This paper examines the dialogue and mutual influence of secular and religious culture in the system of secular education from two points of view: firstly, the influence of teaching knowledge about religion on the implementation of the secular nature of education and, secondly, the impact of the need to comply with state educational standards on the form of presentation of religious culture. The study assumes that religious thinking, culture, lifestyle are not something contrary to everyday rational thinking and scientific character, being in their high forms the carriers of self-discipline and ordering of human life. The long history of the dialogue between religion and science has led to the fact that today religion speaks with science in the same language of scientific concepts, and often religious organizations, paying attention to certain scientific and technical achievements, are a factor in increasing interest in science in the whole society. The processes of the expulsion of religious discourse from the public sphere that took place in the past led to the replacement of the authentic religious tradition, tuned in to dialogue with science, with forms of “low” religiosity, often of an obscurantist, fundamentalist and anti-scientific nature. And the forcible imposition of the «only true» secular ideology ultimately negatively affects the pace of scientific development.