Taking the Gods to School

A lot of people spent a lot of time getting prayer removed from the public school system. Now it seems getting religion back in schools is a hot topic. Katie and Preston chat about the benefits of having comparative religion in the classroom.

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Katie Dooley  00:00

A traditional Jewish atheist. Hi, Katie. Hi, Preston. How are you doing? Ready for this episode?

Preston Meyer  00:17

Right? This is going to be a little contentious?

Katie Dooley  00:20

I think so we're

Preston Meyer  00:21

not between us. But our our parishioners might feel like they can disagree with us a lot more than they have in the past.

Katie Dooley  00:29

Well, that's what we want, isn't it?

Preston Meyer  00:31

So if we can start a conversation, that's great.

Katie Dooley  00:34

This is very much a op ed, as I called it, an hour or so ago of an episode. We're gonna talk about whether religion shouldn't be in schools. Welcome

Preston Meyer  00:49

to the holy watermelon podcast was pretty good thing. I like that. Having religion in schools is a tricky thing. And it's, it's different than teaching about religion in schools, that's for sure.

Katie Dooley  01:07

Yes. And that's sort of what we have to be very clear about and I saw one I guess position that said religion should be taught in schools but faith should not be taught in schools and I like that's a pretty good for I think our Preston, I agree. So yeah, if you disagree with drop us a line on Discord, but I think that's a pretty good summary of of our opinion on is that religion absolutely should be taught in schools, and we'll run through it both Preston I think that should look like, but you can't teach faith rightly for.

Preston Meyer  01:43

In America, there's a release. Well, it's not really strict, but it's strict. There's there's laws in the Constitution and the First Amendment to the national constitution, preventing favoritism to any religion. But we don't really have those same privileges in Canada in the same format,

Katie Dooley  02:03

which it's funny because they be all and this obviously, I've never been to school in America. This is all just from observation. I feel like we're less likely to break those rules. Not that we don't don't get me wrong, but just from I've been on our Discord even posting some articles and news articles that have come up out of the states.

Preston Meyer  02:25

We've had some pretty good discussions on Discord.

Katie Dooley  02:27

But where religion creeps back into schools where people want to bring him back, or what have you. And you don't get those same news articles here as well, not

Preston Meyer  02:38

so much. No, again, I'm

Katie Dooley  02:40

not saying it doesn't happen. And we're in actually an interesting situation as being in Alberta where they wanted to add religion to the curriculum, and it was terrible, or they're doing it terribly. But we'll get into all that. Yeah. Too much until we have a foundation.

Preston Meyer  02:57

The devil is in the details there. That's for sure. Devil I get it. What I think is really interesting is even in America, where there is a strict disestablishment preventing favoritism of any religion in any government, body or branch or employee thing like the schools, yeah, it's meant for public service. It's not meant to favor any religion. But that tends to not work out so great. Of course, there used to be 10 of the original colonies, actually did have state religions before they did this disestablishment nonsense. And it's interesting that there still is favoritism for religions. Obviously, most of the nation, the United States, is very interested in preserving a Christian identity, especially at starting with the height of the Cold War. There, they started adding more overtly Christian ideas into government related things. In 1954, they added one nation under God to the Pledge of Allegiance they have In God We Trust on their money. And that has nothing to do with the the need to be specifically Christian. But it's also super obvious if you look around studying religious traditions. Christians are the only ones who pretend God is actually the Divine Name and of course all of that had way more to do with fighting the godless communists

Katie Dooley  04:44

well and even just regular religious discrimination throughout the states and yeah and Canada's Well, we I mean, we don't have in God we trust on our money. We got Liz on our money,

Preston Meyer  04:54

we actually do have a little parallel to In God We Trust on Canadian money on Most of our coinage, you'll see D G, Regina, on on our coins, not so much on our bills. And that stands for de Gracia. Regina, by the grace of God our queen. Yeah. And so they'll show me

Katie Dooley  05:16

I guess I mean, I even if you extrapolate we have lives on our money. Well she's the head of the Anglican Church. So

Preston Meyer  05:22

Right. So while we don't have an established state religion like many nations do we still have God on our money here with a religious figurehead on the coin

Katie Dooley  05:35

Interesting. Yeah, I guess I've never thought of it just. I've personified clearly I call her Liz, Elizabeth. I'm her buddy, that I don't even, you know, it's easy to forget that you're right. She is a religious figurehead.

Preston Meyer  05:58

Learning new things all the time.

Katie Dooley  05:59

So how do I do this? Do we want to go through some of the debate points and then talk about how we would see religious studies in schools? If you were talking points.

Preston Meyer  06:08

You want to Yeah, I want to start with a thing that I've mentioned before. And I want to I want to explain it one more time for odd for our audience. And I've had to explain it for my family on more than one occasion. When I started university, I said I'm going in for religious studies. And everyone's like, Well, are you going to start a church or something along those lines?

Katie Dooley  06:30

I just need to jump in. Because I did. I didn't do nearly as much religious studies as Preston. But I took religious studies in school and everyone went but you're an atheist? Continue,

Preston Meyer  06:41

and they don't understand the appeal. Yeah. So there's the, the, the field of Religious Studies is, it's an anthropological sociological field. It's just hyper specific sociology, right? It's the study of real of behaviors, and beliefs that religious people are seeing involved with. And that's wildly different from theology, which I also did study in university. But so theology is the study of God or gods, or the supernatural even is, broadly speaking, sometimes kind of fits in there. Sometimes

Katie Dooley  07:26

it's very, is it fair to say it's very much a doctrinal study.

