to not want my kid to go to a mosque ...again!

[moaningminnie2]

We live in North Yorkshire and every year the village Cof E school run a whole-school trip to Bradford.First they went to a mosque, then the following year a Gurdwara and then a Hindu temple, and now this year back to a mosque again.They do that in the morning, then have lunch and a run around in a park, and then in the afternoon a quick visit to 'Bombay Stores' and then back home for school pick up. DD and her friends don't want to go ( they went in Y2) and I resent having to pay £13 for each of my 2 kids at the school.Whaty is the point of going to the same place again, and do the school get 'Brownie Points' for doing this sort of RE trip.

Re saudi my muslim colleagues loathe saudia arabia and believe they have damaged the reputation of islam irreparably with their interpretation of it. They tell me that more and more muslims are feeling the same.

Its v sad that muslim mnetters should have to defend how they choose to dress. I know lots of muslims who cover and not one of them have been forced (we have discussed this at length). They are all modern, trendy, independent working women. Please lets live and let live.

I'm totally appalled at the notion that any MNer should be forced to defend how they dress. Some disgustingly ignorant and racist posts here.

I work with plenty of successful dynamic Muslim women who wear hijab, I'm sure they wear it out of choice - in fact in the case of a couple of close colleagues, I know they do as we have talked about it.

However I'm not sure some of our service users are exercising the same freedom of choice. It's not a binary issue!

Re the OP - daft. £13 is lots though, are you from Harrogate? Is it a luxury coach?

Also I think there's a big difference between covering hair and dressing modestly vs wearing a burqa!

I see Maisy eventually had to abandon her absurd contention that all Muslim women choosing to cover were downtrodden liars.
Yes Feenie absolutely. And all because some deeply xenophobic posters object to their children visiting a mosque.
I agree that the OP probably wouldn't be objecting to the £13 or the frequency of the trip in the same way if it were to anywhere else.

I went to school in West Yorkshire and loved the day we did a round of mosques and temples in Bradford. Muslim, Sikh amongst others. Enlightened me totally and really educational.

My youngest son did a Sikh temple in his last year at primary now we are down south, and he raved and kept informing of new little snippets he learned for weeks afterwards.

I would encourage them after all at 2 years older than last time it could be a totally different experience.

As for the £13... suck it up. As a mum of 4 all now in or finishing secondary school, it is going to get a whole lot worse I can tell you!!

OP North Yorkshire is predominately white/Christian/non-religious, and yet only 5 miles away from Keighley; a much more mixed community.

In the villages outside Keighley, including mine and no doubt your's there are lots of prejudices and ignorance, swirling around. That's why these visits are so important.

My children went. They found it really interesting.

I think religious organisations are being held up as a tad precious here. They are in the main inherently sexist (there's an 'ist' for you) in their structure, hierarchy, politics and running. I think people find it very handy to bring up racism as the trump accusation. I think discrimination based on gender is much bigger. Women over 50% of the world pop. and happens everywhere. And the organisations who perpetuate it held up as sacrosanct and so admirable.

Maybe the visits to these institutions could be used to create awareness about the treatment of gender and discriminatory practices by these religious organisations to give a complete and more critical analysis in RE.

I'm not letting anyone off here, C of E for hundreds of years didn't allow women in their clergy. It's only very recently on that aspect.

Maybe on why 'gods' worshipped have been adopted/created as a male form. What about the goddess?

I don't understand why under the guise of being non bigoted, why people are such non critical cheerleaders for all these 'amazing' discriminatory religious organisations, and thus supportive of gender discrimination.

So in the heel of the hunt, if children must learn about religions in school, have proper critical analysis. It is up to the adherents of religions to hold them sacred. Not education in a public school. And as someone mentioned earlier, Atheism should be a counter to this.

What people believe in is their own business. When it's being taught/promoted in a curriculum, it is a different matter. Respect for the fact that people can believe in what they want does not automatically equate to a respect for their beliefs. Didn't apartheid south africans believe/interpret that the bible gave them a special position? If a belief is discriminatory, it has no place be uncritically taught in civic society.

Oh, and I'm talking about all religious beliefs here. Just before someone tries to pigeon hole and go off on one to obscure the main thrust.

I'm wrong to say Atheism should be taught as a 'counter' to supernatural/deity based religions. It is a belief, just like them.

Lots of prejudice and ignorance in religions/religious organisations too. Indeed some may say they are based on prejudice and ignorance. And children are being taught about them uncritically in schools.

Ye gods!

back to the OP - are they going at a different time of year from last time? I'm afraid I know nothing about the Islamic year (which is shocking in itself, and something I need to learn about) but surely things going on the the mosque would be different at Eid and Ramadan, for example? If a child visited a church at Christmas, it would still be valid for them to visit again at Easter.

But also - are there any synagogues or Quaker meeting houses they could visit, if variety is what you're after?

Personally, I think the more people know about other people's belief systems (including atheism, which is of course a belief system, and agnosticism) the better.

Personally, I think the more people know about other people's belief systems (including atheism, which is of course a belief system, and agnosticism) the better

Can.i just ask why?

Genuine question.

I mean I am.doing my best to try and teach my children to respect that people believe different things and what matters is bow people are as people. Regardless of how they look.or dress or what they believe.

