To wish school would stop this God crap

[MrsGravy]

DD is in Year 1 at school, in nursery class and reception they would sing the odd hymn and did a nativity play at Christmas, but other than that there wasn't a lot of religious stuff going on.

By the end of her first week in Year 1 she has come home with two prayers to learn (which they have to say before lunch and before going home) and talking about how God made the world and when you pray you are talking to God.

As you can probably discern from the title of this thread, I am an atheist. I don't mind DD being taught about the various religions that exist, but I actually really resent her being told these things as fact. I resent the fact that her teacher is expecting me to spend a significant amount of time teaching her prayers.

AIBU to question why christianity is playing such a big part in a non-church school??

Maybe so Suze but it's all gone by y3/4 - and my children go to church too!

I guess I assumed that if you're an aetheist and you take an interest in your children's education, you'd have asked the teacher/ht what god stuff there'd be taught at school, and then you'd discuss it at home with your child and put the contrary view.

yorkshire - I agree, stephen hawking new book based on his theory that it makes scientific sense that there was nothing and then suddenly BAM the universe happend. Erm, I thought science was happy with uncertainty about the beginning, rather than trying to come up with a theory that demanded faith!

Wow. It took this long for the first real nutter to appear on the thread. Thanks Yorkshireblue.

Someone else please jump on and discuss how scientists try forever to disprove theories until they are accepted as being as good as fact.

And if we have a resident expert in probability, can you please explain to Yorkshireblue that in a universe with thousands of billions of solar systems, even the most statistically unlikely coincidences will inevitably occur over a vast amount of time.

I personally do not bother talking with loons such as this. But I'll leave you with the thought that if the scientists are all wrong about all their ridiculous theories, which are as good as any belief system, how do they manage to keep aeroplanes in the sky, how did they manage to set up GPS and how indeed did they managed to cure Polio, amongst other maladies? Not through prayer, that's for sure.

eek, sorry if I've encouraged snobear to misunderstand you yorkshireblue.

snobear, I thought that yorkshireblue was making the point that this is one universe where everything came from nothing (not just one solar system out of squillions) so the probability thing doesn't really help - what was the chances of one universe emerging with it's vast amount of energy from nothing. Erm, well, according to basic (and also quite complicated) physics, zero?

Snobear - they main thing is that they are massively underestimating how many events occur over a really, really long time scale. If there are a million chemical reactions a minute occuring in a pool over a billion years, then we'd be expecting 525,600,000,000,000 million to one events to occur.

Cos they are lazy and the generic CofE Father Tony's are always the first to agree to turn up to school assemblies. I think its as simple as that.

ALL the primary schools in my area are faith schools, so there's no option to attend one that isn't.

Happily though, they're all CofE, so no one believes in God really.

toomuchmonthatendofthemoney: in theory, yes, in Scotland, there is still supposed to be a daily act of collective worship, broadly Christian in nature.

In practice many primary schools have nowhere large enough to hold such an activity daily and/or have so many other (ie non Christian) religions that the "act" really is very general in nature and morphs into RME, incoporating the study of all the religions.

Whereabouts are you?

In terms of the origin of the universe stuff, bosch/yorkshire - from a couple of minutes googling (I haven't been following this) the idea seems to be that the universe we see is the result of random fluctutations in the two branes that make up most of the universe. They themselves are infinite. So philosophically, it's like the steady state universe ideas from before we had good evidence of the big bang, with the steady state moved outside of the observable universe.

I don't like the title of your post to be honest, as I personally don't see it as "God crap" and many wouldn't, but you're entitled to your opinion and I do understand where you're coming from. I would hate it if my daughter was told by her teacher there was no God, or as Snobear puts it, that "Allah made that rainbow", so I would similarly expect an atheist to hate it for her child to be told there is a God. This is why I believe in faith schools, so people of faith can send their kids to school knowing that they'll be taught prayers, hymns etc and that people without faith can send their kids to secular schools and not get pissed off by all the religious stuff.
I think you need to take your concerns up with your school and let them know how you feel. I don't think they should be asking parents to teach kids prayers either. They should be sending home weekly spellings for you to work on instead.

You might want to check whether she's been taught these things as fact also. Little kids get a bit confused about stuff in my experience and if they've been doing "What Christians believe" or something in RE, your daughter may have taken it to be what everyone believes.

Henny _ you're not getting it. The obligation to collectively worship is legally binding on all schools. There are no secular schools available to the general public. Atheists and agnostics don't get the choice; only those with the right imaginary friends are catered for.

