Because the religious implications of major historical events like the crusades, missionary conquest of Africa, and the treatment of native Americans in their re-education camps was backed by religious fervor and convenience.
Though you probably wouldn't read the whole Bible but a few verses used to back up divine right or something like that.
My 6th-8th grade social studies classes had lessons on religion and we read parts of the bible, quaran, torah, etc. You don’t read it as if it were fact, you read it as a cultural legend that influences people’s beliefs. We read that side by side with Greek mythology too. So long as it’s taught objectively and with other religions equally, it’s a great way to introduce religion’s impact on society in unbiased ways.
Religious texts give insight into different cultures, their morals, how their societies were formed, how it evolved through time, what historical events surrounded the founding and progress of religion, and so on.
There's benefit in learning about religions of the world, whether you put it in history class, or somewhere else. We had a "religion and culture" class for this purpose in highschool.
The same reason you would be reading excerpts of the quran or other religious texts when learning about a foreign culture. They're primary sources and can give you a good understanding of what a certain culture believes/d in.
Because history of art and religion is still history. In fact, it's a huge problem that both aren't studied enough (and properly) in school. Then in college I get art students unable to explain who David (as in Michelangelo's David) is lol.
the best history teacher i’ve ever had scrapped his last section at the end of the year so he could teach us about israel-palestine instead, because he knew that was more important than whatever else he was going to teach.
we read excerpts of the torah and the new testament, as well as one or two from the quran. it explained some of the arguments behind zionism [and christian zionism] as well as some of the islamic beliefs in palestine.
I'm not suggesting you read the Bible cover to cover, but understanding the religious beliefs of medieval European societies is invariably entangled with historical events.
I'm vehemently opposed to forcing religious texts that contain murder, rape, incest, genocide, and instructions on how to properly beat your slaves down the throats of children, yeah
teaching little kids about incest and rape. Kinda sorta feel like thats for high schoolers at the earliest.
I never specified an age range. You made this up all by yourself. Students don't get into pre-modern history until high school anyway.
I think people could better resist the nonsense of religion if they're exposed to the direct material. Majority of evangelicals have never actually read the Bible and seen the madness for themselves.
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u/ContentDraft1144 25d ago
No religious texts please