To think it is about time to stop being a Christian country.

[ShagOBite]

On the council prayers debate, lots of people have said "but we're a Christian country". Why are we? Should we be? How do we go about changing this? It seems so inappropriate and unnecessary in this day and age.

I object to the fact that my Dd, in p1 in a non-denominational state school, has regular assemblies, plays, church services where Christian belief is a given. Because its the law, and the law seems to think that her "spiritual education", however that might be described, will wither and die without it.

I just don't understand wexactly what it is that you are objecting to. Noone is forcing anyone to follow a religion, it sound like you just object to witnessing others praying. That's pretty intolerant don't you think?

Prayer can and does unify. It unifies all pesent at the time of praying and others included in the prayers. It can also be inter-religion. I am a Chrostian and my best friend is Jewish, but we pray together and for each other.

What exactly are those things at school doing to harm your child? I'm sure she enjoys the plays and the sense of community.

If a child is taught the lord's prayer (as my children were) then that is saying quite unequivocably that a judeo-christian god exists and that we should praise him/her/it.

A 5yo being taught that prayer is too young to be able to choose which, if any, religion they wish to follow.

Or let's look at it another way. Would a Christian parent object to their child being taught not only about (say) the Pagan religion but required to sing the praises of the Earth Goddess? Or to pray to Vishnu? What about Scientology?

But I thought they weren't required to. They can opt out if their parents want them to, can't they?

Oh, the 'opt out'
In practise, very few parents want to exclude their children from assembly - its part of the life of the school. It tends to be only adherents of other religions/sects who do this (esp Jews)

That's weird... I'm sure I typed 'JWs' and I don't have autocorrect. (I don't know whether Jewish people typically opt out or not)

the kids school used to not only have religious assemblies (non demoninational school) but a vicar come in several times a week to lead prayers and tell the kids about hell and Jesus.
Cant say I was happy with this at all.

My jewish best friend went to my non denominational school with me and never opted out of assembly. In fact she really liked singing the hymns. Now she lives in America and still likes to remember and sing the hymns (ok maybe she's a little wierd).

Assembly, council prayers etc are generally not offensive at all. I don't think it's so bad for all children to learn the Lord's prayer, even if they or their parents don't believe in it. It will give them a better understanding of our country's history, literature etc. When I did a French exchange as a teenager, my exchange girl, who was a militant athheist, wanted to read the bible, just so she could understand biblical references in literature. Exposing children to religious beliefs is important. Forcing them to adopt them is another thing altogether. When I was in school I think we spent more time in R.E. Learning about other religions than Christianity. I was interested in learning about them.

In my DC's primary school you could opt out of the assemblies but in doing so your child would not be hearing lots of important information that is also disseminated in the assembly. It is also unnecessarily divisive and exclusionary.

If prayers in assembly are "generally not offensive at all" then you would have no objection to your children being required to say prayers to Vishnu every week, yes?

Finally, I've never met an atheist, "militant" or not, who objects to the world's religions being taught in RE. Ever. And that includes Dawkins and Hitchens. Yet the religious often misrepresent atheist's views by implying that this is what they want. I wonder why.

Great idea. Let's airbrush out the UK's Christian heritage and complete the process of cultural suicide. Let's ditch most of the great English art, architecture, music and literature pre-1800, render our history and literature unintelligible, and tolerate everything except Christian people of faith.

Seriously. Why is this so difficult? Plenty of people manage to be both atheist and generally meh about the existence of established religion in this country. What's with this weird evangelical secularism? It's phenomenally intolerant and culturally short-sighted in the extreme.

I just don't want to spend my time watching people pray - why is that is intolerant? I don't object to them praying in an environment where everyone willingly comes to together - church seems a good place for this, not in the work place or schools.

Oh and I have no objection to my dcs learning about Christianity and other religions but that's it - no worship.

Wow, overreact much?

Why would removing the link between state and religion require us to ditch art, architecture, music and literature? How would it render our history and literature unintelligible?

No-one (apart from Christians, funnily enough) is talking about ceasing all education about different religions. All we're asking for is to consider stopping the special treatment and privileges that are afforded to one particular version of one particular religion. We're not talking about setting fire to the entire country.

But, to you, asking for a level playing field is "phenomenally intolerant"? Crikey.

"Great idea. Let's airbrush out the UK's Christian heritage and complete the process of cultural suicide. Let's ditch most of the great English art, architecture, music and literature pre-1800, render our history and literature unintelligible, and tolerate everything except Christian people of faith."

