Richard Dawkins, the notorious British atheist, has made the case for British kids to learn about God, history, and their culture, in school. At the Cheltenham Science Festival, Dawkins was asked if kids should stop studying about religion, for fear they would be brainwashed. His reply was one educators in the United States should take to heart, especially since the founding of our country has a basis in religion, particularly the pursuit of religious freedom.
I don’t think religious education should be abolished. I think that it is an important part of our culture to know about the Bible after all so much of English literature has allusions to the Bible, if you look up the Oxford English Dictionary you find something like the same number of quotations from the Bible as from Shakespeare.
It’s an important part of our history. So much of European history is dominated by disputes against rival religions and you can’t understand history unless you know about the history of the Christian religion and the Crusades and so on.
Dawkins went on to say he would not “abolish religions education” but would “substitute it for comparative religion and Biblical history and religious history.”
Schools have all but stopped teaching history and religion, as they relate to this country’s origins. Public school curriculums often wipe history books of relevant details that might be controversial in nature while simultaneously lowering standards — in fact the first time anything about the American Revolution is taught isn’t until 4th grade.
A 2014 report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed 18 percent of high school kids were proficient in U.S. history. Of course, God was removed from schools long ago, and encouraging tolerance of religious belief is about as far as most schools go.
Dawkins makes an excellent point about why he thinks kids should learn about religion especially as it correlates to England’s history, and similarly to U.S. history.
Pilgrims fled England and settled in the colonies specifically seeking the right to pursue their religion, an ideal the U.S. holds dear today. Often this fact is played down or altogether erased in the name of political correctness. Yet how can kids accurately understand their nation’s origins if we don’t teach them about religion and the freedom to practice it?
If a renowned atheist thinks history is so valuable in a country like England — not even if, but because of how it intertwines with religion — it’s even more essential in the U.S.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.
