To think the atheists on MN are a bunch of miserable whingers

[GothAnneGeddes]

Every bloody week it's a new thread whining on about how terrible it is that there is religion in the world.

A prominent feature of such threads is the intolerance and stupidity of religious folk, yet threads by believers insulting atheists are very rare.

Besides, aren't you all meant to be so happy to be freed from the shackles of religion, that you're too busy having fun to moan?

the athiests on mumsnet are just pissed off because their schools are crap and religous ones are better

the athiests on mumsnet are just pissed off because their schools are crap and religous ones are better grin

you might have hit the nail on the head there :)

NotSuch slug genuinely interested in what, as an atheist, prompted you to take Religious Studies? Agree with you on point of House of Lords, but feel that the major religions are so widespread that it's pretty ok to have state funded faith schools (for people of faith it is an life-encompassing thing and not something that can be put in a box and taken out on holy days) but there should be proportionally same number of schools for each major faith and atheist and should be equally as good. (Ok leaving cloud cuckoo land now! )

NotSuch, that would work, except the local state school is the massively oversubscribed one (all the athiests fighting to get in) and is rated as "Excellent" consistently, whereas the religious ones around my way are rarely more than "adequate".

Frantic, I grew up in a Catholic household and was a terribly precocious reader. I blame my interests in religions on reading far too much Issac Bashiev Singer before the age of 10 . however there's nothing like a degree in religious studies to confirm the suspicion that all religions are cultural artifacts that are more concerned with social control than spiritual salvation.

Heathenofsuburbia- great post.

frantic- perhaps slug was turned atheist by her studies?

notsuch/feeble- your pathetic fallacy is barely worth passing comment on.

"You can't, as an atheist, really 'go on' about atheism, because it's not a belief system."

Wrong. It's not possible to prove conclusively either that God does or doesn't exist. Therefore deciding definitively that God doesn't exist is as much a belief as deciding definitively that God does exist.

If atheism isn't a belief system, why do some people spend so much time defending it?

I notice that agnostics don't tend to get het up either way. And even if (as I believe) agnosticism is the only rational position on this subject, where's the fun in being rational? 'I dunno, really, God might exist, but I can't prove it, can we change the subject now?' doesn't make for an entertaining bunfight at all.

Anyway. As you were

"the athiests on mumsnet are just pissed off because their schools are crap and religous ones are better"

Absolutely right we are damned pissed off about that. Christians, imagine this, that you are a majority of the population, yet some weird religion (judaism, islam, take your pick, they're all bonkers) managed to weasel their way into controlling almost all the schools in your country, and furthermore, in your local area, it happens that the only non-failing school has a strong islamic ethos.

Would you not be pissed off?

You hit the nail right on the head there. And pointed out exactly why atheists have every right to be very, very angry at having to be coerced into attending church, sucking up to a vicar, pretending to pray, baptising our kids, just in order to send our children to decent schools, where the teachers will do their level best to indoctrinate them into believing utterly disproved tosh like the creation myth and noah's ark, when they could be spending such time, I don't know, reading or learning times tables.

Of course we're angry.

You cannot really prove any negative but you can demonstrate that it is not factually proven and unlikely to be true.

As there is no evidence whatsoever to support the existence of God and one requires "faith" to believe, I can quite happily say that my stance as an atheist is not one of "belief" but one based on the available evidence. It is only when you require "faith" that it becomes a belief system.

Manatee, that's not logical. I don't believe in the Norse Gods, nor Isis, Amisatru or Rangi and Papa, yet my (and presumably yours as well) lack of belief in these gods isn't a "belief system".

The lack of belief is not a belief. The hint in in the "A" part of "Athiesm" i.e. "Without" a god.

I'm perfectly happy to concede in the existence of a supernatural power, once I am provided with testable, conclusive evidence to the existence of any one of the many, many gods that have existed throughout human history. And athiests, in my experience, don't defend athiesism. They just spend time pointing and laughing at the holes in religious logic and questioning why people who believe that people with two X chromosomes are intrinsically unfit for leadership (for example) should have any privilidge when it comes to making the laws of the land.

You can't eliminate the history of the country, and the faith schools which existed before the provision of state education. I doubt that state schools in Uk could have come into existence without an accommodation with the CofE schools at least. This could be altered, but would have to be done, for most, in co-operation with the bodies that own the sites.

Removing the requirement for a collective act of worship wouldn't require such untangling, and I can't see why that hasn't been done. I would want to see RE kept in the curriculum though.

The disestablishment of the Church is a separate issue, and I'm not terribly familiar with the arguments around it.

SB4000 - this is a Christian country - It's been the major religion here since around AD 37 - minor point I know but just saying.