Preston Meyer  07:33

I've gotten after people for the misuse of the word doctrine. If anything is ever taught by anybody, it is doctrine. But its theology is definitely hyper focused on the doctrines of a faith.

Katie Dooley  07:52

And I guess it comes from a place of belief, not that I put you take a theology class, but it wouldn't make sense for me to go to a theological college, right? Pastor, right?

Preston Meyer  08:03

I don't believe that, right? Whereas Religious Studies is studying people and groups of people and the things that they do that may or may not be because of the theology they subscribe to.

Katie Dooley  08:17

So so this is a religious studies podcast.

Preston Meyer  08:21

Yeah, I occasionally, I'll get a little theological, but we're sticking mostly to religious studies, studies of people and the things that they do, because of their beliefs.

Katie Dooley  08:34

I mean, clearly, whereby we both think religious studies should be taught in school. Yeah, that's what we're gonna go into some of these debating points that we found online. And we'll talk about both sides. But so you'll get our bias in this for sure. I'm not gonna pretend like we're not in favor of it.

Preston Meyer  08:54

Yeah, as somebody who's, you know, actively engaged in teaching our congregants about religious studies. The The only argument that I could think of that sounded like it made any sense was, if everybody learns about religions in school, and it's mandatory, then they won't have use for the Holy watermelon. But I feel like most people don't pay attention to everything they're supposed to be learning in school anyway. So there's still a need for

Katie Dooley  09:30

on school topics. Right? How much fun would it be to study for school by listening to the podcast, right? I mean, I listen to a learning Portuguese podcast and you can take Portuguese in schools. Yeah. It's great.

Preston Meyer  09:47

So I actually I did have to go looking for things that people would actually want to complain about this idea of teaching religious studies in school for because I from my my own thoughts. I couldn't think of anything that didn't sound like a straw man that was just useless and stupid talking heads nonsense. But we found, we found some ideas.

Katie Dooley  10:14

I say, Should we pull up the negative side? Yeah, let's,

Preston Meyer  10:16

let's bring up those that I found two arguments against that don't sound awful. But I don't love them either. So one of the things that sounds like it's not crazy nonsense, is the argument that the appearance of state sponsorship or establishment of those religions, is really a turn off. That is somebody who's going to be teaching about Islam and Christianity and Judaism and schools, and those are going to look like they're favored. And a lot of others are going to be glossed over. Because realistically speaking, there's so many different religious traditions, you're not going to learn about all of them at any one year of social studies.

Katie Dooley  11:06

No, but and this is where we'll get into how I think, a good religious study in the public school system model? Well, look, I just feel like my big counterpoint that I'm gonna bring up frequently, is, I guess, you know, Religious Studies is so vast, but And again, I can only speak from a Canadian school system perspective. But you know, we, off the top of my head throughout my 12 years of public school we did Greece, we did China, we did Japan, we did Russia.

Preston Meyer  11:37

And how often did you talk about the influence of religion on those nations?

Katie Dooley  11:41

We didn't talk about them at all. But like, you could argue, well, there's 200 countries in the world, and you've only picked four, right? And especially now, I mean, curriculums don't change often, which is unfortunate. But in thinking about diversity, right? Like, nobody in North America learns anything about Africa. That's true, right? And Ethiopia was one of the like, founding world nations like right up there with the Ottoman Empire. And we don't learn anything about it. Right. So why did we pick? Why don't we pick Ethiopia? Why don't we pick? Obviously, we learn about Germany because of World War One and two, you know, why don't we learn about Australia as a strange little island colony? Why don't we learn about Central America or South America? Like, you can argue that for a lot of topics? So just to say, Well, you can't do them all? Well, yeah, no, you can't. We can't go over every war in 12 years of public school and younger grades, it's inappropriate to go over some of the wars. Absolutely. I think that's just a cop out. Yeah. Because school is meant to get you learning how to learn. And just interest and I will say interest exposed to enough topics that you can make a somewhat, and I still don't think even it's that great, but a somewhat informed decision on what you want to do after school. So including religious studies in that I think is beneficial,

Preston Meyer  13:11

took me ages to decide I was going to go to university for religious studies after I finished high school.

Katie Dooley  13:16

And I think I like I wish it was included. Pressing, you can speak to this, I don't think there are a lot of religious studies jobs,

Preston Meyer  13:26

no, not a lot.

Katie Dooley  13:28

Not until you get your doctor and become a scholar, or start working in the theological position. So to be able to pursue and that's I mean, not to get all sentimental, but why I'm excited about Holy watermelons that I can actually pursue something that I'm interested in, because I did I mean, if I, I switched post secondary schools, I'm not going to get into my history, but I would have undergrad did undergrad minored I would have minored in religious studies, if I could. Anyway, I felt like I feel like that was a big digression. I'm so sorry.

