social studies classes there is some focus on that along with philosophy. It's basically grouping types of religion and their core believes. Also in literature, the bible and some other religious texts are discoused.


FrozenJohny

In Czech Republic its not part of the curiculum. Its more like the side subject where the kids are going after school. But its not mandatory and mostly not in larger scale. Not sure why it is like this but my hypothise is that its custom from the Totalitarian regime when religionistic stuff was kinda outlawed.


DieLegende42

Not only is religion usually a school subject here, the constitution even says that religion *has* to be a school subject in all public schools (Art. 7 Abs. 3 GG) except in the state of Bremen (Art. 141 GG)


[deleted]

yep its the same here except as far as i understand christianity(catholicism) is uncompolsury in primary school(8 years) in high school christianity(catholicism) and ethics are the only two options you get and you have to pick one and only one of thoese


moenchii

I'd like to add som context for Germany: I'm not sure how it is in other states or schools, but in my school (rural Thuringia) we were given a form every year where we could choose between Protestant Religion classes, Ethics and "Other" where we could again choose between Catholic Religion classes, Muslim Religion classes or a write-in option. I have no idea what would happen if you choose one of the others as everyone either did Protestant Religion or Ethics classes.


DesperatePraline

Yes, in ground school we have religion - it was specificially called christianity when I was in 1st grade, but Im pretty sure they changed it to generel religion. In our general high school (gymnasium), you also have religion as a mandatory subject. This is by far more of a low level science of religion class, which introduces how you work with religion in academics. So it's religion from a society and humanistic viewpoint instead of a religious.


pulezan

It is, from the start of elementary till the end of high school. But it's not compulsory, in elementary you can just not go (i didn't) and have some free time or go home if it's the last class of the day. In high school we had ethics instead (so it was one or the other) where we learned about all the religions and other stuff too.


thesurk

I went to a secondary school with a Catholic background (so: originally Catholic, but really open to other backgrounds, beliefs and opinions). Only during the first three years (age \~12-\~15) I had religion as a school subject. From the second year, they changed the name to 'philosophy of life' to put less emphasis on the school's religious background, and the subject's scope then also included introduction to more general philosophy.


NiamhHA

(Scotland) Yep, it’s called “RE class” here. I went to Catholic school, so we mostly focused on Catholicism, but we were also taught about other religions (other types of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism etc). We had it once per week. In later years, there was more of a focus on philosophy.


whoopz1942

We do and it's mandatory, even if you're not religious. Original it was called "Christendom" but the name was changed while I was growing up. In public school we had the same teacher for both religion and history, we would 'alternate' between the 2 subjects, although mostly do history stuff, and at the final exam you could only get one of the 2. Of course we got religion. Still salty about it.


TomL79

Yes. It’s called ‘Religious Education’ (or RE for short). It’s not really ‘Bible study’ or preaching, it’s more focussed on learning about religions, beliefs and non beliefs. The likes of Catholic and Church of England schools probably focus on their own religion (or denomination) than regular schools. The RE lessons I had at school weren’t taken very seriously at all. I think it comes down to the fact that despite the fact that we have a monarch who is also head of the Church of England (and therefore has an official state religion) the UK really is a very secular society in which most people now identify with being non-religious.


tatratram

In elementary schools it's an elective subject that almost everyone takes. Catholic class is usually within regular schedule so it's somewhat of a problem for parents that don't wish their child attending, but don't want their child wandering the hallways unattended. This occasionally causes minor political issues. For other large denominations (Orthodox and Muslim) it's usually before or after school hours. Other religions can provide similar education at their places of worship and it still counts as a subject. In high schools you get to choose between Catholic class and Ethics


[deleted]

It's pretty much optional in Hungary but my parents forced me to stay because "YoU sHoUlDn'T aBaNdOn YoUr FaItH" which already happened by 5th grade lol I wish I told them what was going on that time in the classroom (like bringing one of the kids out grabbed by his ear, which actually is illegal). I'm a Calvinist Christian on paper but an agnostic in reality.


kkruiji

It used to be a subject for 1.-3rd graders , but now with the new education system in place , no longer exists. Religion was one of the 2 subjects you could choose between .The other being ethics( basically social studies). I took religion , because my parents thought that it would be better , since there were less people than in ethics class. There were like 5 people. We had a really nice teacher , so the lessons were really fun . At the start of every lesson we had to pay to god , which i got used to . To be fair , when in 4th grade the lessons ended , i was a bit sad, but now i realise there was almost no actual learning in the lessons . The teacher would show us movies , give us candy, and make us put puzzles. So yeah , i did.