Saying grace in school before lunch

[iambach]

My children attend a small rural school which is 'non-denominational' but everyday they are made to say grace before they are allowed to eat their lunch.

Part of me thinks its harmless as my children will form their own beliefs from all their life experiences not just school, it's just at early primary school age they are so impressionable. It has made for some interesting conversations at our dinnner table and tbh it is hard to explain to them. They see things so black and white, if the teacher says there is a god and i say i don't believe to them i am almost going against what they are being taught by teachers they respect.

Aibu to feel a bit annoyed about this? My Dh feels much more strongly about it than i do, he thinks it is ridiculous!

"Of course they have an idea it is happening-it is clear in the edcation acts."

How many parents sit down and read the education act before they send their children to primary school?

That is a ridiculous statement.

Around here the council produce a "guide to primary school - everything you need to know" and I would imagine that most parents use that. It does not mention anything about the obligation on state schools to have a daily act of worship of a broadly christian nature.

exoticfruits if the school your children attend decided to change from christianity to Hinduism, and applied through the usual channels, would you feel perfectly comfortable with your children praying to the Hindu gods at various points throughout the day, and being taught the stories of that faith as fact etc etc.

Loving highjumpy longjumpy.

I don't understand why not having religious worship in schools is any kind of a problem. Having it causes plenty of problems. What problems does removing it cause?

Apart from anything else, there are zillions of CofE and RC schools in the UK for people who are devout to send their children to. Why force prayer on all the other schools as well? What does it hope to achieve, if not indoctrination?

I was about to post but then saw SardineQueen has said it all already.

I cannot believe that in 21st century UK, where we are supposed to have complete religious freedom, and all religions (or lack of) are required by law to be treated equally in other areas, we still have a state schooling system that discriminates so heavily in favour of Christians and Christianity. Why are people not more up in arms about this?

Sardine, I agree entirely. I am RC and I'm completely for the separation of church and state. I don't think saying a prayer will actively harm anyone, but it seems odd to enforce it for the dcs of people who don't believe. BECAUSE I do believe, I think it brings prayer into disrepute if people are regarding it as merely a custom. It's a mystery to me why there are 'faith' schools in the state sector. Elsewhere 'faith' schools are private. But since there are such schools, why impose RS and prayer on others?

Moominsarescary you say "if you can make santa a game that isn't real why can't you do that with a few preyers before a meal"

We could but the school is allowed to say "oh it's not a game. Baby jesus is real" See?

Anyway it isn't a game to most people so that would be us lying to them then.

All I ask is that they stop telling them it is real and stick to "some people believe" but many religious people - even on MN - are standing up for their right to tell our kids that their god is real.

Oh and you ask "is that really a comparison you want to make?"

The short answer is yes. If you really want the long answer I can give it, but it's not entirely relevant in this thread so no need to upset people unless you insist.

Btw did you say you were an atheist too?

I think there isn't a big campaign in real life because it's too big.

Where would you start? It involves taking on the government, and taking on the church. The current government would never agree, the House of Lords would never agree, the church is very powerful and would never agree. There really honestly isn't much point. Until at least there is a government who might be more receptive (liberal? Green? never going to happen is it).

"The answer is (I think) that despite many on MN feeling genuine outrage that Christian worship of some kind is compulsory in non-church schools, most people with kids at schools don't really care about it too much, think it does no harm and wouldn't campaign or withdraw their kids and make them the odd-one-out in their class"

So what actually happens is that parents who really do care are backed into a corner. Your child gets religion that you don't want it to have or that goes directly against your own faith, or they get excluded. Not much of a choice, is it.

You can't assume that the parents who don't withdraw their children don't care that much. You can't assume that at all.

Sardine I agree it's huuuge. And a full separation of church and state is probably some way off. But we could start little by little. Perhaps with a separation of church and school? I think/hope that the church is less politically powerful than it used to be.

When women first wanted equality and the vote I bet they were told "don't be silly it's always been this way" and "look it's only a few of you moaning" and "if you don't like it then do something about it"

e-petition to separate church from state here

I think it still depends a lot on what dc are actually taught under the heading of 'religious education' and 'faith worship' or whatever it is

Many may object to prayers and ritualistic worship but I think a lot of parents DO want their dc to learn basic good values and many of those did not come from just anywhere - many of them are the basic tenets of many religious faiths:

ie
thinking of others
being kind/compassionate
being fair
being respectful to adults and those around them
respecting their own bodies and those of others
not stealing
telling the truth
not being violent

etc etc

And lots of parents want their dcs school to reinforce those values

I'm not saying that those things can't be taught under the heading of "citizenship" or whatever it is called nowadays but those things do qualify as religious education too.