Preston Meyer  14:05

Another complaint that people have an argument against teaching religion, or religious ideas in school, is the perception that there's a need to conform for fear of exclusion, that a lot of kids are going to feel pressure. And if you pay attention to kids on the school ground, that's happening without religious education,

Katie Dooley  14:32

I think. I mean, again, I I disagree with that point. Because you're right, the exclusion is already happening. And now people don't understand why. Exactly. So I think of two examples in particular. And this is partially where I grew up, but Muslims and Christmas concerts as a kid now they call them winter concerts, which is better, but the Muslim kids would always sit out and nobody really understood why because we We were 10. And we had no concept of it and, and even me, you know, not believing in a Christian God, whatever, like I still, we still celebrate Christmas and Santa came and Santa still shows up with presents. So it wasn't so exclusive story for me, but nobody understood why these handful of teachers obviously did, but the other kids didn't. And then even older social dance, the dreaded social dance, in high school, where you learn like, to waltz and to step and same thing the Muslim kids sit out because you're not supposed to, and they religion touch people of the opposite gender. And I mean, I had a better grasp, obviously, by high school, but you know, just in feedback and doing this podcast, not everybody does understand why that it's a different religion. And this is our belief. So they're being excluded. And no one knows why. Which I think is worse than having that conversation about what they believe. And finding other better or different ways to include them, then, as has the school or the teacher or the authority thinker. There's other ways, when you would dress, why they're separate. Now you can find ways to include them instead of just being like, Oh, we don't talk about it. Right? I think is the, the better solution.

Preston Meyer  16:30

Yeah. And it's, it's not like these kids aren't learning about different faith ideas. at young ages, they're exposed to Sunday school, as soon as the parents send them off, usually at a pretty young age, or the equivalent of Sunday school, depending on what your group is. There's theological education for children. So the idea of them being exposed to these are some of the other ideas that some of your peers have, shouldn't be that hard for them to grasp.

Katie Dooley  17:01

And I mean, I remember as early as elementary, Christian friends inviting me to Sunday school, like already starting to evangelize. Right? Which impressive and a little concerning. But, you know, I remember having conversations about God. As early as I'd probably say eat, and I didn't grow up in a religious household. So it was coming from friends. One of my best friends growing up was a pastor's kid. Which I talked about, extensively in this discord. About the first time I learned about the crucifixion, I didn't sleep for an entire night. But, you know, we worry. We worry about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but kids are also

Preston Meyer  17:47

getting, there's all kinds of peer pressure,

Katie Dooley  17:51

and information. So again, to not have teachers come out with facts or parents to be concerned to not have those conversations with kids. And, like, I was so lucky. Like, my dad, is the reason I'm even into this and doing the podcast, right? Because we would just always have those conversations. And then I was a lot of it when 911 happened. So you know, yeah, to hide kids from this doesn't make any sense because it's happening constantly.

Preston Meyer  18:20

It's the first complaint that did actually come to my mind as a complaint that sounds like just it can't possibly be a legitimate concern, but it straight up is a primary concern for a lot of people. And I don't feel it, but I recognize it. Is that the concern of if you expose these kids to these to the faiths other than their own, they'll just stop believing what we're teaching them at home and if that so if that's gonna happen that's gonna happen. Yeah. And is that really the worst thing

Katie Dooley  19:06

and this comes back to I don't know how often I've talked about my ice cream analogy I think I've talked about mice criminology once on the podcast and this is where I get really excited about religious studies is that I asked you Preston what your I mean presses doesn't count because I asked Preston what his favorite ice cream flavor is, and he says chocolate and I go well what about straw and goes well, I've never tried it. So well how do you know chocolates? Your favorite if you've never tried strawberry?

Preston Meyer  19:36

Black Cherry all the way.

Katie Dooley  19:38

But like, have you tried other flavors? And so that's always been I feel like pet peeve is almost too strong. Because it's like as a parent it's what you believe is written right for your family. But I don't think you know if you want to compare with political spectrums, you go well, what do you think capitalism is the best we'll do you know? About other, or North Korea, would you like the sounds of democracy? All you don't even know what democracy is? You can't make an informed decision. And religious religion period affects so much of how you live your life and make your decisions that I think it's unfair to not have some exposure to other religions. And if you're worried your kids are going to convert, then maybe your beliefs aren't that good. Mic drop. I'm not dropping the mic, Brian, it's fine. Still? Like drop?

Preston Meyer  20:40

Yeah, it's we talked about the nature of belief before. And if you believe a thing, then hearing where other people are coming from isn't going to mess with that. And if you don't believe a thing, then maybe you'll hear something that does resonate. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  21:01

Why struggle with your belief when there might be something that solves the right to have some sort of existential crisis because your religion doesn't fit? And there's hundreds to pick from that, right? Don't waste your time, your life's too short for that.

Preston Meyer  21:18

Right? mentioned being a parent to a kid that just doesn't believe what you're trying to force them on force onto them for years and years. And that's why they're a crappy kid. And then somehow, they get exposed to a thing that they can latch on to that does make them not a crappy kid.

Katie Dooley  21:37

Well, I mean, we're going to talk about religious trauma. i That's essentially, you know,

Preston Meyer  21:44

so there, there can be some serious advantages to teaching about what religions believe, and what they do because of their beliefs in school.

Katie Dooley  21:54

And again, this is not a faith based education. So Muslims don't eat pork. They pray to the Abrahamic God. Ma, Muhammad was the prophet. Like, that's what they're teaching not you need to pray five times a day in this fashion, right. That's why religious studies

Preston Meyer  22:17

and these kids are already in diverse communities in most cases, that I've, I've been to small towns where they're still diversity of religion.

Katie Dooley  22:29

If they're not in diverse communities, they need it even more.

Preston Meyer  22:32

Absolutely. Because they're gonna leave their town at some point and NBN they'll be in for a serious shock.

Katie Dooley  22:39

Or, I mean, again, just spend 15 minutes on Facebook, right? Again, I don't I mentioned this, I think in our Islam episode, where someone said, Well, I disagree with I don't know what Islam is, but I disagree with it. It's like that's, that's not a fair position.

