to be pissed off at school for telling DD (5) about Baby Jesus?

[Kalemu]

We don't want religion anywhere near our house, one of the main reasons we chose to send our DD to state school instead of a CoFE school. Imagine my surprise when she came home with a Baby Jesus picture book and singing about the Baby King. This makes me very mad - it's not like we want to keep her in a bubble, but I wanted to have told her the different religion when she was a bit older.

Thinking of writing to the headteacher to let him know our thoughts, and to demand that we're informed next time they plan to talk about religious stuff in class. Do you think AIBU?

I am a committed atheist. You are fighting a losing battle. Give it up. YABU.

Let them hear what other people believe. Then tell them what you believe. Then they can make their own the right choice when they are old enough.

That is how I am handling it anyway.

How awful that your daughter now knows something about one of the most important cultural aspects of her country. You must be outraged. Just make sure she does not enjoy any carols on the radio.

It's fine to tell your own DC that they are being fed crap and, while they should be polite to other people and tolerant of their viewpoints (at least up to the level where such viewpoints become intrusive or harmful) they have no need to take such daft viewpoints seriously. After all, superstitious parents tell their own DC that no matter what they hear at school, the family superstitions are true, and correct, and must be obeyed.

A midwinter festival is culturally important across most of Europe. To quite a lot of people the important aspects are food, gifts, family and fun. What you call the festival, and the specifics of the various mythologies surrounding it, is up to you and your own household.

Sorry but yabu.
All schools - even non-religious ones - as far as I know learn about lots of different religions and their beliefs. Assuming the school has said that Christmas is a time when Christians celebrate the birth of someone called Jesus who was/is an important person to them as opposed to the school positing these facts as FACTS then I don't think you have an argument.

I'm strongly of the opinion that there is no place the some vague act of "worship" that often takes place in non-faith schools. It's often very woolly and quite pointless simply because it cannot relate to the broad spectrum of children at that school.

I'm of the increasingly rare opinion that there is a place for publicly funded state schools, so long as they give a good, rounded education (and teach evolution in science lessons and keep the creationism restricted to RE lessons), don't impede choice for all children in their catchment and don't exclude children whose want them to be there but don't share their beliefs. Those schools should be allowed to worship BUT the requirement should be removed from non-faith state schools.

As for religious education, I think it's very important from a sociological, anthropological and philosophical viewpoint, as well as the historical and cultural aspects already mentioned in this thread.

And I've now exhausted my ability to type polysyllabic words for tonight.

how over the top! Even in non religious schools it has to be on the curriculum

it's about understanding others

The story of Jesus is key to understanding most of western art uP until the twentieth century. If you do not know the key figures you are effectively culturally illiterate. Whether or not you believe. Failure to understand the workings of the goddess Woo does not mean that you are in the position of wandering around the National Gallery and not understanding the symbolism of thousands of important pieces of art by Renaissance artists.

to posters further up the communism / atheism of china and USSR were very closely related

it was forbidden to be a christian/muslim it often ended in persecution, death, gulags, forming a church/ religious group was illegal, importing or even possessing a bible was illegal, secret police followed christians threatened their families, cross examined children to find out if maybe some of their parents were secret believers

amnesty international will confirm that in some places persecutions of believers by communistic atheistic states in still ongoing, see nepalese buddhists, many christians in china still etc,

this does not mean that religions groups do not persecute or discriminate against other religions they do obviously but to say atheists never persecute believers is also cloud cuckoo land rubbish

I think those states banned religions in order to weaken the churches' hold on their people, sarah. Throughout the world, churches (using the term generically)are powerful political organisations. Communist administrations wanted to be the only political organisation - promoting atheism as a tool of control, just as numerous administrations have promoted churches.

In fact, communist states behaved like religions to maintain control of their people. They imposed pictures and icons of their leaders in every home and public space. They held compulsory public meetings, in which charismatic speakers regularly extolled the state and stipulated required behaviour. Children were made to learn embellished tales of the leaders' achievements. They ran inspiring indoctrination courses for young adults. They created reams of ethics and morals, underpinned by the supposed genius of their leaders. They took tithes. They isolated and shamed dissenters.

They were only atheist states in name. What they really - deliberately - did was to supplant religion with communism.

Excellent posts Gordy

I wanted to say - but was heading off into a mini dissertation - atheism is in no position to persecute people of faith, as atheism is not a competing faith. I can't accuse you as a witch or a devil or even a sinner, because those concepts do not exist in my worldview. Well, obviously, I know what they're supposed to be and what they represent but they have no reality for me.

Atheism isn't a "something else", religiously speaking: it's an absence. I don't "believe in" atheism. I don't believe in anything that can't be supported by pragmatic facts. Where the faithful have mysticism, I have great big empty spaces. This isn't sad, the spaces are full of curiosity. I like it. I get massively excited when science discovers things that fill out some of the spaces.

Just to clarify (from miles back in the thread)... Poppy I didn't say that pupils shouldn't be taught about religions at school (if you look even further back, you'll see that my first post was all about how I want my kids to learn to be tolerant and understand that difference is actually a good thing). But I don't think school is at all the place for indoctrinating children into a faith. That should be the responsibility of their parents (and those who do the initiating and teaching stuff within their own religion).

