Reply #111: Try to teach literature to people who have never [View All]

read the Bible. They won't get many of the allusions or symbols. An awful lot of literature includes a Christ figure, for example. If you can't identify a Christ figure when you see one, you're not going to do well in literature classes.

Try to teach Western art history to people who know nothing about Christian symbols, or Eastern art history to people who know nothing about Buddhist symbolism or Hindu gods and goddesses. A competent teacher can teach about Christianity or Buddhism or Confucianism without proselytizing.

Teachers who teach students about Biblical references and allusions, Christian symbols, Buddhist symbols, etc., are broadening their horizons. You can't claim to be an educated person without knowledge of all the world's great cultures. which always includes knowledge of their religious beliefs and how those beliefs influenced their culture. It's not just about Christianity by any means.

When I was in sixth grade, we learned all about the Norse gods, the Egyptian gods, the Greek, and Roman gods. We had to learn all their names and what they did (Zeus was the boss, Hermes was the messenger, etc.) This was part of studying the Norse, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman peoples and how they lived. Sixth grade! Needless to say, we learned more about different cultures and religious symbolism in later grades.

You are suggesting making students more ignorant, all because you personally dislike religion. You are free to dislike religion but to ignore the influence that religion has had on literature, art, and history is to choose ignorance over knowledge. You are being every bit as narrow-minded as the fundamentalist Christian who refuses to learn anything about science.