DMcG, I'd sack any science teacher who told his children that any theory was true, or that they'd better believe something they were told. Your comparison collapses on those grounds alone. Newtonian physics, or the theory of evolution by natural selection, are attempts to explain phenomena in the world and universe. They must be able to be modified, incorporated into new ideas as knowledge advances, or, ultimately, ditched. They must be supported by real evidence (don't make me define it again). We do not tell children that they should believe extremely doubtful and unsupported assertions as true before we can move on. We would rather not move on at all than do that disservice to young minds. Comparing science education with religious instruction is a time-honoured way of lending undeserved dignity to the latter and is mischievous. If you tell your children, either directly or by implication via compulsory prayers and hymns, that Jesus was born of a virgin and whose supernatural father lives in heaven, that he fed five thousand people on a few scraps, that he bled water on a cross and later came back to life, and that we should worship him as the saviour of us all, you are not telling them the truth, are you, to put it mildly. Yet this is standard practice. Either you intend to deceive them, for the nefarious reason of keeping them in the flock, or you are so deluded yourself that you do actually think that this unnecessary nonsense is true. What makes it all even worse is that you only tell them all this because you happened to be born here. Had you been born in India the story would be different. In the Australian outback, different again. In Iran, different yet again. To you, though, these considerations are minor inconveniences. But you have the neck to convince them that they will find deeper truths and happiness if only they espouse this nonsense. It's in your heart, it's sacred to you, you don't need to defend it, etc. Yet it's indefensible, even if you're a believer. Tell them the truth, that some people believe those things, they may live their lives by them, but you shouldn't believe it at all: you should find out for yourself what's true by having a curious mind and by always asking for evidence (evidence, not proof), and that you should always be suspicious of anyone who tries to tell you something that he can't support.