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Originally Posted by Radical  I would go about stopping fundamentalism by educating children properly instead of immersing them in religious doctrines from an early age. I believe religion should not be associated with schools, e.g. no Catholic schools etc. I also believe religion has no place in politics. I envisage a future society without religon, where humanity is united by scientific progression, instead of quarrelling over archaic doctrines and invading countries on the basis that "God told me to." |
What about taking the opposite approach... teach children about world religions, not from a position of advocating any religion, but simply from the point of view of "trying to foster understanding." It's all well and good to envision a world without religion, but at this point, and for the foreseeable future, religion will still be playing a part in our world, and in our society. Even if one thinks that religion is outdated and ought to be gotten rid of, there are those who disagree. And every day, we come into contact with people for whom religion is a vital and important part of their world.
How better to know how to deal with those people for whom religion is very important than to try to understand where they're coming from... If we don't teach children anything about religion (or worse, tell them that it is inherently evil -- come on, that can breed as much hatred as religious fundamentalism), then we're kind of just creating a vacuum of ignorance, aren't we? And as we've seen time and time again, ignorance leads to all kinds of problems.
Personally, I'd rather foster and promote understanding others' worldviews by teaching students about where other people are coming from than just leave them to watch the news and hear that "Muslims are evil terrorists" (just an example, and an extreme one, but I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from).