I think Prothero's idea had good intentions, but it seemed a little far-fetched. There are always going to be people who are opposed to having their children be taught religion. Although I am all for educating Americans on the rest of the world's cultures and religions and trying to abolish certain stereotypes, its just that I think that it is a very tall task. I do think it is a good idea not only so that we can have peaceful relations with other countries but also because America is considered the "melting pot" of the world. We have people and cultures from all over, and I think it would benefit everyone if we increased our knowledge of these cultures, religions, and people. Then we can really be that, "city upon a hill" like our founding fathers had envisioned for us when they built this country.
It was required for a seniors in my "catholic" high school to take a world religions course. I found it very intersting (I was one of few). I think that this generation is less concered with religion. I think this has alot to do with technology and social networking. Kids constantly are being bombarded with advertisements, facebook, twitter, emails, etc. I guess what im saying is that most kids are "living in the moment" and not thinking about whats going to happen to them when they die, instead thinking about what thier next tweet should be. In conclusion, i think Prothero's idea, if accomplished, wouldn't hurt anyone.
It seems that being raised in the social context of twitter, Facebook, and even cell phones has caused us to expect everything to be instantaneous. This is creating a culture interested in and motivated chiefly by convenience. We tend to give up certain principles and practices simply becUse we do not immediately need them. We figure, why calculate the cost of my purchase when my phone has an app that can do it for me. I think this mentality contributes to the mass illiteracy because we don't want to study religion and work to apply that knowledge to solve problems when someone else can do it, or we believe it is someone else's job. Yet, as Prothero points out, the people who are supposed to be doing this are not even required to have an awareness of a region's religions and are therefore not much more qualified or prepared for the undertaking of this task.
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