Slug; faith schools are a shining example of how good religion is - faith schools are, almost without exception the best schools - why do you think that is?

It seems to me just a tendency among many people to want to be able to put people into boxes and say 'group X are all the same.'

But atheists don't have anything in common as a group. There are no atheist bars, or atheist schools, or atheist festivals, or atheist countries. They are simply a disparate group of people - they have a shared intellectual understanding but that is it. They don't form any sort of group with a shared culture or set of experiences.

Saying atheists are all X is like saying people who own Macbooks are all X.

carminaburana - I do not want to get into the whole faith schools thing. Where it causes an issue is where faith schools are the only choice and there, the faith school in question is not always a particularly good school.

OThe HugeManatee hear, hear. Snobear4000 You're right of course, no-one should have to pretend to be something that they're not in order to get a decent education for their children. On the other hand, no-one who has strong religious beliefs should be forced into sending their children to schools where they will have those beliefs ridiculed and undermined on a daily basis. No-one should have to have their children indoctrinated either way.

Taking into account slug's local school, and many more like it I'm sure, it does seem that the majority of faith schools seem to be doing pretty ok (either excellent or adequate, not many on the failing list) so they do seem to be doing plenty of reading and learning times tables Most importantly, faith schools, particularly in inner cities, don't seem to have the same level of behaviour/truancy problems? Not saying they are squeaky clean by any means! Might I tentatively suggest that the faith they preach might just have something to do with it? 'Course not, silly me!

Very happy and well informed atheist here.

Faith schools often do better because they are selective (ask any one who has started going to the local church in order to get their DC 'in').

BTW, fellow Brights, don't forget to check 'no religion' on the census!!

MillyR, you may be onto something here. I would imagine that a disproportionately large amount of atheists would own macbooks, compared to the religious. After all, rejecting religion and buying Apple are both sensible decisions, based on reasoned logic and an examination of evidence, whereas the choice to own a windows notebook, or to worship spirits, is more in keeping with the herd mentality, and a fear of owning or doing something that your family/colleagues/neighbours won't immediately accept.

Sorry to bore with this irrelevant tangent, I'll bugger off and make lunch...

Kids bit more likely to get vigorously buggered at a faith school though, so swings and roundabouts really?

slug I don't agree. The energetic denial of a belief is, in my view, just as much based on faith as a belief.

If you want to get away from the mental or cultural structures you're reacting against, you can't do that just by negating them. If you just negate, you end up reproducing exactly the structures you're trying to escape. The analogy would be people who insist on 'not conforming', and end up being 'alternative' in a way that's inseparable from what they're trying to reject. In a similar way, militant theism and militant atheism are inseparable from one another.

The difference between atheism and agnosticism is that I, like an atheist, don't believe in those gods you mentioned. But while I don't believe in the gods you mentioned, I don't not believe in them either. I'm just not that bothered either way. That, to my mind, is a more rational position than getting het up about the existence or lack of existence of something that can't ever be proven.

Faith schools do well because they're not trying to be hip & trendy - they don't pray at the alter of the Guardian - they stick to their beliefs, everyone knows the score and we're all happy.

Another Happy Atheist here.

My DD has a deep faith and I am happy to support her, go to church with her, pray with her whilst having my own beliefs.

I have a deep respect for other people's faiths and whilst there are indeed issues surrounding faith that I could question, I fully understand it's place in society.

I disagree - I suspect that many faith schools do well because of the intense pressure to get into them and their ability to be selective. It is self-perpertuating. Many non-faith school do just as well there is just less publicity relating to them because the issue of the parent't beliefs does not arise and there are therefore fewer issues in relation to getting in to them.

GL - they're selective in that they only take children of the faith - they're not selecting on ability. so what was your point again?

I really don't care what others believe. The only time religious people irritate me immensely is when they start God blessing my children etc.

Otherwise I AM very happy to be free of constraints and superstitions of any religion.

carmina- "faith schools are, almost without exception the best schools " - this is completely wrong. Where you live, that may be the case, but it is certainly not the case in my LA, so you cannot extrapolate across the country.

My child is excluded from attending her three closest schools because they are faith schools- that is unfair, it means we are forced to travel some distance to school, despite having schools 120, 150, and 400m from our house.

Religion should be completely separate from education. Anyone who wants a religious education for their children should pay for it or provide it themselves through HE or evening/weekend supplementary schooling.

There is no way I would take my child to a faith school to be indoctrinated with religious stuff. I have significant pot of dosh set aside for a fantastic local private. Folk that is not so lucky and those who feel they have no choice have my complete respect and sympathy though. They do what they need to do.