I'm considering baptising my child - I have questions

[Helevitia]

I actually have two "godfathers" chosen for my daughter because both are my very best friends and I could bare leaving one of them out. No "godmothers" because we couldn't pick anyone that we liked enough. I'm actually really excited about doing this and I think my wife likes the idea enough to give me her blessing to do it.

Originally, when we first talked about it, it was going to be a baptism, but after reading what a baptism was, I couldn't get myself to agree to it. My wife also wanted her cousin to do it since he has been working on becoming a minister? priest? whatever...He told us he couldn't do it since he hasn't reached that status yet. Since we are now doing the baby naming, we can still have him do it. So this really works out best for everyone.

BTW - The word "godfather" has no religious meaning to me at all. It means that whomever I pick has assured us that they will tkae care of my child if for some reason we were to die or something else... My wife probably has religious ties to the word though as she is catholic.

[Dr Mordrid]

There are no religion classes at any real school in the USA.

Not so.

Many public schools have 'Comparative Religion' classes. Legally speaking; students may be taught about religion, but public schools may not advocate a particular religion.

In Abington v. Schempp, US Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom Clark wrote for the Court:

It might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literacy and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.

[Jessterw]

But those wouldn't be "real" schools then by some people's opinion

I spent junior high/middle school in private Christian schools and I dare say they were better than any public schools I attended. The teachers were all highly accredited and the only class religion came into play was in Bible studies (besides the peripheral bits in the classes doc just mentioned).

[Gurm]

Not so.

Many public schools have 'Comparative Religion' classes. Legally speaking; students may be taught about religion, but public schools may not advocate a particular religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has stated, and reconfirmed many times: "it might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion, or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization."

It would be difficult to teach art, music, literature and most social studies without considering the influences of religion.

Kweh? Public... what schools are we talking about? Elementary? No. Middle? No. So we're talking about high schools, right? As an elective? Not anywhere in THIS state, my friend. But then again it's a blue state, so I suppose that makes sense. Can't speak for them red states!

[Gurm]

But those wouldn't be "real" schools then by some people's opinion

I spent junior high/middle school in private Christian schools and I dare say they were better than any public schools I attended. The teachers were all highly accredited and the only class religion came into play was in Bible studies (besides the peripheral bits in the classes doc just mentioned).

Private Christian schools, despite being quite excellent, always scared me. It's like showing a camera to primitive tribes - they think it will steal their soul. That's kinda how I felt about getting an education from a bunch of people with a hidden Jesus agenda. In retrospect, they were fine fine schools, far better than the local public fare. Luckily, I managed to stay away from both.

[Jessterw]

Yeah, that's why our music and science teachers were Jewish and agnostic, respectively

[Dr Mordrid]

Kweh? Public... what schools are we talking about? Elementary? No. Middle? No. So we're talking about high schools, right? As an elective? Not anywhere in THIS state, my friend. But then again it's a blue state, so I suppose that makes sense. Can't speak for them red states!

I edited that quote a bit, adding the attribution and extending it.

Every state has CR classes. Some start in Middle School, others in High School, but they're far more common than you apparently think.

I presume also that you're talking Massachusetts. You might find this note re: Harvard Divinity Schools H-STARS program interesting;

http://www.hds.harvard.edu/prse/hstars/letter.html

"1. Students in the program graduate with a Massachusetts middle and/or secondary school teaching license in one of several disciplines along with an academic degree in religious studies. Given their unique training, graduates are able to incorporate the study of religion into their teaching field(s) of expertise in constitutionally sound and educationally innovative ways."

[az]

We have voluntary religion calsses held by a teacher paid by the church during school hours and in school rooms provided to them for free. Recently, some states (Berlin, for example) introduced "Ethics" as a state-taught and hopefully neutral compulsory class to teach about values, morals 'n stuff. The churches are against it, they want attendees of their religion classes to be freed of having to attend Ethics. Their billboards read "Values need God". Stupid slogan if I ever saw one. Religion would be nothing without values, but values don't need religion anymore for everybody, and the churches seem to have a hard time accepting that.

[Gurm]

I wouldn't have minded a comp. rel. class, might have enjoyed it. I certainly did in college! But I still haven't seen one in a public HS in this neck of the woods. I'll do a little poking, I'm gonna be elsewhere this weekend, I'll see what they do in them there parts!

[Nowhere]

Since az described how it works in DE, I might as well describe situtation in PL...

Theoretically it's very similar...but a bit pathological in reality.

The class is called "religion/ethics". But while I'm not aware of any regulations which would specify which religion, I haven't heard about any other choice than catholicism beeing available, certainly not in mainstream schools. The school provides rooms. The schoold also...pays the teacher(actually she/he is described by word derived from "catechism")/nun/priest. Essentially they are emplyed by school. The class is theoretically voluntary...but I haven't experienced anybody exploiting this possibility (yes, beeing subscribed is the default). OTOH, luckily, the grades don't have any influence on anything.

Now, as for practical side...it depends entirelly with who the subject is. In primary school I was tought by rather unpleasent teacher (she could be described by stereotypes about diehard catholics _minus_ real devotion to her religion :/ ). In highschool the class was with...priest. And surprisingly...it wasn't bad He knew very well what's the situation with this class, so once every month we wrote something in notebooks for whole month (yep, 4 lessons...and as short as possible; overall it took 20 minutes max, half of which was persudaing us to do something) and usually he just talked with small number of people about anything, just not to be bored (typically jokes/stories from youth/about wine(he's a great fan of it)) while rest was doing homeworks/learning/playing poker/etc. (one minus here - on bad day he had something against sitting with your back in his direction - how were we supposed to play? :/ )

PS. I'm not even sure why I wrote this...I guess I'm bored...

[Jammrock]

I wouldn't have minded a comp. rel. class, might have enjoyed it. I certainly did in college! But I still haven't seen one in a public HS in this neck of the woods. I'll do a little poking, I'm gonna be elsewhere this weekend, I'll see what they do in them there parts!

My high school, in advanced Social Studies classes that I never took because I spent my time on science, math and football (the American version), read from religious texts and studied religions effects on society. I think they read from the Bible, Torah, Quran and some Asian texts. Not the whole things, obviously, but bits and pieces that impact society like the Ten Commandments and so forth.

But, in order for the student to participate in the religious studies they had to get a parent signature on a form that said, basically, "We will be reading from religious texts, such as the Bible, in order to better understand religion's effect on society. This will in no way be used to teach religion..." yadda yadda yadda...

Jammrock