And, going back to my nativity example, it's ok to take part on celebrations from other religions, but you need to address more than just Christianity. It's good to learn to understand and share in other cultural practices (apart from anything it makes it all seem much less mysterious), but you shouldn't feel that you have to believe. And one version of Truth shouldn't be pushed on children at school.

Atheists don't accuse people if faith of witchcraft or heresy, however some athiests accuse them of being illogical, unscientific, and sometimes being stupid.

I have faith. I also have massive curiosity and thirst for knowledge. The two are not incompatible. However some religious and atheistic people would have you believe this is not the case. They tend to be fundamentalists and in my experience there is no fun in any of their mentalism.

arbitary so if it is just the initiating of it which you have a problem with then surely you should do that before they start school? you know that it is on the national curriculum so therefore it is going to happen.
I've always spoken to DS about different religions, it's never been a conscious decision 'oh I think he's now ready to know about religion', it's all around us, different people wearing different clothes, when we were in turkey they had bloody prayer music waking us up at silly times ''mummy what's that noise?''
So yes I have introduced him to religions myself, not because I wanted to do it myself but because it just seemed natural to me to tell him, we have a globe and an atlas and we discuss what people in different countries do, what they eat, what they look like, their beliefs etc. it's just part of education in my eyes.
You make it sound like religion is a dirty secret which they mustn't be exposed it, if you took out any reference to religion anybody would think you were talking about sex education!

Some of you defenders of Christianity sound so nasty, how very Christian.

I still don't think you understand me. I have no problem at all about my kids learning about religion; I just don't want them initiated into a particular religion by his school. If people want that, they should bloody well do it themselves.

And just for the record, my sister and BIL are Muslims so the kids are absolutely used to the simple fact that some people have religions. My sister knows that it's fine to say 'I believe that...', but not to tell the kids that they should believe it too or that it's unequivocally true. The same as DS1 can say that his favourite colour is green and DS2 can say that his is blue and it makes no difference because neither is 'right' and neither colour is better.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with sex education. It's probably a damn sight more useful to most kids than being made to recite the Lord's Prayer every morning at school (like I had to at primary school). I teach my kids about sex too because that's what responsible parents do.

just tell them some people believe int he baby jesus every school do religion it is part of pastoral care , home school him if you don't want him anywhere near the baby jesus, It is Christmas what did you expecy

But religion shouldn't be part of the pastoral care at school. Teachers shouldn't need to support a religion (even if it is useful to know about the religious beliefs and cultural practices of the children they teach). That's what priests and such like are for. If a student came to me with a faith issue, I'd direct them to the chaplaincy.

The home school them if you don't like argument is really stupid. We all pay taxes and are entitled to a state education for our kids. Why can't we have an actually secular one? Religious people get faith schools but there is no option of a school outwith stupid policy about daily worship. Good thing many schools interpret that as loosely as possible. It would be much better to scrap the worship policy entirely, but then the daily mail would be all offended and shrieking about moral crisis (because, don't you know, you can't have any moral convictions if you're not religious ).

one of the main reasons we chose to send our DD to state school instead of a CoFE school

I am astounded that yet again someone thinks that a school is secular if it isn't C of E. State schools are non denominational-they are not secular. By all means write to the Head and he/she can show you the education acts and let you know that RE is the one subject that has to be taught by law.
If it was the collective worship I would have some sympathy (but perhaps OP doesn't realise her DC has daily worship) BUT with Christmas coming up I don't think that it is unreasonable that DCs know where the name comes from CHRISTmas!

I don't believe in censoring what the DC hears and only letting the parent hear what they want them to hear. Who knows what your DC will choose for themselves in the future? I have yet to hear an adult say 'I am........because my mother was'!! You should make sure that you always say 'some people believe....' and 'I believe.......' so that the DC knows that it is only belief and it will be up to them to decide what they believe and not their mother.

Just benchmarking. I need to take a few notes. Re how to help ds1 who couldn't understand why his friend who didn't beleive in God was celebrating christmas. And could he still be friends with him.
To whch i replied of course he could and that some people believed and others didn't and this was fine. And no reason to stop being freinds.

Must look up some of the pagan info to get my facts right as to how to explain to ds the other ideas/aspects of christ-mas.

but it is in all state schools it is especially around Easter and Christmas it is just the way it is, all we can do is teach children that some believe and some just think it is a story I did the latter and tbh my children have not been brainwashed, you can't shield your children from god or jesus

you dont get Church of scotland schools but they still have easter and christmas services ,

If we had secular schools then our kids would end up ignorant to other peoples religions. They need to be able to understand the concept of religion, the wide variety out there, and how it massively effects some people's lives. This needs to be taught in schools. In my perfect world no-one has a religion so there is no need for it to be taught, but we're not at that stage and won't be for a long time

I am an atheist, but I find it interesting to educate myself on other's religion. I've read the bible and the qu'ran. I want to know more about the religions that a high percentage of British people follow.