Preston Meyer  22:57

That's ignorant by any definition.

Katie Dooley  23:00

You might not disagree with it. And again, this comes back to my very silly ice cream analogy, but you might not dislike it. You've just never tried it. Right. Like Kadian sushi for far too long in my life. Which role fish? Why would I eat that? Not eating raw fish. And now I regret the first 18 years of my life.

Preston Meyer  23:25

Those are strong words.

Katie Dooley  23:28

Have you eaten sushi?

Preston Meyer  23:30

Yeah, I've had some great sushi. I've had some bad sushi. There's loads of space where you can go wrong with sushi, but there's some great sushi out there. Being exposed to ideas that are not part of your own religious tradition, are also really helpful for challenging misconceptions and prejudices, and straight up reduce ignorance. These are huge important things with everybody wants their kids to be good neighbors. And then so many people fight the idea that they should learn anything about their neighbor. It's I just don't get it.

Katie Dooley  24:22

Well, and it's, I remember someone saying years ago, it's so much it's it's hard to hate someone whose story you know,

Preston Meyer  24:29

right? I like that. Right? What

Katie Dooley  24:32

a that's a good phrase, powerful statement. And Right, that's exactly what this is. And anytime. I mean, being in North America, Muslims get a lot of flack

Preston Meyer  24:44

from ignorant people. Absolutely. And that's

Katie Dooley  24:46

why I'm saying like you just ask them for a recipe. Hope you're in.

Preston Meyer  24:52

It's amazing the friendships you can make over food

Katie Dooley  24:58

and Every Muslim person I've met is so hospitable. We'll give you that recipe and learn some great stuff along the way.

Preston Meyer  25:12

I have some regrets. I've got a friend of mine. I haven't seen a lot of him lately, of course, because yay world events. But super cool guy. He's a professional chef. Yeah, he's done some cooking in some fantastic places, places I just hope to travel to someday at another time, but he's he's asked me for recipes, because of my studies, is specifically looking for old, old, old timey homestyle cooking recipes from the Middle East. Now, this gentleman is ethnically from the Middle East. But he's asking me to help him in his research. And super cool, builds our friendship a little bit. I still haven't found anything that he doesn't already know. But it's pretty cool way to build a relationship.

Katie Dooley  26:11

One of the other, it's actually funny, there's two to four arguments that I found that I actually kind of disagree with. Sure. One is that it's a positive topic.

Preston Meyer  26:25

It's tricky, that's for sure.

Katie Dooley  26:27

And then, and we didn't find the rebuttal on that being a negative topic. And then the other one said, it teaches ethical values. Oh, I'll start with positive topic. So again, this was a for teaching religious studies in school. So when I'd argue that it's not a particularly positive topic, and then B, I'd say why does it matter? Because we learn about a whole bunch of horrible stuff in school. So that's where I'd started. Honestly, it doesn't matter if it's positive topic or not. Because you learn about World War Two, you learn about the Russian Revolution, French Revolution. I mean, obviously, this some of this is geographical if you're American, you learn about the Civil War. Revolutionary warn you that a whole bunch of terrible stuff. Vietnam, we learned about this is all social studies math, horrible. But I mean, you know, we read Death of a Salesman and Hamlet and Macbeth and just

Preston Meyer  27:21

To Kill a Mockingbird.

Katie Dooley  27:25

I mean, it kind of ends happy,

Preston Meyer  27:27

but it makes people uncomfortable. That's true, which is the point of the book. And there's a good reason that every 15 year old kid should have read this book,

Katie Dooley  27:35

literally just read it for the first time in my life, like maybe two months ago, really loved it. It was great.

Preston Meyer  27:41

It was part of my grade 10 curriculum. I think it might have been grade nine, but I think it was 10. And, I mean, I liked the book. It there's there's parts of it that are hard to read, and hard to accept as a 15 year old kid, but it's also really important lessons.

Katie Dooley  28:01

Absolutely. So that's why I say this, even as an argument isn't really agreed argument. And then. So the positivity aspect is that we've covered a lot of horrible stuff in religion, period. So every religion has a sullied past. Yeah, their religious books say not great things, any of them. And, yeah, there's usually a lot of murder.

Preston Meyer  28:31

Yeah, you're coming up in your readings to up great murder with a railroad spike. Oh, exciting.

Katie Dooley  28:35

Well, and I just I finished Deuteronomy, so you have to marry your rapist. Okay, you

Preston Meyer  28:41

don't have to marry your rapist, I strongly recommend it. So I do want to dive into this a little bit and it fits into religious education. But part so there's a lot of laws in the in the Torah are ours, the Hebrew Bible, and that they're not all old laws. By this point, they're old. But they're not all taught by Moses laws. A lot of the material is newer developments as a legal code need to develop as the

Katie Dooley  29:14

nation. Oh, absolutely. You can tell that. Yeah, they're more modern air quotes last for the time. Yeah, absolutely.

Preston Meyer  29:21

But the specific bit about marry your rapist. A lot of people quote this as the worst possible thing for phantom feminism. And it's not meant to be an every case sort of thing. It's an issue of there was a cultural problem among these people where you didn't want to marry somebody who wasn't a virgin. Right? Yeah. And so. Yeah. And so, a woman who is raped would have the option to force her rapist to marry her, so that he would be forced to support her that It would certainly not cohabitate in most situations. It's a punishment for the rapist, not the victim. And she can ask for a bill of divorce if she were to find somebody who was okay with not marrying a virgin later on. Good. Happy. I mean, we're talking about a theoretical person here, but it was definitely some real people in history to

Katie Dooley  30:29

anyway, whether it's positive or not as part of this conversation. I think the education still does happen. Absolutely. And then the point on teachers ethical values. Well, fun fact, that's a whole episode. That's coming in two weeks.

