The Swedish minister for education Jan Björklund and the Ministry of Education and Research (Utbildningsdepartementet) have recently, in a fit of lunacy, decided to oppose the suggested curriculum for religious studies in Swedish public schools. The new curriculum as suggested by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) suggested a modernization, in that it would present all major world religions on an equal footing. This didn't go over so well with Björklund, who argues that Sweden is a predominantly Christian nation and thus the religious studies should be biased toward Christianity. Such utter nonsense and stupidity.
For your information, Björklund, the majority of Swedes consider themselves atheist or agnostic today. The religious apologists are becoming a minority (albeit at a slowing pace as of lately), which has to be seen as a slow but steady victory for reason and science. The fact that the majority of religious people in the nation belong to a certain religion shouldn't in the slightest affect the way we teach religion in schools, since the state definitely should remain agnostic in matters of what religion is "right". If we applied the same sort of thinking (catering to the majority) to other topics in Swedish schools, socialism would be the big focus in social studies and math wouldn't really be taught at all. Reality is not a democracy, and public opinion in matters of how the world works doesn't affect the way it actually works.
For the record, I would like to state that even though I am a pretty zealous atheist I do see the value of religious studies in schools. Maybe more so than some religious people do. The study of religion is a very important part of understanding the human condition and gaining better understanding of other cultures. So we should definitely be teaching children about religion, but no religion should be presented as the more interesting one. They're all equally interesting, and all equally deluded.
Finally, a big fuck you to Jan Björklund for taking a step backwards in terms of separating church and state, and betraying the supposed ideology your party once used to stand for. Today, I am ashamed to admit I voted (in part) for what I thought was a liberal party. I see now that I was wrong. And I'm also increasingly more ashamed to be Swedish, with an openly racist party in the parliament, and conservative ideas such as this one getting support. Time to pack up and leave?
