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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"If you don't love God, you're siding with the devil."

77 replies

CrumbsOnTheFloor · 06/12/2011 21:44

So espoused my 5 year old dd this evening.
who told you that?
My teacher.
Which one?
All of them.

AIBU to think that she is being indoctrinated?

She attends a c of e primary school. Not really my fault, I didn't get my choice of non denominational school as it is very over subscribed.
As background, My DH and I are Buddhist so Atheist/Humanist. Whether my kids practice my religion or another is up to them. They obviously will get to know my beliefs but they will choose what to believe in by themselves, like everyone does. How on earth can this sort of teaching, as if it is just a fact, have a place in the education of a 5 yr old in 2011?

OP posts:
Gentleness · 06/12/2011 23:43

Nah - it's a prophecy about the king of Babylon losing his power. Lucifer is just an untranslated word meaning "morning star" - a term used also of Jesus. Anyway - I'm supposed not to be derailing AND going to bed - why does Mumsnet get so addictive?

Mum1369 · 06/12/2011 23:44

Ooh crumbs, I feel you are getting rather drawn in here....

Original poster
CrumbsOnTheFloor · 06/12/2011 23:46

yes, is all very beautiful. I like all these myths.

OP posts:
Mum1369 · 06/12/2011 23:48

Good bedtime story fodder, if it was all so HELL and DAMNATION!

Mum1369 · 06/12/2011 23:57

Make that 'wasn't' !

CheerfulYank · 07/12/2011 01:38

Oh ok! :) I sort of do too, even though it's not really covered in Christianity.

It's ludicrous but I remember being an old lady. Among other things. Blush

samandi · 07/12/2011 09:22

But, there are no gods, goddesses, Devils or higher beings.

Yes, there are. I can see how a Buddhist could call themselves atheist, as belief in higher beings is not required, but there are certainly many higher beings that are popularly worshipped as gods/goddesses in Buddhism.

samandi · 07/12/2011 09:22

Oh, and your school/teachers are being VU.

penguinpenguin · 07/12/2011 09:29

There's a huge difference between teaching about religion and, as I see this, instruction. I teach about religion from a neutral standpoint (I myself am an atheist but would never bring it up in a classroom - I always encourage kids to form their own opinions and challenge them to think about what others believe, and why). I do the same with my son, like another poster said. :)

NorfolkNCarolSingers · 07/12/2011 09:31

Crumbsonthefloor

Do you believe in Mara and The Wheel of Life?

Are you Theravada or Mahayana?

Sorry for all the questions but it's an area I am researching at the moment for my G&T KS3 students.

worldgonecrazy · 07/12/2011 09:42

As God created the Devil and evil (Isiah 45:7). It does seem a bit extreme for your daughter to be told that everyone who doesn't love God is automatically siding with the devil - that's a belief I usually associate with the more extreme forms of Christianity.

SardineQueen · 07/12/2011 10:01

Beamur with your earlier musings you reminded me of the saying "the devil makes work for idle hands" which actually I think is pretty much true although the way it has been applied in the past maybe not so hot!

And generally I thought that the devil was an angel who had been expelled from heaven by god? And cast down and all that.

TeamDamon · 07/12/2011 14:18

Yes, Lucifer (Satan) leads an army of angels in a rebellion against God and is defeated. He and his army are subsequently hurled out of heaven into hell which they claim as their own domain and from there continue their war against God.

In this morning's lesson (Paradise Lost Bk 1), we were reading the bit where Satan declares that if he cannot defeat God by force, he will do so by fraud and guile, and we went on to discuss the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Fascinating stuff - i thoroughly recommend a bit of Milton!

TeamDamon · 07/12/2011 14:22

Sorry to keep using 'Lucifer' - I know that this name for the devil is not biblical in origin but I use it habitually because of the texts I'm currently teaching!

aldiwhore · 07/12/2011 14:24

Teach your children a response to these frankly ignorant and insulting comments like my DH did to ours.

Our children now respond with "My dad says the Devil has all the best tunes".