Preston Meyer  30:46

Yeah, that's, that's a really loaded full of baggage set of words there.

Katie Dooley  30:55

I think. If they mean, in the terms that you said, and other points is that it makes you more understanding person. It helps get rid of prejudices. And that's ethical. Cool, but to say that the religions themselves have ethical values you need to learn within

Preston Meyer  31:16

them, then you've started teaching radiology, pretty

Katie Dooley  31:21

money, because a little bit. Again, no holy book is purely good. Right? There's a lot of garbage. And I mean, garbage Jessen, not nice things.

Preston Meyer  31:35

I was talking to somebody a little while ago, who genuinely believed that the story of lat and his daughters was meant to be a story of role model, that you're supposed to look up to him and, and behave like this.

Katie Dooley  31:51

I mean, lot didn't do anything.

Preston Meyer  31:54

Well, he had sex with his daughters, they know they raped him, they raped him while he was drunk. victim blame what? That whole story. This guy believed that this was meant to be a role model story, which, I mean, there's a lot of terrible things in the Bible. Not all of them are role models story.

Katie Dooley  32:18

Yeah, so if it's, you know, the Golden Rule, which again, shows up in any in most religious books in some wording or another cool, but to say that, yeah, it's it starts to muddy with what a what is morals and ethics? Hmm. and stuff. And then you can get into that gray area of theology, as well. I think there's probably some really good conversations and debates students can have about some of the content. But to say, here's this passage, and it's ethical, would be a bad teacher. I think you could have a debate and say, Do you think this statement is ethical and divide the room, but I don't think a teacher pulling some scripture or doctrine and saying this is ethical. I don't think that's ethical.

Preston Meyer  33:12

I like it things are such a heavy topic that we've selected for this week. But religion is always in the classroom, until you have a classroom where nobody believes in any gods or any supernatural power. Religion is in the classroom. Because it's part of your identity, if it's something that you believe, which means it's going to come up in discussion, somebody's going to have questions. And realistically, among teenagers, there's definitely plenty of prejudice. And teachers are going to have to address that well. And

Katie Dooley  33:50

I'm even thinking I remember one social science class I had with the most awesome teacher, she was awesome. And she was it was political points. You know, it was should the the one I remember in particular, was should gay marriage be legal? Because it wasn't Yeah,

Preston Meyer  34:15

that's a whole discussion. First classroom issue is

Katie Dooley  34:19

shoes. My Word of the Week is bitch, and she was a bit she, and I remember because, for me, I absolutely think it should be legal. And I was so worried because I will

Preston Meyer  34:33

just say that one more time and enunciate very carefully.

Katie Dooley  34:36

I absolutely think it should be legal. Okay. Why didn't you

Preston Meyer  34:40

I just felt like your your words were a little soft.

Katie Dooley  34:44

I absolutely think it was should be legal. And I remember I was so massive and 17 I was like, Oh man, I just was so worried that the whole class she actually made us physically get up and move. Yes, yes or no?

Preston Meyer  34:59

Oh, split them.

Katie Dooley  35:00

I'm physically Yeah. And I was like, so scared that I was be the only one on the yes side. I was like, No, I need to be on the yes side. And there was in a class of 30, there was only three people on the no side. And two of the three were definitely devoutly religious. Of course, I don't. And then one honestly, I think was just toxic masculinity. If I, I honestly don't remember any of the other questions, and the room split more evenly besides that question, but Right, that's a political question. With religious in the fluids like, that's what, that's the reason two thirds of the the nose were on the no side. So to say, you know, it's not in the classroom is impossible. And then in, you know, bigger scale, adult scale, it affects your day to day life. And that's political decision making, and how can you live in a secular society? And, you know, fair enough, you can't? I understand that. As a believer, it would be hard to be like, what's best for everyone? For some people? So absolutely. Your religious beliefs ended up in your political voting, which affects everyone. So to have an outside perspective to go, No, I don't believe in abortion. But why do other people believe in or

Preston Meyer  36:35

I shouldn't say I love that word.

Katie Dooley  36:38

I don't support abortion.

Preston Meyer  36:41

Those are two very different.

Katie Dooley  36:44

I don't support abortion. But why might I want to, you know, give that access to someone else.

Preston Meyer  36:55

Which, like, that's an awful lot of people voted for Trump, or literally any Republican candidate in any jurisdiction, or even just conservative leaning whatever the title is, because they don't think that abortion should be legal, but specifically super visible in American politics. A lot of people hate anybody who identifies or announces that they vote in the liberal direction. Because they see them as nothing more than child murderers, which is terribly ignorant.

Katie Dooley  37:36

Yeah, so even even that is where I would say having a religious education is important to realize that not everyone's religious, and then some of the stuff and this was covered on another podcast, behind the bastards covered it. But fabulous podcast, check it out, if I remember to put a link in the description to the episode. But the anti abortion movement

Preston Meyer  38:04

wasn't always there. No, it's kind of a new thing. It's like from the 50s. There's nothing in the Bible that explicitly specifically forbids abortion.

