i believe, IMnsHO, that the problem is confused
faith is not a religion ...

That would be so funny.
"today children we are going to learn about big imaginary friends in the sky and why they are all deluded fools"

The only good bit about RE in my school, ever, was when someone convinced the teacher to show Life Of Brian in class.

We studied a few different religions in school, the trouble was that most of them were based around a single deity.

No, she isn’t. Though many would happily worship at her altar.



Sorry - back on topic:

According to my dictionary (which is the British Dictionary on my Mac - Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd edition © 2010 by Oxford University Press):





The two seem fairly similar to me - there is certainly a crossover.

I'm surprised cultists (eg scientologists) haven't tried to use human rights laws to change that.

From what I remember RE in middle school was all christianity (fair enough as it was a C of E school).
In secondary school it was mainly christianity with a bit of Islam, hinduiam, seikism (spelling?) and budism thrown in.

Scientology has not been recognised as a religion in this country, so they can’t.

Good.

I had to do an essay once discussing some sociologist's attempt to define what religion is. It made plenty of reference to things like ceremony and collective activity, but made no reference whatsoever to deities or afterlives because that would have made somebody feel excluded. The result was that nobody could use this scheme to distinguish between religion and football or communism.

I didn't get good marks, possibly because I concluded that the most fundamental requirement of a religion is that there should be a man in a silly hat telling you what to do.

Am I the only one who managed to get through an entire school education without a single religious education class? It doesn't sound like I missed out on much.

I did have to do the Lord's Prayer at the end of my primary school assemblies, I can remember that most of the words meant nothing to me, but we had fun surreptitiously picking our noses.

How did you manage that? I though RE was a legal requirement in schools.

I learnt about the bible in primary school but it was from a christian perspective. At secondary school I got told off for not praying or something like that. I said that I'm not a christian, catholic or whatever so I won't pray. Got several detentions for that.

That never happened to me, just mastered the art of looking like I was taking part.

I felt the same way about having to PE.
What a pointless load of old tosh that was.
Certainly hasn't helped me in any significant way, and has instead left me with an ankle injury that will still play up from time to time in cold weather.
That's a genuine, physical ailment that I'm still carrying, thanks to some misguided idiot in a stupid outfit making me do something I don't want to do.
R.E. Classes - the worst that happened was that I learnt a little bit more about some people on this wonderful planet. Nobody was hurt, nobody needed crutches and maybe it helped ease some cultural misconceptions and educated some people.

These days you could probably sue them for discrimination if they did that.

I was in a lot of pain and very nearly off work this week because of a back injury inflicted on me in PE in 1984. It flairs up every now and then - there's a very obvious kink in my lower spine.