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.

Jumjum - why is it so important for children to pray in school? Surely parents who want their children to pray have saturdays and sundays and the hours between 3:30pm and 9am the next morning to fit it in?

We can beg to differ. But I can't beg for my children to be considered for admission to half of the primary schools in my district, or choose a school where they won't do the whole Christian worship thing, so can you see why I might still feel a bit put out?

As far as I know VA schools contribute 10% towards the capital costs of the school. The state pays for the other 90% of the upkeep of the buildings etc.. and 100% of the cost of the teaching. In most schools a good portion of the 10% comes from parents themselves who may or may not contributing because it is a Christian school, or because it is their childrens' school.

It may seem an ok bargain to you - not to me, where I live you have to go a long way to find a non-faith school. Way out of proportion with real churchgoers. So, to get into a 'good' faith school you have to do the bums on seats thing. If you don't, guess what, you get left with a poor faith school. Or travel a long way or go private. Terrific.

I've not surrendered my dissenter heritage, I'm continuing it. 'where you had to fight against the established institutions to gain access, education and equality ' - exactly what secularists are doing.

Basically the bargain you are describing is "we own the land and the buildings we get to set the terms". It's a deal, but it ain't pretty.

The land and buildings were given over for the education of local children, at a time when most people were Christian.

What is wrong with letting local families have equal access to these schools, whether they continue to be church goers or not? And letting the school governors decide how much of the traditional religious character is appropriate in their school, responding to local parents.

If you are right and the religious character is highly valued by parents then little will change, and there would be no need for it to be enforced by law in the first place.

Jumjum: But you're going 'Waaa, MY imaginary friend is special and no one else's DC will be hurt by being told they have to talk to it' and at the same time 'Waaa, if my DC got told to talk to someone else's imaginary friend I would shit myself and pull them out of school'.

Secularism just means that no one's DC are obliged to talk to anyone else's imaginary friends during school time/ public occasions.

SGB I love you. That is all.

If my child in a state school and it was the law or practice to pray to Mecca I would not send my child to that school (or opt out if that was possible)

This statement assumes you live in a part of the country where there are a good number of schools to choose from. And your opt-out comment assumes that you would be willing to single your child out as being different. I remeber a group of JW children in my school being removed from assembly. They were bullied remorselessly by the remainder of the school for being different - a school of good Christians!

School should be about celebrating the similarities between our children, not identifying the differences! Doing so is the only way we can improve tolerance and understanding within this world.

Excluding people of no faith, or different faith from assembly isn't a million miles away from making the kid that have different skin colour sit in another room!

I have an "imaginary sky friend" (well there's a few in my pantheon). I try to be nice to people whatever beliefs they have, I try to be non-discriminatory, I do my best to help others - pretty much what seem to be considered "Christian" values. However over the centuries Christians have consistently persecuted members of my religion, including burning at the stake.

My beliefs are much older than Christianity, but when that particular religion was foisted onto this country by a few kings who converted (often for political reasons) Pagan places of worship had Christian churches built on them. The Christian calendar is based around replacing the traditional pagan festivals with Christian ones; as an earlier poster said, Easter traditions are all around the fertility symbolism of earlier times, and Christmas itself is celebrated at a different time of year to that when their Christ was born - mainly to coincide with Saturnalia, Yule etc. Then anyone who didn't believe in that century's flavour of Christianity (and there's been a few different flavours) was either persecuted or executed.

Then people like Bugster suggest that I shouldn't have any reason to object to being obliged to take part in worshipping their god as part of any assembly - note school and council assemblies aren't specifically religious assemblies. So Bugster, how would you feel if your place of work insisted that you pray and take part in religious worship of some of MY Gods? And no we don't a) "worship" Satan (doesn't exist in my mind), b) sacrifice anything or c) insist on nakedness. So there would be no harm to you would there?

I was holding out for nakedness at work meetings -

Good point technodad.

I went to school in strathclyde. Religion in schools is divisive. End of.

And STILL no one has answered my question about religious people just doing it in private. Why do they need to do it around people who don't want it?

Some bishop guy was on the news a while ago, boasting about how 50% of people in the UK go to church at least twice a year, not including weddings etc. Twice a fucking year? Is this really a boast? 50%? seriously? Is this the benchmark on which to base the 'Christian country'?

Council nudity would make it all worthwhile!

You've not seen my local councillors, bleuh!!!!!

The nudity is optional. But this is England, too damn cold to ponce about "skyclad" most of the time, and definitely not a pretty sight in my case.

But then again, mandatory nudity for coucillors may prick some of their overinflated pomposity!

notflufflyatall,

I assume you mean good point about my earlier post rather than the nudity point .

I think we should all step away from the discussion now and let Holo or Bugster (or one of the other religious contributors) give a justifiable answer to our questions:

from fluffy: why can't religious people just doing it in private. Why do they need to do it around people who don't want it?

from Techno: how can you justify the scenario stated at my post at 09:45 today?

Yes techno, definitely the earlier post. No nudity until they bring it into policy that all councillors look like david beckham in that pants ad. Grrrr

Yes allergictoironing, the Church adopted similar times of year from the pagan calendar, just as many other belief systems have similar types of festival at these times of year. It's not unreasonable for a religion to have a harvest, winter, light/life festivals - many of them do, often at similar times. Some were introduced independently, others are influenced by each other and I don't see that as a bad thing. It shows what we have in common.