Katie Dooley  38:15

And it comes in I should, if, if you're listening to this, and I haven't put in the show notes, send me a message. But it's rooted in racism is women couldn't segregate? They shut down. abortions, because if you're a single black woman, with a child, you now can't afford upward mobility. So when you couldn't separate them from your, your public life, you could

Preston Meyer  38:49

stratify them more economically.

Katie Dooley  38:51

So that's where modern day anti abortion laws even come from. So to know that, to be taught in a history class, alongside religious studies, I think is important in the world we're heading into.

Preston Meyer  39:06

Absolutely. People do terrible things to each other all the time, our history is full of it. And an awful lot of that list of horrible things, is religiously motivated. Leaving religion out of social studies doesn't make any sense to me.

Katie Dooley  39:24

Well, and then the interesting is, and we've had this conversation before, is things are, on the surface, religiously motivated, and I've had this conversation where

Preston Meyer  39:35

that's how they defend it to themselves.

Katie Dooley  39:38

Because right, what was it that I read? I forget, it's called like, Is religion evil or religion bad? very literal title. And it was it was defending religion. So it was actually quite contrary to my personal beliefs. And and I said, but I still think religion is bad because it exacerbates what's existing and view and I rant I don't If you remember this conversation, you and I ran through a whole bunch of world events that was like, Well, this was made worse by religion you're like, but here's the political socio economic stuff behind it. And while I don't disagree with you, I still think religion exacerbates it. But again, to have to be able to unmask that right to be able to look at a situation like Northern Ireland, Catholics versus Protestants and a to go, these are basically the same religion.

Preston Meyer  40:32

Pretty close. And then be

Katie Dooley  40:35

so we look at it as a religious war, but it's actually a socio economic conflict that started in the 1600s,

Preston Meyer  40:43

but just happens to have an official religious line that divides down.

Katie Dooley  40:48

So what if you brought religious studies into Irish schools to talk about the actual difference between Catholic and Protestant and no, that's not a Catholic and Protestant issue, it's a To Have and Have Not issue. And you're, and you're mad at the wrong person, you've been mad at the wrong person for 400 years, right? Which the length of time becomes a problem and

Preston Meyer  41:13

important. We see

Katie Dooley  41:15

the same thing in Israel and Palestine right now. It is absolutely a religious conflict. But yeah, absolutely started with a socio economic, we gave away your land, and we shouldn't have.

Preston Meyer  41:32

But now we're so many generations down the line, that there's serious, strong feelings on both sides instead of one.

Katie Dooley  41:41

Absolutely. And understanding why it's being funded by the American government is.

Preston Meyer  41:49

Yeah, the allied forces of the First World War have put an awful lot of energy and money into destabilizing the Middle East. And it's it's not about religion at all. It's about we had this empire that we fought in the First World War and we need to keep them from unifying,

Katie Dooley  42:07

though there is a un I don't know how big it is, I should look it up. There is a group of evangelical Christians that want Israel to come about because they think it'll bring the second time Absolutely. And that's a huge like, they are a huge fan, and you can go on like, on your site, you can go and really weird of angelical tours of Israel. That's like, this is where Jesus is gonna show up. But yeah, there's like a huge funding of Israel, because they, some people think it's gonna bring about the Second Coming. So again, here's a huge ly impactful religious conversation we need to be having, because it's hurting a lot of people and people don't want to have the religious conversation. Because they're scared they're gonna offend someone and then you can't have the socio economic conversation or whatever fact political ethical, political, economic, all the Yos. conversation around it, because

Preston Meyer  43:05

because it's touchy, people's feelings get hurt. riled up, right. Anything that fires off that little amygdala in the back of your head is makes for a hard conversation. And some people respond very poorly to that thing firing off, and others not so much. I'm not

Katie Dooley  43:25

a great debater. Like someone give me angry, and I forget everything that I know. That's frustrating. I know this is wrong. And that's all my brain goes is that's all it says. And it makes me really mad. Because, like everything I have in my arsenal just goes away. And I just get mad. Your brain I get. No, I get mad because I can't explain why. Why I'm right.

Preston Meyer  43:50

Your brains too busy being offended,

Katie Dooley  43:52

I guess, to practice?

Preston Meyer  43:57

What else have we got here on our list?

Katie Dooley  43:58

I mean, I want to touch on what I actually think. Religious Studies curriculum. Yeah, look like but I don't know if there's any other debate points, you want to know. Go for it. Cool. So I wanted to talk about what I think a comprehensive Religious Studies curriculum could look like. And jump in if you have any thoughts for sure. Again, this is from a Canadian education perspective. So I'm, I apologize for American listeners. But in Canada, we have a class called Social Studies, you take it grades one through 12. And it covers history, economics, politics. Yeah, it covers those things. And you do a little bit more every year. And I think the US divides history, but I'm sure they teach social

Preston Meyer  44:44

studies when I was in high school we split social studies into geography and history we come and then I did both things and not everybody did.

Katie Dooley  44:54

Yeah, so the we just do different units. Like I said earlier in the episode, you know, one you didn't is China and you maybe do that for two or three months, and then you switch to you learn about China. And then maybe you learn about capitalism as a concept. And then maybe you learn about World War after that her are First Nations and anyways, break broken down to modules. So I think having religious studies as a piece of social studies, is the best way to just incorporate into the class and teach age appropriate stuff. And just like you teach China one year, maybe one year you teach Hinduism, and then you explore some concepts around religion. In addition to that,

Preston Meyer  45:38

yeah, it makes sense. wouldn't start with Greek mythology and Hellenism with the earliest years since Zeus is a little rapey. But we learned about

Katie Dooley  45:47

Greece in grade six, not not age appropriate. Yeah. That's something right. We have to,

Preston Meyer  45:54

you know, age appropriate. left out, though. Yes, absolutely.