FGS, that's a bit dramatic. I am as atheist as you'll probably find but even I wouldn't sanction the destruction of churches, books and artworks. All those empty churches make lovely homes actually )

I like the poster that goes around that says "Religion is like a penis, it's fine to have one, it's fine to be proud of it, but don't go waving it around in public and don't shove it down my children's throats"

Do your praying in your own home or your church, NOT around me, my kids and not in public spaces that I pay for. (I can only wish)

I'm not objecting to watching others pray - but dd isn't being told that being christian is one of many options, but that that's what people are, and anythjing else is a bit different. Why is this the law?

I mean, would you like it to be the law that children be given atheism as a default, so that in assemblies, plays, etc they were told that there was no god on a regular basis? I'm an atheist, and I wouldn't. I don't want there to be a default - I want them to introduce a range of different belief aand non-belief ssystems and just leave it there - not have the minister taalking about praising god, when they're far to wee to make up their own minds. I don't want christian worship to be legally enforced. that's not the same as wanting to ban it.

Manatee, it's about the legal status of christianity (so bishops in the house of lords, legally required christian worship in schools). I don't want any belief or non-belief system to have that priority.

Hopefully, although I have my doubts, the release of the census figures will go some way to demonstrating the changing attitudes to religion. I reckon the vast majority of people who in the past noted themselves as christian were only doing so because they were too lazy to give the question any real thought or considered themselves cultural christians.

Unfortunately the attitude towards religion in the UK is nauseating apathy, we've had all those years (centuries) of being told we MUST RESPECT people's faith, it's rude to question it. The apathy is good in one way, it keeps at bay the fundamentalism that you get in the likes of the US but on the whole it's just laziness really. Look what happens when you do question religion, you get tagged with titles like Militant atheist or Atheist Fundamentalist. Rubbish, they've just had it their own way so long that they're terribly offended at anyone with the audacity to question that.

OK, maybe I was putting it a bit strongly before. But I stand by my assertion that disestablishment would in fact damage even further our already shaky collective understanding of well over a thousand years of cultural heritage.

Also it doesn't follow that the separation of church and state creates a more secular country. France, while officially secular, is far more culturally Catholic than the UK is C of E, and any American running for office would be committing political suicide if they declared themselves atheist - or indeed non-Christian. You only have to see the nonsense that gets spouted about Obama being a Muslim to see that.

In my view the UK is about as secular as it gets, in significant part because our established religion is as footling, woolly and toothless as it is. Personally I quite like that footling, woolly toothlessness and think it helps to encourage the kind of lazy 'do what you like' attitude to religion that makes the UK a relatively tolerant place to live for people of all faiths or none.

I don't see how it would, manatee - how does the status of the church as it stands currently affect yer average joe's understanding of history and culture? You'd still study it at school, it's just that worship wouldn't be legally required and bishops wouldn't be involved in making laws.

"Also it doesn't follow that the separation of church and state creates a more secular country."

Fair enough. So what's your objection to such separation then?

Snorbs - because I don't want to be overrun by fundies like the USA?

We could get lucky and end up like Sweden or Norway where there are zero connectinos between church and state and a relatively small proportion of people who identify with any religion.

A man can dream...

Seriously, as I said, I think the wet-lettuce quality of the Church of England helps to encourage the general UK laissez-faire attitude to religion and as such actively helps to foster religious tolerance. I reckon disestablishing the C of E would create a more, not less, febrile religious atmosphere in the country. Hence my argument is that if you're in favour of laissez-faire secularism you should be in favour of keeping the C of E, not ditching it.

Also it doesn't follow that the separation of church and state creates a more secular country.

That's what 'secular' means. That's all it means. It does not mean restricting religious freedoms (on the contrary). It does not mean ditching our cultural heritage. It should not mean failing to educate about religions (and other worldviews, hopefully).

It just means that the faiths in general and the CofE in particular should have no privelege in state institutions. The NHS is secular. Social services are secular. State education should be secular (acadamies/free schools are unfortunately likely to create yet more faith schools in a horribly undemocratic and hard-to-reverse manner ). The Houses of Parliament should be secular. I don't give two hoots whether the Queen is Head of the CofE in addition to being Head of State, not much harm in multitasking.

Grimma Beat me to it, people often think that a secular country means an atheist country. Silly.

Making this "Hence my argument is that if you're in favour of laissez-faire secularism you should be in favour of keeping the C of E, not ditching it." an oxymoron.