Lol? Was the first question ever answered? IE does having two systems cost more?
I'm not sure that it does. I mean, I guess each new system or board would require more money, but as someone pointed out Calgary has 2 compared to 7 or so in Winnipeg so it's not like having the choice has added more boards than other cities.
As you get to decide where your taxes go to I can't see it really cost the province/city any more.
As far as the actual religion classes, I don't see them doing any harm. Most are just about good moral living when they do focus on Christianity. It's not like one is memorizing bible verses. There's more Jesus and such when your younger I guess, and there is the Catholic viewpoint on sex and abortion (some may not like that) when you get older, but it's never presented in a very exclusive or hateful way (at least most teachers make the effort not to, you can probably find a few zealots, but I never really had any).
High school religion was very interesting for me. I went to Bishop Carroll and there you got to choose your religion program and YES they did offer courses on other religions, science and religion, and other subjects. It was very well done much like university where you could pick the subjects that interested you. I was learning stuff like chaos theory and other mathematical and scientific theories and what they might mean to the quest for spirituality.
I ended up taking courses on chaos theory, Einstein and relativity, the origins and role of Satan in belief, studying cases of possession and exorcism, introduction to philosophy, and introduction to Buddhism.
I don't know if they still run their program like that, a lot has changed at that school since I was there.
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