Katie Dooley  45:57

We did China in in grade five or six as well. It's not like we learned.

Preston Meyer  46:03

Yeah, I bet you didn't cover Taoism at all?

Katie Dooley  46:05

No, we didn't. But we also didn't learn about all the horrible things about China, either, right? Or, again, and this is a problem. But, you know, the big topic in Canada right now is that we didn't learn about residential schools. And maybe you don't teach six year olds about residential schools because it is horrific. But Junior High in high school, it's just start being introduced as concepts. Junior High seems like an appropriate age. area. It's just like, you don't teach six and seven year olds about World War Two. Right? The the genocide of the Jews, but you'd absolutely learn about a high school and you absolutely should learn about in high school. So same thing, grade one, everyone believes different things. Let's talk about Christmas and Hanukkah, and Diwali, and

Preston Meyer  46:49

Eid? Sure. I like it

Katie Dooley  46:52

fun. And we learn about all the different celebrations that people have. I like it, right. And then in high school, we can talk about, you know, Islamophobia, and, you know, tougher harder topics.

Preston Meyer  47:11

Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Right? And then

Katie Dooley  47:13

it's not its own class. And I know, I know, a lot of parents struggle with the idea of religion being taught in schools or having a course on religion. So that's why I think it should just be folded into social studies. I also think it should be mandatory by me.

Preston Meyer  47:33

No exemptions. It's, I agree with you completely. The idea that parents pull their kids out of sex ed, for example, these are the kids that need sex ed the most.

Katie Dooley  47:48

And I bring up the the mandatory because that is one especially because like I said our curriculum, new curriculum, not very good curriculum. rollout was supposed to include religious studies, they're talking about revamping it. So I don't know what that looks like. And a lot of parents I saw on Facebook, I don't have kids, but a lot of my parent friends said, I'm okay with that. As long as it's I can exempt my kid or you know, it shouldn't be mandatory or whatever. But Preston's exactly right. The people who would pull their kids are the kids who need it the most,

Preston Meyer  48:18

for sure. It's just the idea that somebody would want their kids to not learn a thing. Sounds obscene to me.

Katie Dooley  48:33

I saw I don't know what they're so scared of, again, as long as it's religious studies, if it's theological. Absolutely. I don't think that should be in schools. But if it is a secular approach to religious studies, I don't understand what he would be concerned

Preston Meyer  48:48

about. Yeah, no, I'm one of those people that was not allowed to be in sex ed. But actually, okay, so, super weird. I was allowed to be in sex ed in grade four when it was in my elementary school, because they just talked about cubes and grade four, I guess, I don't know. But when it came up again, in grade nine, or 10, I think it was grade nine. My mom was like, No, you can't go in there. Anything you want to learn, you can ask me about No, that's wildly inappropriate one. Because you know, that you're not going to have the right questions to get any of the information you need from your parents when you're 14 or 15.

Katie Dooley  49:30

There's so much wrong with that. Also,

Preston Meyer  49:33

there's, there's loads of questions that maybe you do have, that you are not going to feel comfortable asking your parents at 14 or 15. It doesn't matter what kind of relationship

Katie Dooley  49:43

but like, your parents might not want to answer those, right? Cuz kitchens keep getting freakier and

Preston Meyer  49:50

I can I know for sure that my parents would have answered those questions. If you were

Katie Dooley  49:56

like, Mom, what's a Dirty Sanchez? She'd be like, let me show you. I don't know. I'm not kidding. She'd be like, let me tell you. But that's what I mean. Like, there'd be a quote like, maybe this is just me and someone who does not want kids is like, there are things I don't want to tell you. From my own comfort level, not that you shouldn't know them. One, I want you to be prepared when someone asks for a Dirty Sanchez, but I do not want to be the one to tell you what that is.

Preston Meyer  50:26

From videos that I've seen of what sex ed is, in some places. There's an awful lot of material that you shouldn't be learning from your parents. And it's far better in a classroom setting where you're usually safe with anonymity with the anonymous question box thing. And in a large tiniest one, yeah.

Katie Dooley  50:54

My friends, a teacher. And obviously, you should teach a sex ed and she put one on Instagram and it said, Is it true that girls shed their skin when they get their period? I'm sure it was just a troll, but

Preston Meyer  51:13

not really, but

Katie Dooley  51:16

your skin comes off? Like a lizard. Day seven. I'm surprised your wife hasn't shown you. Dead skin. Sorry.

Preston Meyer  51:30

It's important.

Katie Dooley  51:31

Yes. And same thing, right? Like I, I think if it started young, and age appropriately, like I said, if you get to teach kids that some some kids are visited by Santa, and that's really cool. And then some kids can have this massive feast with their family. And that's really cool. And I are some kids get to open small presents for seven nights in a row. And that's really cool. And you're like 16 can just be excited for everyone. And then And then obviously build up to it, then I don't even think you would need a private, private question. Answer period. But if you did, right, like, I cool, but we don't we talk about you know, that's two things. You shouldn't talk about our politics and religion. Well, we still cover politics in school,

Preston Meyer  52:21

and sometimes in ineffective ways. Like, honestly, that needs to be revamped the, the way I was taught about the Russian Revolution, and then the fall of the Soviet Republic, or the Soviet Union was honestly pretty disastrous. I've learned a lot better information about that since I finished high school, that there's it's not just communism that failed. It was authoritarian dictatorship and, and corruption that destroyed nations, and still is. And everyone's just like, yeah, no, it's communism. Like it is a lot more complicated than that.

