To think it is time to secularise all state-funded education?

[fideline]

Just that really.

DisestablishmentNonno

(not that that would be necessary to remove religious practice from schools)

Apologies for calling you an atheist Fedeline when that was not accurate.

What prejudice was I showing?

Nonomum - would we have to get rid of the queen or could she not step down as head of the Church of England?

And sorry for misspelling your name fideline.

That anyone proposing secularisation of schools must be an atheist Dione?

Of course she could Clarins if we were going for a wholesale secularisation of the UK state, but I think Nonno knows that that is one hell of a jump from the proposition in my OP

I apologise for my assumption fideline. I can assure you that I am not prejudiced.

No problem

Lot of people seem to be making the same assumption

I didn't Chorus, I said that they exist and their existence may explain Niminy's post. I did not say that all atheists are like this. In fact I said that they were a minority.

Peace and love and a goodnight to you all.

That was not my intention Chorus. I was merely referring to the splinter group that OP mentioned.

Yanbu

I think a good start would be:

1. Make all faith schools adhere to discrimination laws.

1. Remove the collective worship from non-dom schools

Then we could work towards getting rid of faith schoolsall together.

The posters squealing about bigoted atheists need to check their massive privilege frankly.

Yanbu - I have no choice of schools, yet my church going neighbour does....they can play the game and get the best for their dcs depending on which school is being successful but not me, yet we both pay taxes but she has been afforded more rights than I. A more favoured position than I due to her religion. How can we allow religious discrimination in 2014, seems crazy.
I think the first step in this process is to remove this religious discrimination. Allow faith schools to continue temporarily but remove their right to use faith as a selection criteria. That's easier to achieve, in the long run, hell I'd take the short run too, I would like to see the end of state sponsored faith schools, economics should not be used as a justification for discrimination.

In rural areas the faith school is the only school and living in the catchment area is the top criteria and they take everyone.
People muddle it with towns and cities, especially large ones, where there is choice and the other criteria come first. People want to get their children in because they are generally better and that is when you get people suddenly 'finding religion' and needing to attend church each week to get in. In the country you never need to attend church, can be atheist, or any religion and are assured a place.
The main problem comes when you live outside the catchment area and want a place and Christians come first. I wonder why those who are not Christian want a place at a faith school? The only answer is because it is better, which poses the question 'would it be better if it were not a faith school' because it would then be very different school.
While I am not really bothered about having faith schools, or not, but I would certainly fight the state seizing assets that don't belong to them. It would set a nasty precedent because if they can seize church land because they want it where would it end? I also expect they would have a lot of court cases, many old church schools must have old covenants etc to be taken into account.

I don't think we should ban faith schools, I think the state should stop funding faith schools.
I grew up in NI - religious discrimination was pretty familiar there, hard to believe it still exists in England, the problem there was we didn't have enough atheists! But that's thankfully changing.

yes absolutely. faith schools discriminate against other faiths or lack thereof. totally inappropriate when it comes to education.

Think of how much more money would be in state education if the government withdrew the funding of discriminatory education. If you want a faith education for your child, pay for it yourself.

Those saying that there is mix of religions at faith schools need to try getting into the top state secondaries in my area if you aren't Catholic.

Imagine any other scenario where it is deemed OK to discriminate on the basis of religion. Do you think that would be acceptable? If not, why not and how does it differ from educating children? If you are in favour of faith based state education, do you somehow believe your children deserve a better education than their non-Christian peers?

YANBU. Anything provided by the state should be open to all, equally - that's the definition of 'public'.

Imagine that the NHS hospital nearest to you is absolute superb with the very best facilities and are the country's expert in your particular medical condition. Unfortunately it is a "faith" hospital and only accessible to, say, Jewish people. How do you feel about that idea?

I agree that there should be no more selection on grounds of parental faith, religious discrimination shouldn't be allowed to be part of state school admission criteria any more than it would be allowed to be allowed to form the decision of state hospital admission.

If the religious groups running the schools impacted by this then feel that they don't want to contribute to educating children then a 20 year 'buy back' plan should be established to give them back the proportion of capital they have in the building.

Would they be the top state secondaries if they were not Catholic?
I can't help thinking that if you removed that then you have a different school, one that may quickly slide down the league table.

I don't think it is so much the building, it is the value of the land which is sky high, the reason for schools selling off their playing fields.

Just to give some context to that, given some of the assumptions higher up the thread, I am not an atheist. I'm a Quaker and think that there is 'that of God (or good, depending on how you want to approach it) in everyone'.

That's the whole point - everyone has a conscience and an inner beauty which deserves respect, acknowledgement and care. It is not for me to say how someone else should tread their path spiritually, it is for me to support them as they find their own way.

Social justice is also a big deal for Quakers (not to say that it is not for others.of different or no faith). But I can't see how that squares with getting advantages for me and mine over others.

And the Quakers have schools.