But so much of any religion is open to individual interpretation isn't it? How can anyone be sure that what their children are learning is factually correct. I don't understand any of it myself really. It's not something I think about when I talk to people. They are who they are to me I dont define them by a set of beliefs they may or may not have.

Isn't it genuinely also a worry that in trying to be inclusive you are also highlighting differences that kids otherwise wouldn't notice.

I don't believe myself but I know people do and tats up to them obviously. I have to admit I have found answering my Dds questions about jesus and god hard as I don't know what to say because I want her to make her mind up herself.

How do we go about it all.

OK, I'm probably going to be very inarticulate, Giles, but I'll give it a go.

I look to my mum. She is a staunch Catholic, but is perfectly capable of forming her own judgements about what the church is up to (she wasn't too keen on Pope Benedict) - I think for her, her religion is quite a private thing, she certainly never talks of her beliefs.

She also knows a lot about other religions, especially Judaism (the synagogue is at the bottom of our road and the rabbi lives on our road) and Hinduism - for example, she will usually know where in their religious year they are, and what each main festival means. We were talking about eruvs the other day and she was able to tell us a lot about them and how they work - she didn't agree with the idea but at least she had the information!

She is interested, informed and non-judgemental. Her beliefs clearly mean a lot to her (the church was very supportive when my dad (not RC) died, and in fact his ashes were the first to go into her church's remembrance garden, even though he never attended mass there) but she's not insular or narrow-minded (we didn't attend an RC school, for example, though we did have to go to mass every week).

I also think it's impossible to understand the history of many countries, including our own, without knowing a lot about that country's religions.

Although religion means so little to many of us in the UK, globally it means a lot to a lot of people. And I think the more information we have, the more we can try to understand about many of the conflicts around the world.

I find the questions hard too as I'm really not sure what my own beliefs are - DD is christened but we don't go to church and I feel so ambivalent about it.

See, I said it was inarticulate. Doesn't really make sense to me. I just feel very strongly that I want DD to know about certainly all the main religions of the world, and if that meant visiting a mosque a couple of times, great.

What about a visit to a Scientology worship place? All the same daft nonsense after all.

Pangurban Thu 02-Oct-14 10:00:51

Totally Agree.

It would be interesting to see how this thread would have gone if someone had said = it was a catholic church rather than a mosque.

i bet everyone would have said fine its too much don't go.

not sure why its racists to say you don't want your kids taken to a mosque twice. Isn't it Religiousist?

Op I would simply ASK THE SCHOOL why they are doing this, your not happy with it and they want more variety. School trips are rare, and I would not want mine going back to a religious building twice.

I do not give one shiny and glittery shit, how much they would learn differently about the said building from one year to the next.

Awareness of other religions YES. That is all that is needed, after all there are so many religions out there are there not...

giles as for different interpretations. look at Dr Raj Tag work, he is a modern progressive Muslim who wants women to be included in friday prayers, thinks its hideous Halal meat is being slipped into main stream food and so on, wants women to shed the veil.

What about a visit to a Scientology worship place? All the same daft nonsense after all

Yes indeed, is there a great need for children to be exposed to Ron Hubbards work?

I also think it's impossible to understand the history of many countries, including our own, without knowing a lot about that country's religions.

Very true which is why I think classics needs teaching for GCSE's and when you learn about the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and their love of deity one will realise how much hocus pocus all religion is.

If Scientology is still around in 1000 years time and has had a massive impact on world culture, then schools will probably visit those as well.

No. It's not the traditional religion of the UK

LOL @ Dixie. Sorry to burst your OMGDISISACHRISTIANCUNTRY! bubble, but you might want to get your bum up to Bradford and take a look around you. Plenty of British Muslims around, I think you'll find.

I am happy for my children to visit a mosque or any other place of worship. Nothing like close contact with a religion for getting a feeling for how oppressive, ridiculous and mysogynist they are (with a little bit of homophobia thrown in to leaven the mix). Good also for pointing out the difference between what people say they believe and what they do.

Not just Islam of course, any of the world's major religions (although I admit to a soft spot for Christianity as practised by the Quakers).

but even if something is (according to some people) hocus pocus - anything that has such an enormous effect on countries, peoples, polices, and has done for 1000s of years, should be known and an effort, at least, should be made to understand it. Just saying airily, oh, it's all gibberish, is actually pretty unhelpful.

and it's not just history - art, music, literature - just about every cultural form over the centuries has been influenced, or has depicted, religious subjects.

very interesting new book out heard author on radio four, the type of religion is irelavant its the sentiment behind it, the tribalism. the need for humans to feel like they belong and replacing religion with communism is all same thing, or worship of Kim John etc

also very interesting post a while back saying people who are devoted to their religion actually suffer some sort of psychological defect as they cannot accept we are here on earth without having to believe in a reason behind it.

You can learn about it all river without going to a mosque twice, you can learn about the nazis without going to the concentration camps.

YANBU because if they want to teach about other religions to be comprehensive and open, I would think that visiting a Synagogue take precedence over visiting a mosque again. (I had some good times in a Sefarade synagogue, I am a bit biased :) )

yes, of course you can, but places of worship can be beautiful, inspiring, wonderful architecturally and it can be very interesting to know how a place of worship works, what happens where and why, the parts of the service.

I'm not sure about your Nazis analogy - are you saying that visiting a concentration camp is a worthless experience? DH has been to Aushwitz, I doubt he would agree.