By all means use this to provoke a discussion. In both beliefs AND respecting others (the title comment is disrespectful to use towards a small child).

kerala · 07/12/2011 14:28

Crumbs I feel for you I really do. This country's education system is utterly "confused" as so many posters keep bandying the word around and that confusion is caused by the historic hangover of having church schools. Education should be secular - obvious to any right thinking person. How can it be fair to discriminate against children attending a largely state funded school but the professed religion of their parents? It makes no sense on any level.

Even in Italy which is much more religious country than this one has secular state schools. Then if you want to teach your child your religion thats great do it at home/Sunday school/pay for a private religious school. This whole topic makes steam come out of my ears but then I have just had to deal with my 5 year old telling us that "God made the world" and "throwed all the fishes in the sea" and she is at a community school. Grrr.

TheLastChocolate · 07/12/2011 14:31

I am a Christian and find some of the comments on here odd.

Surely anyone who has every actually read the Bible will know there are numerous mentions of the Devil.

I can't remember who it was who was mentioning Milton's Paradise Lost, but I agree it's a captivating read :)

OP - I'm not really sure what your child's teachers were talking about, but maybe it's something to do with Mark 9 where Jesus said that "whoever is not against us, is for us" - he wasn't talking about non-believers vs believers, but rather was talking about the context of what was happening at that time....

....maybe the teacher was quoting something and your child didn't fully catch it? Or maybe something was taken out of context?

Either way, it is a pretty bad thing for a teacher to tell a young child :( And I'm saying that as a mother who is raising DC in quite a traditional Christian household.

worldgonecrazy · 07/12/2011 14:36

Lucifer only gets one mention in the Bible and not as the devil:

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?."

Incidentally, Lucifer translates to "light bringer". Make of that what you will.

Satan is referred to separately as the adversary or accuser.

The combining of the two into one happened much later.

If you're interested in reading about the fallen angels and the Gregori, their story appears in the apocryphal text of the Book of Enoch. It's a fascinating story as Azrael (literally "Scapegoat of God") takes the fall for the other fallen angels who are led by a being called Semjaza.

TheLastChocolate · 07/12/2011 14:44

Worldgonecrazy are you serious?

There are numerous mentions of Satan. I don't have space or time to tell you them all here, but it's there. The writers don't always refer to him as Satan, but that's what it all boils down to.

Here is the first one that popped into my mind,

"...to open their eyes so that they might turn away from darkness to light, away from the power of Satan to God. Then their sins may be forgiven, and they can have a place with those people who have been made holy by believing in me."
Acts 26:18

Here is a link to help you (and anyone else who is interested)
Bible mentions of Satan

CurlyBoy · 07/12/2011 14:52

This is exactly why I don't want to send my lad to a C of E school. I'll have to have my wife take a gander at this thread...

worldgonecrazy · 07/12/2011 15:18

thelastchocolate No I am not crazy, I have just read the Bible and know that Lucifer gets one mention, it is Satan that gets more. Lucifer and the Satan combining into one person happened after the Bible was written, they are not one and the same within the Biblical text.

What is more interesting is that Lucifer is another name for the Morning Star (Venus), and in Revelations 22:16 Jesus calls himself the "Morning Star": "I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the Bright and Morning Star".

All fascinating stuff.

fuzzynavel · 07/12/2011 15:22

My mum used to call my dad Bielzebub (not sure on spelling)

My RE teacher used to tell me that spiders would surround me and bite my bum if i was naughty.

Know there is only a loose connection here to the thread, I just wanted to "share" Grin

worldgonecrazy · 07/12/2011 15:31

fuzzy the correct spelling is Beelzebub, based on the Arabic Ba'al zebub. It translates to "Lord of the Flies".

It's a bit spooky that your RE teacher said you would get your bum bitten by a spider, as a child of a fly! :)

fuzzynavel · 07/12/2011 15:34

Gosh yes WGC, what a coincidence huh

TheLastChocolate · 07/12/2011 15:48

WGC - interesting, thanks for informing me of that :)

Hopefully this thread is opening lots of people's eyes to lots of things they might not have known.

Settles down with a Brew