"I think it still depends a lot on what dc are actually taught under the heading of 'religious education' and 'faith worship' or whatever it is "

religious education and faith worship are completely different things.

Learning about religion = fine
Worshipping deities = not fine

I also don't think that religion has the monopoly on behaving like a decent human being. In fact when you look around the world the reverse would appear to be true.

substantiallycompromised, although you admit those things could be taught under the heading of citizenship you seem to be implying they 'belong' in some sense to the church.

Is that what you meant?

Substantially, but these are not all religiously based values. Fair enough, the bible says things such as don't lie. As for not being violent, ... I mean, have you actually read that book? And I don't only mean the worst parts of the old testament.

The violent torture of those who disagree kind of seems to be a case of variations on a theme in it.

Many "good" things seem to me to be triumphs of common sense over what religious textx say.

I'm not arguing that nothing good is in the bible. That would be surprising. What I mean is that postive values are not based on christianity.

I never said religion had the monopoly on decent human behaviour. I just pointed out where many of those decent values originated from.

"In fact when you look around the world the reverse would appear to be true."

Yes, human beings are flawed. They have free will. Although not as many wars are motivated by religion as one would assume. (For example, although Hitler and Pol Pot oppressed religious minorities hideously - I don"'t think one couldn't argue that their primary motivation was religious.

Interestingly a "War Audit" commissioned recently for the BBC programme "What the World Thinks of God" investigated the links between war and religion through the ages. It was carried out by researchers at the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University.

To quote from their conclusion

... " although armed conflicts may take on religious overtones, their genesis invariably lies in factors such as ethnicity, identity, power struggles, resources, inequality and oppression - and one factor is often exacerbated by another."

The War Audit went on to say

"there have been very few genuinely religious wars in the past century.

For example, the Israel-Arab wars from 1948 to the present day are often seen as wars over religion.

In fact, they say, they have been about nationalism, self-defence or the liberation of territory"

NotaDude yes have read it and yes it is full of violence!

sorry was largely referring to 10 commandments

onagar no was talking broadly about origins

sorry for clipped replies - rushing because have appt in a minute

FWIW, I agree about wars not being about religion much of the time. What I was referring to was not about human flaws and free will either, though.

The bible is absolutely crammed full of instances of god smiting folk, instructing them to punish others by death for minor stuff, wiping out towns or even the entire world population at one stage. Talk about the moral high ground.

And it's not only the old testament either. Revelation is a gore fest if ever there was one. There are even some really dodgy remarks in the stuff Jesus is supposed to have said.

As stated above: my argument is simply that moral behaviour exists in spite of religion, not because of it.

Substantially, x-post.

Notadude I absolutely believe moral behaviour can exist independently of religion

Agree also about violent content of both old and new testaments. However, Christ's central message was about peace, forgiveness, reconciliation.

Sorry - got to go now but will enjoy reading the debate tonight!

It is so easy-I can't think why people don't do it.
You go around the playground and gather opinion. If a lot of people are not happy about with collective worship but don't want their DC to be different by withdrawing them you all agree to withdraw them and then they are the norm.
I don't think that you would get a lot of agreement. It appears so because people jump up and down and get annoyed but the same people generally get involved-the vast majority don't comment.
If I lived in an area where they swapped to Hindu I wouldn't be happy because I think that my DC should be able to get English culture in England. However I wouldn't withdraw them, just discuss it. They would at least be interesting questions and I would think that they chances of them becoming Hindu would be virtually nil.
I would be very unhappy with the highjumpy-longjumpy grass hopper because where is the history? Where does it fit in with other religions? What are the central themes? All the religions have huge similarities. The 10 Commandments, the Five Pillars of Islam, the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism etc etc I doubt whether a ridiculous thing that has just been invented by one person fit in? Where is this grasshopper? God isn't a person, grasshopper etc. How many centuries has high jumpy whatsit been studied? What is there to study?

Sorry-written in haste-get annoyed on here.