Would you/have you started going to church to get child into a good church school?!

lemonaid - nice yes. Essential no. It's not about religious instruction I think. It's about, well, culture I suppose. There's more to being a catholic than knowing your catechism. Anyway, I'm not the best person to answer that point. I haven't chosen a church school. I should ask my mum

arbitRary. Gah, I can't type today.

"For some people, football is not life and death.... it's more important than that." Or whatever the quote was.

I was just trying to choose something which, to a religious person, would seem equally odd and arbitary.

Of course I understand that people have "faith". People believe all sorts of stuff. All sorts of stuff which "rational" people (sorry, whatever word I use is inadequate) see as codswallop. I could declare that there's an Invisible Pink Unicorn sitting in my back garden, but I'd like to think people wouldn't believe me without any evidence, and certainly wouldn't just accept that I could just set up a school based around this deity without someone saying, "Hmm, wait a minute..."

God no! Please don't explain again why you keep mentioning Thor.

You might not understand why some people have a religious faith, but surely you understand that some people do have such a faith. And that for many it underpins everything that they do. And therefore how they would like their children to be educated. ANd that that is wildly different from supporting a football team.

I am not one of those people. As I said, I choose not to send my child to a faith school. And I am in fact an awfully bad catholic. But I can see that while I don't feel like that, others do. And that a faith school and a football team school would indeed be very different.

I would have thought that for an active Christian a church-affiliated hospital with a lovely nurturing atmosphere that had roots in the church community and where the staff had a prayerful approach to their work and their patients might be quite nice, actually. Perhaps even more so than schools -- after all, if you do want your children brought up in faith you could easily make provision for instruction in your own time through your own church if they were at a non-church school, while sewing up legs generally can't be tackled by the priest on a Saturday morning so your options are more limited.

Surely I don't need to explain why I keep mentioning Thor?

Sorry if that's boring. Please substitute Freya, Zeus or Ra if you're bothered.

Good question, Mercy.
I should say what it's not - bitterness or envy or jealousy, or anything like that. My children are in the catchment for a very good school and I'm very happy with it.

I suppose the reasons why I am bothered by it are the same as those put forward by others on here. That the idea of a "faith" is alien to many, many people, so why should the minority who claim to "believe" something control such a large part of the state school sector, preventing people from having places simply because they don't share the same "beliefs".

And that it is just so often accepted - oh, it's "faith", we should respect it and not challenge it, blah-dee-blah. No, we shouldn't. We should put it to the test, like any other theory, and see how it stands up.

But I risk repeating myself. And boring people. So I don't think I'll hang around in this argument much longer.

And there we go again...

I forgot to include Thor in your list of favorites.

I want my children brought up in faith
I don't want my leg sewed up in it

So is the argument for state-funded church schools that you want it (which this seems to imply) or that if faith schools did not exist a lot of schools would not exist at all? You were complaining that no one was engaging with the "historical background" point, but then when we do you say that it's irrelevant (which I tend to agree with, actually, and am glad to hear you say the same). Or is historical background relevant for stuff you want but not for stuff you don't?

I want many things for my children, but I don't expect them all to be provided within the state education system.

I suspect Capuccino means that other public services do not play a significant role in the upbringing of our children. And therefore there would be no benefit in a faith-based health service provider in the same way as there would be (for those to whom faith was important) in a faith-based school.

UQ, I think you've made your views loud and clear.

But what I don't understand is why are you so bothered by it? Do you feel you are subsidising (via your tax) something which you don't agree with? Is it as simple as that?

Is it something else?

Genuine question btw, I really don't understand.

It's not fair to say I've been dismissive of the suggestions why faith schools are "better" - I just don't think any of them are convincing.

The only reason I keep on doing the same old same old comparisons is because I keep getting the same old "rebuttals" - twas ever so, sadly. And I thought it was quite interesting to make comparisons with schoo,s run by political parties and football teams - nobody's really given me a convincing answer as to why that would be any different.

