>>18516836
If your goal is to illuminate history without being "too theoretical and controversial", framing it in theological terms seems to be the wrong direction. I'm down for religious and symbolic interpretations of history, but it mostly serves to perfect your interpretation of symbols, not necessarily of the events that partially express the symbols.
Religion provides a lens, not necessarily a direct access to the dominant factors of an event. You can learn photography by studying someone's portrait. But learning the art of photography just to better know someone's face is almost obsolete.

>A grown adult shouldn't not know that islam spread through conquest
Knowing this requires 0 theological education.

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>>18516852
>symbolic interpretations
No. Remove this. No esoteric ideas. No vague wording with pretty pictures. Make students read segments of primary sources and be capable of recounting how things happened. I admit i went overboard with the soteriology bit but I imagine in my third world country that individual states would be grouped together into regions and each region would have its own study book with briefed chronicles from colonial, republic and modern accounts. You could even mush this together with geography; like i picture the back of the book to have a map with the cities mentioned in the conquest of cholula and students going back to mark them on the map when they read them.

>But learning the art of photography just to better know someone's face is almost obsolete.
I oppose these "meaning of" forms of teaching because it just gives cretins a free hand to pick and choose wich student they "feel" like understands the subject. We don't live in a perfect world where each teacher can personally discuss how and why a thing is such and such. We live in a world where 30 children have to listen to one person speak and either write, memorize or search it up in google. The only fair way to judge them is to abandon these vague systems ripe for favoritism and ask them specific, factual questions to confirm they learnt what they had to. It is how schools have worked so far, and it is the cheating around an word salading around this system that is the problem.

>>18516882
I don't necessarily object to any of that, just to religion being used as an interpretative lens. And if you think you can teach religion without esoteric ideas, I'm not so sure what you're hoping to relay to the students. Without symbolism there are no religions.

>>18516968
>Without symbolism there are no religions
Islam and judaism have a literal, direct narrative of reality. There's a God, he made you and everyone, and he demands you do a set of things. You can do them and be happy, prosperous, and rewarded with an afterlife, or not do them, and be cast into either nonexistence or eternal torment. Christianity aswell can be interpreted non symbolically; humans were created, they fucked up and are no longer as intended and will be thrown to eternal fire, but this fuckup was reverted by god sacrificing himself to himself because he wouldn't be just otherwise, and by following this new nature you will both become good and not be tossed out.

These are literal things. If the figures of speech, symbolism, were removed, the arguments and belief, the religion itself would remain. I don't know enough about other religions to understand what logic they follow, but by definition a religion is a re-ligion, re-connection with whatever deity or greater thing it believes in. This is a set of things believed as factual truths, independent of if they are or not factual

>>18517007
>Islam and judaism have a literal, direct narrative of reality.
Not exactly. There might be brands of Judaism that we would call fundamental, including science denial and some degree of literalism, but that does not come at the expense of symbolism. The Old Testament paints a deeply symbolic picture of the cosmos and whether history traces those symbols with literal events or just with the events figurative meaning is almost besides the point in this regard. The cosmos, to them, is built on top of symbols.
Islam is similar, although it being a far more superficial religion, the average Muslim isn't necessarily inclined to seek symbolic understanding. However, if you were to read Muslim mystical poetry, the depth of symbolism is outstanding.

>[God] demands you do a set of things
As far as Christianity and Judaism go (not even starting with Buddhism and their sets of things), you'd struggle to get past the absolute basics this way. Interpreting history around Joan of Arc via a list of God's demands would only produce additional insight if you went real deep.

>Christianity aswell can be interpreted non symbolically
>humans were created, they fucked up and are no longer as intended and will be thrown to eternal fire
This part motivated pretty much nobody in history to do nothing.
>by following this new nature you will both become good and not be tossed out.
>If the figures of speech, symbolism, were removed, the arguments and belief, the religion itself would remain
How does Christ's sacrifice 2000 years ago affect you if you two aren't ontologically connected? If there is no symbolic structure to the universe that transcends time? It doesn't. There are not God-particles that float around for millenia waiting for your belief. You can read the New Testament entirely literally and you will still not escape the fact that it paints a worldview where reality behaves according to what we have come to call symbols.

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>>18517041
>How does Christ's sacrifice 2000 years ago affect you if you two aren't ontologically connected?
Im trying to use the context clues of what you're saying to understand what hat you mean by ontologically. You described how symbols are sort of "behind" matter, doesn't that mean they're laws of reality, the literal god particles? Christ's sacrifice matters to me the same way gravity, chemistry, electricity matters to me; i do not want to touch a high voltage electric wire because i know what electricity is, a man who doesn't know what electricity is will toch the wire because he doesn't know it will carbonize him. The specifics of said electricity goes beyond what I understand the same way the specifics of the bible goes beyond what a person who can't read knows about christ, but the essentials are still there from the ellaborate to the profound

>>18517121
>You described how symbols are sort of "behind" matter,
>doesn't that mean they're ... the literal god particles?
They're not particles.
>doesn't that mean they're laws of reality...?
Something being a "law" implies a mostly deterministic pattern that can be expressed propositionally or better yet as a formula. A symbol expresses a pattern that is deeper than propositions and doesn't relate to determinism. So you're on the right track to see it as a type of "laws" but it's a remote approximation nevertheless.
>Christ's sacrifice matters to me the same way gravity, chemistry, electricity matters to me
Right. Christ's sacrifice being fundamental to reality like gravity etc. (and even more) is an esoteric idea. You'd have to skip this if you are to insist on " No esoteric ideas." in >>18516882

>>18517143
>You'd have to skip this if you are to insist on " No esoteric ideas." in >>18516882 (You)
Exactly
The discussions, and the deeper understanding of these concepts, they shouldn't be the immediate first approach a student has of a thing, that just lends itself to what i described, bias, favoritism, arbitrary decisions on wether or not a person understands the subject. A public education system's pourpose is to create a general population capable of working and sustaining an economy beyond making plastic rubbish for the west. A student who was taught the basics of biology in primary school can then go off to continue studying medicine and become a doctor to remedy the collective misery. A student who spent that time arguing over pedantic philosophy will not.

What i wish was done about the learning of religion was teach enough about it to make an informed decision, what rationale is behind it, why it continues to exist beyond what is socially convenient, not simply brush it aside as a "trick of the jews the capitalists, the colonialists" and then go off to make a Twitter post about the faustian spirit of confucianism or some other nonsense customized religion based off vibes and blatant propaganda.

>>18517185
>The discussions, and the deeper understanding of these concepts, they shouldn't be the immediate first approach a student has of a thing
>A public education system's pourpose is to create a general population capable of working and sustaining an economy
Of elementary education? Probably so. But this also sounds like we could get away with skipping history altogether.
>What i wish was done about the learning of religion was teach enough about it to make an informed decision... not simply brush it aside
I sympathize with that, but I suppose I am biased.