" The obligation to collectively worship is legally binding on all schools. There are no secular schools available to the general public. "

However, if it bothers you (and, speaking as a lifelong atheist, it really doesn't, and some of the music is nice) you can withdrawn your child both from RE and from collective worship (see here for a model policy). I wouldn't bother: most religious nutters who try to convert their pupils end up as figures of fun, rather than cult leaders.

'Ds1 knows there is no god'

How clever! It is a question that has perplexed people since time began and he has the answer!! Perhaps he could prove it?
It is all a matter of faith-you can't know there isn't a god in the same way you can't know there is a god.
I think it is just as bad for the parent to tell the DC what to believe in the same way that it is for the school. In a good school the DCs will only have to make it a prayer if they wish-unfortunately the whole wording is too subtle for a 5 yr old.
I really can't see the fuss, it gives the possibilities of all sorts of discussions and ultimately the DC will make up their own mind. I fail to see why you bring a DC into the World and expect to order their mind as in 'Mummy says there is no God' and the DC is expected to fall in line. Maybe your DC will believe in God. I have taken all 3 of mine to church and all 3 stopped at an early age and have no belief-so what?! At least they have made up their own mind and not said 'my mummy says there is a god-and my mummy is right'!
Hearing all sides is a good preparation. They will find out about all other faiths in RE.
I have challenged people in the past to find me a single DC who has been converted to Christianity by a school assembly-no one has given me an example. If anything I would say it puts them off. DCs may be a bit irritating at 5 yrs when it is all a new concept-as they quote things but give it a couple of years and I doubt whether they can tell you anything about the assembly! I have found that half the class can't tell you what it was about 10 minutes later!
If you really don't like it join the secular society and get change. It won't change while the Queen is head of church and state and you have the position where the PM chooses Archbishops-the 2 have to separate.
Moaning on mumsnet or to the school won't get anywhere and there will be a similar thread next month when someone realises that all schools are broadly Christian.

YADNBU - I would be furious.

in reception year mine did a nativity - they also learned about Diwali and Eid , had speakers in who told them about the customs of chinese new year and various other religious and cultural festivals. there is always a hymn and prayer in assembly - even class assemby eg "dear God thank you for our school and for all we have learned about the victorians this term, amen"

OP - do you know if this is restricted to just your childs class, or all the classes? You have the right to withdraw your child - I taught a boy who would line up because he did not pray at hometime - it used to tickle me that he always joined in with the amen though!

echt - I know that, but different schools interpret this very differently in practice. You can withdraw kids from RE and assemblies also.

I have no fear at all, pisces, that one of my children will be converted to Chrsitianity as a result of an assembly. Assemblies, some singing, a little praying, if fine. Most people, including the op, accept that.

I don't tell my children what to believe or not believe.

However, there are teachers that promote their own personal beliefs regularly. It is understandable that this irritates parents.

The teaching of RME is a completely separate issue. It is very clear what should be taught in RME.

YANBU

I would have a word with school about it (in a non-confrontation way, obviously). I did when my son was in reception as my son became obsessed with the whole idea of God, Jesus and the supernatural in general. The school seemed to share my concerns.Refused to listen to any explanation about how things work etc.

I don't know whether my son has simply grown up (he is now in yr 2) or that they calmed down the 'supernatural as fact' thing but he never mentions it now. If he does it is to declare that he doesn't believe any of that.

I did resent (having to in my mind) spending time with him in reception explaining all about religious belief and just how many different religions there were and not to let ANYONE tell him how to think. I am now a little sad that he, at just six, declares himself an atheist. I would have loved for him to remain innnocent about supernatural belief for just a while longer...

oh yorkshire- science isn't a belief system, you don't just have to a blind leap of faith and believe it. It changes, constantly questions looks for new theories/answers as the evidence changes (and as scientists attempt to answer more detailed questions by gathering new evidence). There are big paradigm shifts granted and it's not a perfect system (there is bias and disagreement etc) but it does provide really very well evidenced and cross discipline answers for how life was created. It's soooooo bloddy frustrating when people say well yeah it's just a belief/choice thing and I believe god created the earth and all that evolution stuff is jst nonsense. It's like saying yeah I believe the earths flat (only it bloody well isn't is it!)-just 'casue you beleive it doesn't make it so. If I started wondering around saying- I beleive in fairies and jedi night I'd probably be comitted, but to me it's no more or less a leap of faith (based on no evidence) than saying I believe in god/ganesh/allah... It's fine if you want to believe/have a faith but passing it off as fact (especialy to unsuspecting and uncritical 5 year olds) is really dodgy.

Saying science is a belief system is a category mistake. It's like saying that just in time logistics is a belief system. Science is a set of methods for finding stuff out.

Piscesmoon - yes, we need to disestablish the church.