How was Religion in school for you?

Cienciano

Did anyone in school ever go to confession and actually confess about something real because they were worried that they needed forgiveness from god?

airuser

Was educated in the UK firstly in RC grammar school where is was all about your faith. Then went to CoE private school where I was 1 of 4 RCs and it was really enjoyable.Religious studies. Our religious beliefs were challenged and put to the test. Having to explain the difference between Dogma and discipline in our beliefs. Many long discussions were had. Never any cross words. The Master in Charge who was a Baptist lay preacher kept everything on the level. Today I still have very fond memories of those days.

I also learnt some of the Bible new and old which was really rarely mentioned in the RC school.

I became Head Boy in the latter school and did prayer services in school and the local CoE parish church.

My own RC parish priest had no objections at all.

I learnt more about my Faith in the latter two years then all the religion pushed into me in Primary School in Ireland and the RC school in England.

Believe it or not that was in the 1960's

Still have a strong belief in my faith. But, maybe in all the teachings. But, that is for another day.

KingBrian2

Cienciano wrote: »

Did anyone in school ever go to confession and actually confess about something real because they were worried that they needed forgiveness from god?

I was nervous I would get the words wrong.

shruikan2553

Did anyone else have to learn those beattitude things? No idea what they were or for what purpose but we were to learn them off anyway.

G_R

We had one nun teaching in our school, but for some reason she taught Accounting, not Religion.

Our religion class was actually called Religion and Ethics which is weird cos it was a catholic school - had a pretty liberal board of management tough.

5th year was just discussion on social matters/problems and contraception and the like. In 6th year it was used to plan the debs and graduation and to study/do homework.

Littlekittylou

My religion and spirituality was always more inspired by nature. I felt religion in schools was stale pointless hypocrisy. I admired some of the characters who I met who were religious.

Rubberlegs

I can't remember primary school, but religion in secondary was sex education for the most part, with a bit of reading the Bible thrown in. We had a few drugs talks too. But mostly sex , sex , sex !!

Nucular Arms

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Great. I was exempt because I wasn't Catholic.

As was I. Grand bit of time to put your head down without fear of reproach!

Iranoutofideas

We had a teacher just out of college, he didn't give a **** about religion much to our delight. I remember coming up to Halloween we somehow got talking about petrol bombs which resulted in him going into great detail as to how to make a proper one.

Class was spent doing soccer quizes or homework. On Fridays he allowed us to push all the tables to the walls clearing the classroom floor where we'd play a game of soccer with a tennis ball. We broke the alarm sensor on the wall once doing this. That got us a bonus goal.

Wellyd

In an all girls convent school I did it as a junior cert subject. We were forced to because it was the first year with it as a JC exam. For 5th/6th year we had 2 single and one double class every week and we just watched DVDs. Our religion teacher said they had religious and morality themes. For the life of me I'll never forget watching Midnight express one day and there was a gay sex scene the teacher clearly had never seen it before and nearly ripped the telly off the wall. After that the DVDs stopped for a few weeks. During that she graphically explained the birth of all her children to try stop us from engaging in sexual activity. Thankfully the DVDs started again shortly after that.

gazzamc

I remember having to do morning prayers before starting class, it kind of stopped as i progressed through the years, of course you had the usual religion class which was reading the book and learning off prayers..

In secondary it wasn't that big of a deal, we had to do religion as it was mandatory for the junior cert (it consisted of various different religions as well a Christianity) but I usually skipped that class or else everyone just used it as a free class and did other work (the teacher wasn't very good at keeping order)..

After the junior cert I haven't really done any religion, which is great as I never really liked the subject.. And having to write a 2000 word essay on Jesus or whatever was a pain in the hole.

Miall108

Not great all we ever did was throw busted fruit around the class and disrupt the teacher

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Any wonder religion is in decline, with all this half hearted teaching.:) In my day (1940s and 50s) we learned our catechism. Religion was taught 30 minutes per day at primary and secondary level. Home adherence to the principles of the faith reenforced things.
This lackadaisical approach nowadays has moved the goals posts completely out of the park.
But to each his own, even if it saddens me at times.

Precious flower

On the whole religion class in secondary school was always seen as a doss class, people messing, half the time we were just let do homework from other classes. Though in leaving cert I do remember being shown pictures of aborted foetuses. At the time I remember thinking 'God that's awful' but not really paying a whole lot of heed to it amazingly.:eek: But now, looking back on it, I know they had a doctrine to preach to us and 'this is our stance on the issue blah blah' but I definitely think showing us those pictures was going too far. The person teaching us was a lay teacher too.

My religion class had a very balanced view on things and basically thought you to make up your own mind.

Saying that i got into trouble in my previous primary school one day as we had a class talking about how we came from apes and then later we had religion talking about Adam and Eve. I asked if Adam and Eve where apes and was told to stand in the corner. Wow that teacher was such a prick coming to think about it.

Alexis Sanchez

Precious flower wrote: »

The person teaching us was a lay teacher too.

What's a "lay teacher"?

The Corinthian

In primary, I liked religion on the basis that you could chill out. There was no thinking or effort involved. I largely switched off.

It was also a waste of time - our teacher was an Obersturmführer in the local Legion of Mary and subjected us to something like two hours per day, which if you included daily Irish to the day lead me to wonder how I managed to become literate or do basic math by the time I got to secondary school.

By secondary school, religion was decreased substantially to something like one or two hours per week (although when at boarding school we had mass every morning at about 7am). It remained a chill-out class where you didn't have to use your brain.

I remember one religion teacher when I was 13, a former seminarian (i.e. failed priest), telling us how we all hear God's call, and though that call may vary, we all still hear it. I politely asked if one were atheist, then they'd hear nothing, so how would it work then? He flipped, ranted at me about "what are you doing in a Catholic school if you don't believe in God? What are you doing in a Catholic country?" - but otherwise he did nothing. The whole class thought he was a bit nuts after that.

I wasn't saying I didn't believe in God; I was posing an abstract, theoretical question. I thought he's understand that was all I was after. I learned a valuable lesson that day; not everyone is as smart as you.

That pretty much shaped my opinion of religion thereafter, so all in all a valuable class.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Alexis Sanchez wrote: »

What's a "lay teacher"?

Not a Brother or Sister in a religious order. As in a lay person.

Precious flower

We also watched Shawshank Redemption :pac: in religion class as well. That was a priest that showed us that movie and we watched Passion of the Christ!:pac: We had a system in our school where in the one year who'd only have a certain teacher for religion for a few weeks and then you'd change teachers kind of a rota system.

killbillvol2

I have little or no recollection of doing religion in school although I know we did.

My one abiding memory was a clash I had with a lunatic Christian Brother who taught us physics for leaving cert. He informed me that I was a "cynical knocker" and that I would wind up as an abortionist.

Given the lack of career opportunities for abortionists in Ireland I became a teacher instead.