And it's true, I don't really define myself as an "atheist", any more than someone who doesn't believe in Thor in the 21st century would feel the need to.

I don't quite get your point...

Mine is that, really, who historicaly set what up (especially at a time when virtually everyone was a Christian and churchgoer because that was how things were) isn't a good argument for how things ought to be now.

And that, at a time when we can spend however-much-it-is on Trident and a Trident replacement, there is no financial reason why the buildings/land/other financial contribution from the churches couldn't be met by the state, if the political will were there (which it isn't, of course).

So when you put forward a point about the background to setting up of church schools it's a good point that UD needs to respond to, but if I argue that the same principle could be applied to anything other than schools I get a ? Probably it would work for off-licences and offshore shipping, yes (not that I know huge amounts about either) -- if you're going to start deciding access to public services on the basis of religious affiliation there's no logical reason to stop at any specific predetermined point. You feel it's reasonable to apply it to schools but not to hospitals of off-licences or offshore shipping. I don't think it's reasonable to apply it to any of them. I can't see any compelling reason why your position is any more logically consistent than mine.

You don't understand how anyone can have a religious faith. I think we get that. You have made your point. But continually comparing religious faith to supporting a football team, believing in the literal truth of fairytales etc. does not further your argument.

The question raised by the OP was whether you would go to church to get your child into a church school. I suspect you would be in the 'no' camp. You raised a fairly interesting point about why faith schools are often seen as 'good' schools, but have been very dismissive of any suggestions that have been made. Or just ignored them. I feel now that you are using this thread to repeat the same old 'I'm not an atheist I'm an *independent thinker' argument. I've read it. I get it.

Education, health, public transport, bin collection... all paid for by taxes, all should be available to all without prejudice. They do different things, but governments always love to lump them together - especially "schools'n'hospitals".

It's a perfectly valid point to say "you don't get refused entry to a hospital on grounds of an unproveable belief, so why be refused entry to a school?"

I have not, you may notice, bogged off. Insults are the sound of an argument toppling.

you don't get education for your kids thereneither

which is my point

I want my children brought up in faith

I don't want my leg sewed up in it

lemonaid's point was (I think) that the fact that hospitals were set up by religious organisations should be as irrelevant as the fact that some schools were. The NHS is funded through tax and available to all, regardless of a patient's religious affiliation - you don't get your beliefs checked on the door of A&E.

oh bog off

Or:

"I don't see why there can't be football schools which reflect my team as there are others.

to me the sense of community and the ethos of Sheffield Wednesday are central to my life and thus to my child's education

why can't non-Wednesdayites accept that this is actually something very important to a lot of people and how they bring up their children?

you know, unlike Jack and the Beanstalk?"

the point was that, well, I didn't see lemonaid's point at all

we're talking about education. the education of our children in school and in faith

not healthcare

I don't see why there can't be faith schools which reflect my faith as there are others

to me the sense of community and the ethos of Christianity are central to my life and thus to my child's education

why can't non-Christians accept that this is actually something very important to a lot of people and how they bring up their children?

you know, unlike Jack and the Beanstalk

? cappuccino?
I don't get that at all, sorry. Off-licences?

oh yes, that works lemonaid

it would also work with off-licences and off-shore shipping too

dearie me

I didn't ignore it, cappuccino, I addressed it obliquely by saying I didn't have the answers and that you can't un-invent faith schools.
How the schools were set up is not the point - where they go from here is. If the "faith" element is not essential to their ethos, their performance, their "special" nature, then why have it? And if it is, then what does it do? And why can't that be done without "faith"?

I'm just trying to make people see how ALIEN the idea of a faith school seems to people who don't see the world in those terms. lemonaid's Labour/Tory comparison is a good one, but even so there are people from all sides of the political divide who can argue, then have a pint and be friends. This is more fundamental - something which, for me, has no more substance than Jack And The Benstalk is being used to decide school admissions criteria for our children, and that, to me, is shocking. That's all.