Katie Dooley  53:01

And I I understand that. The concern about teacher bias, yeah, but it shows up in politics, it shows up in your economics class. And if you're a teacher that is so devoutly one religion, that you feel like you can't teach other religions effectively, he probably shouldn't be a teacher, because that's your job is to disseminate information. But be then swapped with a teacher that can

Preston Meyer  53:29

right, you'll find somebody if you look, right.

Katie Dooley  53:34

To say that it's divisive, or or you know, something that we shouldn't talk about is we talked about a lot of things we shouldn't know about in school. And that's why universities are cesspools of of divergent knowledge.

Preston Meyer  53:51

Yeah. You know,

Katie Dooley  53:53

universities, the weirdest like voting pattern unit, universe ridings, with universities in them, where students live have like the most divergent voting patterns in the tire province. I mean, there's your most you're more likely to get Rhino party in pirate party. Yeah, I want to party votes in a university writing than anywhere else. Of course.

Preston Meyer  54:14

There's our our former Premier runs in a university writing.

Katie Dooley  54:22

She does very well.

Preston Meyer  54:25

And, yeah. It's interesting to see how people who are actively learning behave differently from people who have said I'm done with education for now.

Katie Dooley  54:42

Maybe it's our wrap up question. How do you think religious studies would change? I do you have more thoughts?

Preston Meyer  54:50

No, no, go ahead with your question. I'm just scrolling down to see if there's anything else we

Katie Dooley  54:53

think religious studies like learning religious studies in school would change Other people's behaviors. And I don't know, if you want to talk about that a student level or familial level or academic level, but

Preston Meyer  55:10

not sure. Okay. It's like learning anything, it can have a variety of effects, I guess. But I think if people are learning more about the people around them, they're gonna be a lot less awful to each other. If they can figure out where their prejudices come from, or have somebody explain it to them, which is awful lot more helpful, then they can evaluate them in a way that makes them a lot easier to shed.

Katie Dooley  55:48

Like your skin after a period.

Preston Meyer  55:53

Yeah, you can find out who the lizard people really are.

Katie Dooley  55:58

My skin sloughing,

Preston Meyer  56:00

gross. It's this world is really complicated. And if we can understand the diversity between us, and even within a single religious tradition, there's diversity. And there's realistically not going to be a lot of time to explore internal diversity in junior high social studies class, for example. But just introducing that idea can help. Like you've got people who are so tired of the oppressive Christian religions in a community, that it's easy to lose track that not all Christians believe the same things and behave the same way. You've got the Westboro Baptist Church. And then you've got a lot of pretty liberal

Katie Dooley  56:57

in that we posted about the first transgender leader in the Lutheran church, right, so everything from a transgender Reverend to Westboro Baptist,

Preston Meyer  57:08

which is, of course, our go to example of a bad Christian Church, fat, there's, there's so much diversity, it's a spectrum,

Katie Dooley  57:18

take a shot.

Preston Meyer  57:22

And the world is such a cool place that even in groups that you find unfavorable, for any reason, there's going to be people in that group that turns out you actually like a lot. If you're willing to get past what is sometimes and obvious in your face difference. But people suck.

Katie Dooley  57:49

I thought that was gonna end really positive and you ended it.

Preston Meyer  57:51

So don't be a dick.

Katie Dooley  57:55

I mean, love your neighbor.

Preston Meyer  57:58

I mean, this ultimately, the Golden Rule boils down to that love your neighbor, figure out why your behavior sucks, how it would feel if it were thrown at you. And then stop doing that.

Katie Dooley  58:12

And you know what? I'm gonna get curious. Absolutely. Curious. Because, I mean, we've covered them all quite broadly. But well, we only covered them all. We're working on it are the major the big ones, quite broadly. And as a as an outsider, yeah, sure. They all have some weird beliefs. But they're not that weird. In the end, right, no one is so other in these, these big ones, that you couldn't wrap your head around everyone. They all have their quirks. There's some odd things, but that's what makes them their group.

Preston Meyer  58:51

Yeah. Unless your religion says that you need to find a random stranger and set them on fire in a park. Like you're gonna find some overlap in that allows you to be friends with that person. Absolutely. If you find a person common ground. Yeah. And if you do find a person that likes to light strangers on fire in the park, run, fix that problem.

Katie Dooley  59:19

Oh, well, I think that was a pretty good one sided debates.

Preston Meyer  59:22

Yeah. I mean, I wish that we could disagree a little bit more on this. But I mean, I feel like we were mostly on the same page.

Katie Dooley  59:31

We covered some of the other outside arguments.

Preston Meyer  59:33

I feel like there are people who disagree with us, and we would love to have you join the conversation. We have great discussions from time to time on Discord. If we can make those a little bit more frequent. I'm totally game. And we have good times. We share ridiculous memes.

Katie Dooley  59:49

Yes, so we are always content continuing. We are always continuing this conversation on our Discord. And if you want us to keep creating more awesome real legit studies content, please check out our Patreon or our merch shop and get some sick some bitchin. Holy watermelon merch. Please be with you.