Why do you allow people to attack and ridicule Christianity?

state schools must have daily worship

I keep seeing these claims on threads like this one, and I honestly wonder what people mean?
Our kids are in state schools (both primary and secondary), and they never mentioned daily worship (or any worship at all).
I’ve asked them about it and they didn’t know what I meant.

business opening is based round your schedule

In the UK? I live in England and was in Germany before that.
Over there most shops did close on Sundays, but it’s definitely not the case here.

It's called freedom of speech.

And that's why religion should always challenged.

I suspect that many Christians simply don't realise how much they alienate people by trying to convert them. I have no issue at all with anyone following their own faith - whatever works for you. But as soon as you start pushing it in my face, I will start to resent it.

Yes, this. People can believe what they want. But religion that interferes with my rights on government level, I will always challenge.and resent that.

Having said that I see mostly mockery of Christianity but a hatred of other religions

I agree.

There is no such thing as a "non-religious" school within British state education. Schools are legally required to have a daily act of worship which is usually expected to be broadly Christian in nature. Some schools might choose to ignore the law, but it is still the law.

When we change that, and when we get rid of all of the other ways in which Christianity is privileged in our society, then I will be happy to respect it as the private choice of some of my fellow citizens to follow their own personal belief system. At the moment, it isn't a private matter because of the way it impinges on the rest of us.

I think all religions are equally silly. Christianity is the only one I've come across in UK where I have people come to the door to try and 'spread the word' or have put leaflets through door. While schools do teach about many religions, elements of Christianity are actually practiced in schools even when many students are atheist or another religion and I think that does create some resentment. Having said that I see mostly mockery of Christianity but a hatred of other religions, I don't think there's anything particularly egregious about mockery of religion, I see people who strongly and loudly espouse belief in ghosts or aliens regularly mocked and their beliefs are no more outlandish than that of Christians.

I think some of the criticism of Christianity comes from people who have experienced the dark side of it. Not the obvious dark side, child abuse, but the other, "lesser" but still destructive things.
A Quaker group had a new member who found talk of Jesus unbearable because of what happened in her original church. A colleague who belonged to an evangelical church and he Jesus in her life had a nervous breakdown in class, and her church's "help" was to insist that if she had truly taken Jesus into her life, it wouldn't have happened. I was victimised by a minister who had left a youth club unattended and when I reported what happened said the boys would never have done what they did (verbal only) and I had a filthy mind. Same minister reduced my mother to tears over something undefined about the Sunday School. She had nightmares about it for decades. Fortunately, though he tipped the black spot to other local churches about the family not being in good standing, they had no difficulty finding a church which welcomed them. I have a friend who has ongoing troubles with a chaplain, backed up by a bishop, for reporting an incident of bullying affecting others.
Churches provide niches for people with weaknesses to hide in and crawl out and attack people they don't like. And their victims sometimes find an opportunity to vent their feelings, which they don't have for Islam, or Judaism, or the multitude of other religions. Though humans being humans, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't victims of the gurdwara, or the temple as well.

I'll start by saying that I am not religious at all but I see threads ridiculing Christianity all the time on mumsnet. I can honestly say that I have never seen a thread ridiculing Islamic religions, Judaism or any other religion. I'm not talking about hate speech here, but people being ridiculed BTW.

If members of those religions posted claiming that their religion was the absolute truth and asking for special privileges in society then I would be happy and willing to challenge them, but so far they haven't. Christians frequently do.

I know a lot of church going Christians, and none of them do that. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses I see in town don't approach people any more. They stand looking bored by their sandwich boards all day being ignored by the general public. I am not religious myself but I'm not anti religion, as you obviously are @CurlewKate

I think religion is a personal thing and I don't ridicule people for having a faith. I find that disrespectful. As long as they don't evangelise I think each to their own.

It is the established religion and forced on children in all of our state schools

It isn't forced on children in non religious state schools. They are taught about Christianity, alongside other religions.

state schools must have daily worship

I don't think so. They have assemblies, but they aren't religious. I went to secondary school in the 1970s and we stopped having religious assemblies in my second or third year there.

Are there any teachers on here who can confirm that non religious state schools don't force religion on school children any more?

Because all religions are made up bullshit designed to control uneducated people. As soon as people become educated they realize this...

It was the case in the past. Interestingly, all the religious people I know are very well educated - doctors, nurses, accountants, lawyers etc.

Yeeeeeeah... I'm Jewish and we're not liked very much

I think all religions are derided on mumsnet TBH, but do people call Jews and Muslims delusional?

Based on what real examples?

Yes I absolutely agree with you.

I don't see this about any other religion.

Seriously? I see far more problematic language aimed at Islam.

I think it's fine for people to say they think people who are religious are delusional. It's an opinion, just like thinking God exists.

I would add, the other thing that tends to get people's backs up is the tendency to proselytise. During the course of my lifetime, I have encountered quite a lot of Christians who have attempted to recruit me and/or told me that I can only be "saved" if I adopt their beliefs. (Slightly irrelevant to those of us who don't buy into the concept that we need to be saved, but whatever!)

I have never once had anyone of another faith try to convert me, despite mixing with people from numerous faiths and having lived in a predominantly Muslim country for a while.

