God's honest truth?

Andrew Brown / The Guardian (UK)

The Swedish government has announced plans to clamp down hard on religious education. It will soon become illegal even for private faith schools to teach religious doctrines as if they were true. In an interesting twist on the American experience, prayer will remain legal in schools - after all, it has no truth value. But everything that takes place on the curriculum's time will have to be secular. "Pupils must be protected from every sort of fundamentalism," said the minister for schools, Jan Björklund.

Creationism and ID are explicitly banned but so is proselytising even in religious education classes. The Qur'an may not be taught as if it is true even in Muslim independent schools, nor may the Bible in Christian schools. The decision looks like a really startling attack on the right of parents to have their children taught what they would like. Of course it does not go so far as the Dawkins policy of prohibiting parents from trying to pass on their doctrines even in their own families - and, if it did, it would certainly run foul of the European convention on human rights. It does not even go as far as Nyamko Sabuni, the minister for integration - herself born in Burundi - would like: she wanted to ban all religious schools altogether. But it is still a pretty drastic measure from an English perspective.

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My take: Public schools are a responsibility of the state - thats why we pay school taxes. There should be a separation of church and state. Churches would be very unhappy if the state tried to tell them what they should preach within their churches. Churches should be satisfied with being able to teach their doctrines within their own church sponsored schools with impunity, leaving the public schools to be managed for the benefit of all the people regardless of belief.

Besides, given the number of "true religions" who claim to have THE TRUTH, how does one objectively decide which one has the monopoly on truth. After all, they can't all be right. It's even objectively possible that all of them are wrong!

Where and how should you place your bet? If you bet on Christianity, then which band; Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, one of the Born-Again Evangelical flavors, Lutheranism, Mormonism?

There are several flavors of Islam including (but not limited to) Sunni, Shia, Sufi, and then there's Yazidi, Druze, Ahmadiyya, Bábí, Bahá'í, Berghouata and Ha-Mim religions either emerged out of Islam or came to share certain beliefs with Islam. Sikhism, founded by Guru Nanak in late fifteenth century Punjab, incorporates aspects of both Islam and Hinduism. Let's not even get into the Black Muslims of the United States.

Then there's Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, (sometimes called Northern Buddhism) is largely found in China, Japan, Korea, Tibet and Mongolia) and Vajrayāna Buddhism (a.k.a. Tantric Buddhism, Mantrayana, Tantrayana, Esoteric Buddhism, or True Words Sect). Some consider this to be a part of Mahayana Buddhism; others view it as a third Buddhist path.

Are you confused yet?

How about Judaism which is sub-divided into Orthodox, Conservative and Reform, not to mention the hybrid flavors of Jewish Humanism, Messianic Judaism, and Black Hebrew Israelites, all of which blend Old Testament beliefs with some New Testament thoughts.

Place your bets on who's God's favorite. You only get one bet and if you're wrong, its everlasting damnation for you ... because God loves you. He just wants you to get your theology straight and will fuck with you for eternity if you don't guess right in this high stakes game. It's not enough to simply make your life miserable, ya see. Guess wrong and even death won't protect you from the consequences.

Better that public schools just stay out of the game altogether.