I'm not sure what exactly pagans want from present-day Christians when it comes to Christmas and Easter? Do you want us to change the date? Apologise? Feel silly?

Christians like to celebrate the birth and resurrection of Jesus. Yes it was unfortunate how the church has behaved at certain times. We can and do acknowledge this - but we can't go back in time, it wasn't us personally who decided to convert pagan places of worship, and I don't think the same would happen now.

However PopcornBiscuit you DO seem to want to enforce your beliefs & practices on us still, all these centuries later. OK you aren't killing Pagans, or physically destroying our places of worship any longer. And I certainly wouldn't want anyone to change their own celebrations.

Just for them to stop trying to tell me that their religion is sooo much more important than mine, that their prayers should be enforced on anyone who wants to take part in major areas of public life, that anyone else's children have to either take part in worshipping their God or be excluded from communal activities with their peers, that everyone else has to allow for their beliefs but mine aren't relevant, their standards are the only ones that count.

I think it's the arrogance of many (not all) Christians that's been winding me up on this thread.
Some of the arguments have been that the country is a "Christian" country because the majority of people here are of that faith, so my point was that originally people didn't have much choice they HAD to be Christian or be persecuted by the government of the day.
Some of the arguments have been that it doesn't hurt non-Christians to have to take part in Christian ceremonies, but no reasons yet given on why they should have to - WTF has your God got to do with the business of the local council, or the education of children. Oh sorry I forgot - children can choose to be shown up to be different and excluded, and miss out on all the other aspects of the SCHOOL (not Church) assembly.

I think SGB said it all - "But you're going 'Waaa, MY imaginary friend is special and no one else's DC will be hurt by being told they have to talk to it'. I really don't care what, when, where or how you worship your God as long as it doesn't affect me, and I'm very happy for you that you are happy in your choice of religion and would never consider trying to convert you to mine or any other view point. And in return I'd quite like the same respect from others. You don't HAVE to pray to my Gods to take part in normal aspects of everyday life that aren't really anything to do with religion, so I don't see why children, or coucil members, or anyone else should have to pray to yours.

No I don't

"However PopcornBiscuit you DO seem to want to enforce your beliefs & practices on us still, all these centuries later."

If you're tolerant of other's beliefs, and don't feel that one belief should be foisted onto anyone else, then we are probably pretty similar. I can't say what all Pagans want from all Christians, the same way that you can't speak for all Christians.

My first post wasn't directed at anyone who thinks this way just at those who seem to feel that Christianity should be part of everyone's life, whether they like it or not, for "traditional" reasons. I want nothing from Christians as a whole except tolerance of me and my differences, and for me and for that matter anyone to be allowed to live our lives the way we want - as long ofc as we don't cause others harm by our actions.

Going back to OP's question: YANBU. Countries don't have a religion, people do.

It is great to live in a country that is open to the practice of any religion and where people of different religions are tolerant to each other's practices, but not so great when EVERYONE is assumed/expected to be practicing members of any one religion.

It looks like Eric Pickles has missed the point again: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17082136

Sorry www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17082136

I have a question for the Christians and those of other religions who want to pray before meetings, the school day and so on. Why can't you just close your eyes/go to a quiet room/go to the park before school or at lunch and pray like that? Why does it have to be public? Genuinely confused about this. I don't understand why there has to be compulsory worship at schools and before Council meeting (and yes, I do consider it pretty compulsory if you put it on the agenda or make it part of assembly). I don't feel that anyone has really answered the question except for the answer of cultural heritage, which is pretty circular. Do we have to do it because we have always done it, in which case why can't we change.

The Courts are a case in point. I affirm at Court. Some people swear on a Bible, others use the Koran. Everyone is part of the same British institution, a very important and venerable one. No one is excluded. Why can't the same be true in schools? And this round and round about schools. When there are threads about a C of E school and an atheist parent agonising about what to do they are always told to look to their child's education and give up their firmly held principles. It shouldn't be a choice. It isn't just at C of E schools either. If my DD goes to a normal state school she is supposed to take part on broadly Christian worship. Why? Again, just because we have always done it? If we had always done what we were told was tradition, she wouldn't have an education, or a vote for that matter.

Good question MrsTP!

Excellent question but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an answer. The offence caused by merely asking questions is quite palpable, the religious have had the 'respect' card for so long and haven't ever really been challenged before, they have no idea how to deal with it.

The only answer they can give is that it's always been that way. Well, I'm afraid we're getting to the stage where that's just plain not good enough any more and you're going to have to justify your demands.

I would have thought the whole purpose of not keeping prayers private was to fulfill the requirement put on Christians by the Bible to spread the word to the non-believers. They don't really give a damn whether you pray or not, they have an obligation to shove their religion down your throat whether you like it or not. They fulfill their obligation by doorstepping you like the Jehovah's Witness's but people tend to get pissed off being interrupted by God botherers...the church know it's much easier and more palatable for everyone for them to push their wares across the board onto the fragile youth who can't shut the door in their faces and tell them to bog off.

If the adult population had to put up with this crap everyday at work - I think you'd very quickly find out how many people decided they weren't really Christian afterall!