I suspect that many Christians simply don't realise how much they alienate people by trying to convert them. I have no issue at all with anyone following their own faith - whatever works for you. But as soon as you start pushing it in my face, I will start to resent it.

I admire religions like Sikhism, where followers are motivated to do a lot of good work but don't seem to be compelled to convert anyone.

I don't know OP, maybe it's because Christian types all seem to possess the dictionary where S(elf righteousness) comes before F(orgiveness).

They rarely practice what they preach. They're fair game for a bit of piss ripping.

That is just my opinion though, based on the people I've met over the years who 'believed'.

I used to be a Christian...was brought up as one and took me years to realise I didn't believe and was just conforming to try and mollify an overbearing parent who I loved. The church provided gentle but persistent criticism of it's flock... and I'd liken it to an abusive relationship where you try very hard to do the right thing only to have goalposts moved and be gaslit. Every Sunday was lectures of how to be better, not a sinner, give more to the church, recognise I was a sinner (this was the whole congregation not just me)

It was a joy to break away and like many people who have broken a bad habit you look back in horror. So yes a sore point for me and I have little tolerance for people trying to impose it on me again

Would those who want Christanity to be treated in exactly the same way as other religions are treated support the complete disestablishment of the church?

Would you support removing the Christian worship requirements from state schools, getting rid of the bishops in the House of Lords, scrapping Sunday trading laws etc?

As soon as we can drop the nonsense about Britain being a "Christian country", I will be happy to respect the beliefs of Christians as their own private affair, just like the beliefs of any other religious group. While Christianity continues to impinge in multiple ways on the lives of non-Christians, I think it's reasonable to expect that people will keep pushing back on that.

"Hatred and mocking against ANY other religion would simply not be tolerated."

Hatred most certainly should not be tolerated.

Mocking? Most certainly should.

Did you miss the thread a few weeks ago which asked why people don’t like Muslims and there were many pages by posters explaining why they don’t like Muslims. And MN kept it up for an entire day.

So no, it doesn’t get taken down straightaway.

The problem here seems to be on your definition of hate speech. Could you give examples of the comments you've seen that Mumsnet has allowed that are hate speech? I might even end up agreeing with you!

Either you don’t come on MN that often or you’ve turned a wilful blind eye to the many attacks on Islam and Judaism.

It’s not special status. If someone was in here slagging off Islam or Judaism it would be taken down straightaway

You've yet to provide an example of what you think is 'hate speech'.

Please provide a couple of examples where posters are encouraging violence, persecution or prejudice against Christians. Even one will do.

Note that disagreement or being patronising is not hate speech.

None of this is true.

I'm atheist and have Christian, Muslim and pagan friends. The reason I feel resentment towards Christians is my prior exposure to sanctimonious people pushing it down my throat and using it to make me feel bad/inadequate/a sinner (mostly without cause). This experience has caused hurt....which means I easily react to Christians who state their belief as fact.

You believe what you believe, don't impose it on me and we'll jog on fine.

I do find Christians feel self righteous in this country and will express their beliefs whereas I don't experience that from other religions (yet!). I'd like to see a world where religious hate speech was prevented by making evangelical statements also illegal. There is a big difference between 'this is what I believe' and 'this is what you should believe' When Christians get that vital point they won't get the backlash you are describing

@Singersong this isn't a genuinely Christian country. If it was, those who are poor or sick or in prison would be of primary importance in all things, as Christ taught. This is a country where the establishment pays lip-service to a set of rituals that have very little to do with Christ's teaching. Countryies can't be Christian. People can. But you don't convince anyone to become Christian by forcing children into rituals that they don't believe in. What this country is, more importantly than its roots in Christianity, is a country which upholds freedom and equality, especially freedom of religion and cultural expression, and equality of all regardless of religion or cultural expression. We have to fudge this a bit because it's not actually possible to live by that ideal and also give state primacy to one religion but we prefer the fudge over the french pathway of suppressing every aspect of religion in public life. So that gets balanced with a good humoured tolerance of the inevitable backlash against that primacy.

Of course other religions are taught about in schools but those are all done as "these are the stories of hinduism, these are the celebrations that are important in this religion" and the child isn't expected to accept or believe it. No muslim staff member would be allowed to stand up in school and lead the children to repeat with them the shahada, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger" yet it's assumed to be ok for a Christian staff member to do the equivalent even in a non-church school. My faith is important to me but freedom of religion is also important to me and that includes freedomfot atheists to be atheist.

The very thing you started this thread to complain about is directly caused by the imposition of religion without consent in schools and other aspects of public life. These impositions build up resentment and frustration which then get expressed as the outbursts that upset you. You seem startlingly lacking in empathy for why such frustration and resentment will build up.

YANBU and I 100% agree @Singersong Hatred and mocking against ANY other religion would simply not be tolerated. The posts would be deleted. Some of the comments on MN (from some posters) about Christianity are disgusting. Yet they never seem to be deleted.

Osco · Today 07:03

I agree. The keyboard warriors aren’t brave enough to attack Islam or Judaism. Christianity is an easy target probably because they’re not informed enough to be able to question other religions.

100% this. ^