Its perfectly acceptable to be rude to religous people...

[startrek90]

Definately going to get flamed here but oh well.

I get the feeling that this is perfectly acceptable to be rude about religous people. From reading the threads on this forum, and my experiences in RL, the amount of rudeness and sometimes plain nastiness is awful.

I am religous. I don't care if people are not, if they go to church or how they live their own lives or raise their children. As far as I am concerned as long as you obey the law, do what you want.

So far I have seen people imply that all religous people are closing their childrens mind, are ignorant, bigots.... its horrible!

I don't deny that there are people who are that way and use religion as an excuse.... but quite frankly you can be ignorant and rude without religion.

I am being unreasonable to be offended, but it really bothers me that its culturally acceptable to be rude to and about people of faith. You wouldn't do it to someone from a different culture or race would you? I have never bothered anyone with my faith so please stop taking it as an insult!

(Just venting, been lambasted in RL for daring to buy my son a Noahs ark toy. I thought it was cute with all the animals etc... but apparently I am raising him to be ignorant, bigoted and stupid. He will hate gay people and women and generally be a horrible person.....apparently grrr )

And as to the 'fairies' thing - as I said, those comments come over to me as silly and annoying. I think that's how I'd have seen them when I was a Christian. I think they reflect rather badly both on the people who use them and on the people who get offended by them, they always add heat rather than light to a debate. (I've said as much on other threads before now.)

Hak I don't believe the place Christianity has in our society is forced upon anyone. People in this country are allowed religious freedom, as long as they are not harming anyone.

"Interestingly no one has answered my question of 8.04 when I asked if you can't bully if stating a fact"

Presumably because it goes without saying- of course you can

Have established that -who decides with the school child if it is bullying-the child who feels bullied or the bully? Do you just tell the child who feels bullied ' toughen up and grow a backbone you are just been given the facts'.

Personally I would tell the bully that although they think they are the facts the other child doesn't agree and is upset and therefore please stop the behaviour'.

I doubt hak would complain of bullying but a couple of people on this thread seem to be specifically trying to provoke and trap her. That's not exactly nice

And Hak is being 'nice' when she knows perfectly well that Christians don't equate a belief in God with a belief in fairies and yet she persists in saying it isn't rude to be completely insensitive when she know she is using it as a put down as in 'your beliefs are utter rubbish, childish and silly' and insists that she can't possibly use a bit of tact and kindness because she is 'stating a fact'. I wouldn't ride roughshode over someone else's views-however much I disagree with them. You can disagree politely.

Well, non Christians don't have freedom of choice when it comes to education in England.....although Christians do

They are allowed to opt out. If they all opted out and left the minority 'in' there wouldn't be a problem.
It all goes down to the history of education in UK and the state can't afford to buy all that church land and buildings.

Can I opt out of not being able to send my kid to either of the state schools near us? That'd be grand, cheers.

I can never figure out why chruch schools actively discriminate. You'd think they'd either want to convert as many little heathens as possible, or at least educate a number of disadvantaged children who more closely reflect the local population.

It is all very simple. You go around the school playground and canvass opinion on collective worship. You hold a meeting and all agree to opt your children out of it-your right. You get left with a few children feeling awkward because they are in collective worship. Problem solved.
However, I think that it wouldn't work. It seems the majority on this thread are very anti Christianity in school whereas the majority are not bothered -or think they have a secular school.

Not opt out of school-opt out of collective worship.
If everyone felt like the majority on this thread then you wouldn't have it.

Most church schools don't discriminate-they are the only school in the village-in a 20 radius. They take all. It is only cities like London where you have to jump through hoops to get in and that is because parents think they are the best schools.

It is a very weird idea that they would want to convert-seeing as they have failed miserably if that was their intention. They would also never use words like 'heathens'.

Imagine the fuss if a Head or a teacher used a word like 'heathen' they would be suspended. Yet they can be hurled around on this thread!

16% of places at state schools (1.2 million) are subject to religious selection in their admissions criteria. A few too many, and disproportionately concentrated in some areas.

Mind you, those folk in the village where the only option is CofE or Catholic aren't getting much opportunity to opt out, either.

It's how the Head of my very religious school described them, Mehitabel. And given I'm hurling it at my own child....

What I'm saying is that, through discriminatory selection practices, churches undermine their self-professed ethos of service - both by not taking the opportunity to 'spread the word' and by de facto excluding a disproportionate number of the least privileged children.

What I'm saying is that, through discriminatory selection practices, churches undermine their self-professed ethos of service - both by not taking the opportunity to 'spread the word' and by de facto excluding a disproportionate number of the least privileged

I agree with you there Jassy. Although I'm not sure many of the atheists on this thread would like it any better if they did not discriminate. I would but I want to spread the Gospel.

In my area they would be in the local paper for saying that-parents wouldn't have just taken it lying down.

Why wouldn't we like it if schools removed religious discrimination?

I'd far rather see a system like the US or Australia, but removing overt discrimination against children would be a nice first step towards removing institutional privilege.

I'm quite comfortable calling my child a heathen. As long as I promise not to call any other kids that, is that ok?

I think that all oversubscribed schools should take the least privileged. Birmingham grammar schools have made a start by lowering the 11+ entry scores for the least privileged. Middle class parents grab the best schools by whatever way they can and church schools are very often perceived to be the best. Perhaps we need a lottery for places.

If someone comes to MY door and starts preaching crap at me then yes, I do tell them to piss off

I am not sure that my children would even know what heathen means -it is so outdated.

I don't tell them to 'piss off'-I say 'I am not interested, thank you' and close the door. Politeness costs nothing.

I think lotteries are a very good idea, with demographic smoothing.

I don't want religious discrimination Jassy. Just a place for Christianity within all areas of society, including schools. I'd be happy for other religions to have a place too, for those that wanted them.

I believe in full inclusiveness within society and schools. BTW I don't agree on selecting by ability either.

I don't agree with lotteries as I think a school should successfully serve the local community it is in. Why should people have to travel miles?

Really? How about education? And the automatic presence of 25 bishops in the House of Lords which means there is a Christian block input into all legislation. Particularly relevant to legislation concerned with science, social and health policy.

Pretty I thank them for their time. They never spend long, anyway.