“However, there is a strong case for avoiding, if possible, a struggle over which religious or anti-religious Weltanschauung will get to use the power of the state to impose itself on the population. Blocking that struggle by keeping religion private is the first line of defense against theocratic pressures – even if it means refusing to extend the state’s full protection of individual freedom to children inside the family.”

First, I would like to see this “strong case” made in detail, and not just alluded to, since I am utterly skeptical about it and find Nagel’s counterproposal quite ominous. As I read it–and perhaps I am misreading it–Nagel is suggesting that we should “keep religion private,” by which he means that we should be willing to sacrifice the current and future well-being of some children–perhaps many children–in order to maintain a rather precarious restraint on the power of the state. Rather than have a (dangerous? rancorous? destabilizing?) political tug-of-war over which “Weltanschauung” will fix the constraints and principles of state intervention in cases of arguable child abuse, we should simply re-endorse the longstanding tradition that when it comes to religious upbringing parents have the right to treat their own children in ways that would send them packing off to jail in any other context. I think we must dismantle this tradition, not preserve it. I’m all for gritting our teeth and having that political tug-of-war. It can be open, not stealthy, and it has plenty of room for checks and balances to prevent the sort of creeping theocracy--or atheocracy--Nagel seems to be concerned about.

My own modest proposal is that we institute a mandatory curriculum on world religion. Here’s how I put it in Breaking the Spell:

“Let’s get more education about religion into our schools, not less. We should teach our children creeds and customs, prohibitions and rituals, the texts and music, and when we cover the history of religion, we should include both the positive–the role of the churches in the civil rights movement of the 1960's, the flourishing of science and the arts in early Islam, and the role of the Black Muslims in bringing hope, honor and self-respect to the otherwise shattered lives of many inmates in our prisons, for instance–and the negative–the Inquisition, anti-Semitism over the ages, the role of the Catholic Church in spreading AIDS in Africa through its opposition to condoms.

"No religion should be favored, and none ignored. And as we discover more and more about the biological and psychological bases of religious practices and attitudes, these discoveries should be added to the curriculum, the same way we update our education about science, health, and current events. This should all be part of the mandated curriculum for both public schools and for home-schooling.

"Here’s a proposal, then: As long as parents don’t teach their children anything that is likely to close their minds -- through fear or hatred or by disabling them from inquiry (by denying them an education, for instance, or keeping them entirely isolated from the world) then they may teach their children whatever religious doctrines they like.

"It’s just an idea, and perhaps there are better ones to consider, but it should appeal to freedom-lovers everywhere: the idea of insisting that the devout of all faiths should face the challenge of making sure their creed is worthy enough, attractive and plausible and meaningful enough, to withstand the temptations of its competitors. If you have to hoodwink–or blindfold–your children to insure that they confirm their faith when they are adults, your faith ought to go extinct.” (p327-8)

I expanded on this in the blog “On Faith” :

But there are a number of objections that need to be answered.

First, people want to know how on earth the curriculum could be fixed. Who would ‘dictate’ which facts were required and which could be omitted? Surely, people think, this would ignite a political firestorm.

Not so, I reply. If we can devise a political process that is not only transparent and fair, but readily seen to be transparent and fair, we should be able to reach a stable consensus on what goes into the curriculum and what stays out–and this would be adjustable over time as we learn more and more about religions, since the political process would be self-maintaining and self-correcting.

All the major and minor religions would be invited to participate, as well as representatives from the non-religious minority, which outnumbers many of the major religions in the United States. There are at least 749 million atheists in the world today, twice as many atheists as Buddhists, 40 times more atheists than Jews, and more than 50 times more atheists than Mormons, according to a recent study by Phil Zuckerman (2006).

All major religious and non-religious groups would be invited to propose self-portraits, in effect, of their traditions, including all the material they would want others to know about them, within agreed-upon length limits. No religion has a majority in the world, and to a first approximation--subject to adjustment by the political process itself–time and space in the curriculum should be proportional to the number of adherents worldwide.

These self-portraits would be subject to challenge on grounds of factual inaccuracy, and other representatives (and scholars and other interested parties) would have an opportunity to propose important facts left out of the self-portraits. These disagreements about facts could then be resolved in something like a legal trial, and this process would go through several iterations, no doubt, before compromise drafts could be approved.

We know how to do this. There are plenty of checks and balances available to prevent religions from censoring shameful but undeniable truths on the one hand, and to prevent religions from ganging up to vilify minority religions on the other hand. It will take political will to make it happen, but who today does not see the importance of shining the light of rational inquiry on these issues?

(Notice that the truth or falsity of any religious doctrines would not be included in the curriculum, since not a single point of religious doctrine is agreed upon as straightforward fact by the world community.)

Another oft-expressed objection supposes that it is highly unrealistic to expect private school teachers and home-schoolers to do a good job teaching this curriculum, since many of them could be expected to find it deeply antithetical to their worldviews.

I agree, and no doubt a significant proportion of public school teachers would be unsympathetic purveyors of this curriculum as well, but I don’t think it matters. I am content to let teachers say to their students: “This compulsory curriculum is garbage, the work of Satan, a miserable political compromise rammed down our throats by an unsympathetic state.” But they had better add: “Still, you’re going to be tested on it, and if you don’t pass the test, your school credentials are in jeopardy.”

Mere exposure, however biased, to the assertion that most people in the world believe these to be the facts should succeed in inoculating many children against the toxic viruses of some religions. The credibility of the teachers will also be in jeopardy if they rail against the curriculum, and the better we make the curriculum, the harder it will be to sustain such an opinion. A few major television series on the new curriculum, and ample web sites, would also be there to balance the effects of those who would try to discredit it.

Perhaps the most serious challenge I have heard is that the curriculum in schools is already packed. What would I remove to make room for this? That is another tough, political question, but those of us who believe that the widespread ignorance about religion–especially given the emotional power of this ignorance–is a dangerous condition if it persists will just have to help educators decide how to prioritize the issues and shoehorn this material in. We already have the three Rs. Does anybody think this fourth R is less important in the 21st century?

Finally, I have been amused to see some opponents of this proposal call it “fascistic” or “totalitarian,” when in fact it is refreshingly libertarian: you may teach your children whatever you want about religion without any interference from the state, as long as you teach them these facts as well.

“How much more freedom could one want? The freedom to lie to your children? The freedom to keep them ignorant? You don’t own your children, like slaves, and you have no right to disable them with ignorance. You do have an obligation to let them have the mutual knowledge that is available to every other child, as a normal part of growing up in a free society.

Besides, this knowledge will enrich their minds in uncountable ways, since it will acquaint them with some of the greatest music, art and literature that the world has to offer, and give them the sort of perspective on their own lives that you can only get from comparing your life with the lives of others.

Let me add one further observation. Note that my proposal does nothing to dilute the principle of religious freedom: you may teach your children whatever you want, as long as you also teach them the 4th R. You may oblige them to engage in rituals and observe prohibitions ad lib, as long as you also keep them informed in the prescribed way.

This mandatory curriculum would surely not succeed in wiping out all the objectionable practices that religions are currently permitted to engage in under the good blanket protection of religious freedom, but it would surely make it harder for elders to maintain these traditions when the children knew about the lives of others. For a striking testimonial to the power of this knowledge of other lives, other mores, read Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s heartbreaking tale of growing up in Muslim Somalia, and the liberating effect, on her, of reading the Nancy Drew stories of all things! If we insist on opening the floodgates of information to all children, toxic religions will have a hard time surviving, while religions that deserve our respect flourish--and it can all be done without abrogating the principle of religious freedom.