Swedish government cracks down on religious education

Link to Freethink article

Swedish government – it’s illegal for schools to teach religious doctrine as if it were true

Courtesy of The Guardian:

The Swedish government has announced plans to clamp down hard on religious education. It will soon become illegal even for private faith schools to teach religious doctrines as if they were true. In an interesting twist on the American experience, prayer will remain legal in schools – after all, it has no truth value. But everything that takes place on the curriculum’s time will have to be secular. “Pupils must be protected from every sort of fundamentalism,” said the minister for schools, Jan Björklund.

Creationism and ID are explicitly banned but so is proselytising even in religious education classes. The Qur’an may not be taught as if it is true even in Muslim independent schools, nor may the Bible in Christian schools. The decision looks like a really startling attack on the right of parents to have their children taught what they would like. Of course it does not go so far as the Dawkins policy of prohibiting parents from trying to pass on their doctrines even in their own families – and, if it did, it would certainly run foul of the European convention on human rights. It does not even go as far as Nyamko Sabuni, the minister for integration – herself born in Burundi – would like: she wanted to ban all religious schools altogether. But it is still a pretty drastic measure from an English perspective.

The law is being presented in Sweden as if it mostly concerned fundamentalist Christian sects in the backwoods; but the Christian Democratic party, which represents such people if anyone does, is perfectly happy with the new regulation. There is little doubt that combating Islamic fundamentalism is the underlying aim, especially in conjunction with another new requirement that all independent schools declare all their funding sources. This would allow the inspectors – whose budget is being doubled – to concentrate their efforts on those schools most likely to be paid to break the rules.

It’s good to see a few governments brave enough to take a stand against supernatural thinking being presented as established fact. Theists demand we accept their opinions as fact without feeling compelled to offer any sort of credible evidence to support their claims.

Sweden has issued a challenge with this law; if theists want their beliefs to be taught as fact, provide as much proof as science has for evolution or gravity.

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Private schools in Sweden are a bit different than private schools in the States. Like public schools, they receive funding from the government, but they also derive a significant portion from private sources, as well. Thus, it makes sense for them to place the same restrictions on both types of schools so as to make sure that the curriculum is standardized across the nation. Here in the States, the government would not get away with such measures.

Their decision was mainly in response to Islamic fundamentalism, which is becoming a huge problem in Sweden. It will, of course, affect Christian schools, as well, but they don't seem to mind, as long as it means restrictions on their arch-nemesis, Islam.

I particularly like the last sentence in the article: "Sweden has issued a challenge with this law; if theists want their beliefs to be taught as fact, provide as much proof as science has for evolution or gravity."

Of course, nobody of ANY religion is able to do this. Just ask any Christian to provide evidence from the various branches of science--archeology, biology, paleontology, etc.--that supports creationism in the same way that it supports evolution, and the best they can do is to exclaim, "Well, just look around you! Proof of God's creation is everywhere!"

No evolutionary biologist would get away with a statement such as, "Just look around you! Proof of evolution is everywhere!" If anyone were to say such a ridiculous claim, Christians would jump all over it, saying that just looking at something will not lead you to the understanding that evolution is true. And they would be correct. One needs EVIDENCE to support anything, not just empty statements of blind faith. But Christians never apply this to their own beliefs. They are perfectly happy with just looking around them and saying "God did it," while at the same time declaring that the rest of us must provide evidence. It is high time they are told that they, too, MUST provide evidence of their claims, or else they will thrown out like so much dirty dish water.