Obligatory religion in Russian schools

From September 2012, fundamentals of religion will be introduced as an obligatory subject in all schools of Russia. According to their own (or, probably, their parents’) choice, schoolchildren, starting from the 4th or the 5th year, will study fundamentals of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism or Buddhism (these denominations have been officially recognized “traditional for Russia”), or a course which shortly tells about the history of all these religions. Those who will not want to study religion will be able to attend alternative classes of secular ethics.

A decree which outlines the details of teaching this new subject was recently signed by Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The initiative to introduce such a subject in schools came as long as about 10 years ago from the Russian Orthodox Church, but it was only in 2009 that this subject was introduced in schools in 19 regions of Russia as an experiment.

Since the very beginning, this idea came under criticism of quite many people in Russia – mainly, atheistically-minded ones. Their main arguments, in fact, may be reduced to two major ones. First, Russia is a secular state where no religion may be an official or obligatory ideology. Second, Russia is a state of many religions and many nationalities, and dividing people into groups according to their religion may stir national and religious hatred.

Continue reading at english.ruvr.ru

Cogitor

I wonder which of these religions will be presented in a favorable light, and which in a negative? Or perhaps they will all be dunned in favor of atheism, the official state religion.
aceituna

Interesting questions – about above comment. We will have to watch what happens.
Chris

Why are you calling non-belief a "religion". I don't ski therefore I am not a skier. Not skiing isn't anything.

You people just like to make garbage up about people to impune their character. Your behavior is certainly not "Christian" at all. Badmouthing atheists is a popular sport of yours – hypocritical since you claim to be such nice well behaved folks.
- petroskhan1262
  
  Hold on, hold on…wait a minute…you don't ski? ARE YOU NUTS??
  
  Sorry, I live in a ski resort town…had to get that out of my system…
buck

Athiests , like homo's would not be ridiculed if they kept their mouths shut , done their own thing and left everyone else to do their own thing . I have no use for either , but if they don't bother me I certainly won't bother them . What is it , aside from guilt or ego that they have to push their garbage on everyone else that wants nothing to do with it . I WANT to belief in Jesus Christ , if you don't want to then you don't have to , but leave me and mine alone . The exact same thing holds true for homo's , secularists and all people of all persuasions , races creeds and religions . The only people that are TOTALLY wrong are those thast insist on pushing their own desires on all of us . We don't want our kids taught ANY perversions , sexual or otherwise , we don't want to be muslims , we don't want to be whatever you are , we simply want to be what we are .
- http://rationalresponses.blogspot.com/ Jeff Dixon
  
  When Christians stop going to peoples homes to discuss their religion or preaching from street corners to anyone walking by, in other words stop annoying everyone around them who does not agree with them, you can step up to ask that others leave you alone. Until then, it is simply gibberish.
petroskhan1262

I think everyone commenting on this story is missing one very crucial point of the article. I will quote that article directly, and leav it at that:

"Those who will not want to study religion will be able to attend alternative classes of secular ethics."