(March 5, 2013 at 12:34 am)jstrodel Wrote: Religion is one of the most definitive aspects of Western Civilization, to fail to understand it is to fail to understand our educational heritage. Russell Kirk writes about the tyranny of reason, and the foolish, prideful attitude which causes men to exalt their petty schemes over the collective voice of history. I think he is right. Of course reason is valuable, but people that are well educated must always have a sense of their past and their place in the human predicament, which cannot be understood solely in math and engineering terminology. Nor is it all religious, but understanding religion is an important part of understanding what it means to be human.
That much is covered pretty well in history classes. In fact, I've always thought that it was a good place to learn about religion - from different religious practices of various cultures that came before and how they led to war and strife to how there is a complete absence of evidence for the mythological stories being told to you by your priest.