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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To get annoyed when dd(6) learns about Christianity?

587 replies

MooPointCowsOpinion · 20/03/2017 18:00

She is at a non-religious, normal state primary. She is the type of kid who remembers everything she's told and parrots it back, so I hear about her entire day every day at school. Almost every day she tells me they sang this song about Jesus, learnt that story about Jesus, learnt this lesson about Christianity. Every assembly they sing a Christian song.

I am an atheist. I don't want her to learn just about Christianity, all religions are important in a 'this is what some people believe' kind of way but I feel like they're indoctrinating her into Christianity by pushing it so much. I try to counter it by teaching her other religious beliefs and telling her my beliefs, but I know the steady drip drip of information could plant a seed that could lead to what I would consider radicalisation.

I've brought it up with her teacher, she's sympathetic and has given us the option to opt-out but I'd hate for her to feel singled out and to miss important things in assemblies.

Does/did it bother you? AIBU to be annoyed?

OP posts:
wavybluesky · 20/03/2017 20:03

Yanbu op. This whole 'this is a Christian country' bollocks is exactly why we haven't dropped this made up nonsense from assemblies and such.
Made up nonsense? well you're entitled to your opinion as we all are, but that statement is just that....opinion.

PuntCuffin · 20/03/2017 20:08

Sounds like another benefit to the independent sector, not being bound to a daily assembly.

EdmundCleverClogs · 20/03/2017 20:11

No, it's not opinion wavybluesky. It's fact. There is no evidence God exists. None, zilch, nada. You can believe to your heart's content, but that does not make Christianity a proven fact. This is the ultimate issue with faith - people's inability to separate it from fact. Belief and fact are two different things. With the absence of evidence, religion is made up nonsense. It was created to control people, playing on their greatest fears.

The day it is proven (any of the thousands of religions) without doubt, to be real, I'll be the first to apologise, but that day hasn't come in all the history of the Earth, and I highly doubt it will. So it should not be taught as fact in an educational setting to young minds. Even if most of them see it as the stories they are. How is humanity ever to progress if we teach fairytales as facts in education?

SparkleSunshine201 · 20/03/2017 20:21

EdmundCleverClogs ridiculous. You sound deranged.

FrogsLegs31 · 20/03/2017 20:21

Thanks Tealstar Grin

I forgot one of the best tho!
Hand me down my silver trumpet

meditrina · 20/03/2017 20:23

It's not so much that churches help, fiund these school, it is that they ar church schools currently operating in co-operation with the (rather newer) state sector. The state does not own them.

No government has found the cash to buy them out (even assuming they are willing to sell), so the structure at the founding of state schooling no in the 1940s continues.

EdmundCleverClogs · 20/03/2017 20:24

SparkleSunshine201 how so? If you are going to call names, at least back it up. How is it 'deranged' to not want religion taught as fact? What benefits does it provide in this context?

ChestyCough · 20/03/2017 20:24

Radicalised from school assemblies? OP, you're not being very balanced about this, are you?

chantico · 20/03/2017 20:26

"Which bit of the bible refers to Santa?"

None of it, of course! He's a 4th century saint. It seems you might nit hav ebeen paying attention to RE in school, specifically hagiography.

(Father Christmas is the pagan version)

RainbowChasing · 20/03/2017 20:28

Wow. A lot of paranoid people here! Indoctrination? Radicalisation? No child is going to be radicalised by singing a happy little song about Noah and his ark, or listening to bible stories. I'm cringing at the hysteria.

RufusTheRenegadeReindeer · 20/03/2017 20:30

How does edmund sound deranged Confused

Madwoman5 · 20/03/2017 20:34

Hey, by year 6 they will be pushing back on the God songs, as my lads called them. By then they will have learned about the top five others; hindu, sikh, jewish, muslim and Buddhism. I always believed that if schools covered paganism people would be a shit load nicer to one another and the world they live in. However, the nearest they get is a trip to the local Buddhist temple

Boiing · 20/03/2017 20:39

Yanbu OP. I think people are giving you a very hard time about this! Of course it's the law to have a religious element etc etc but most schools politely ignore that to bring them in line with modern culture not an old fashioned law noone has the guts to repeal. The fact that it's law doesn't mean that you aren't entitled to be annoyed that your child is being taught stuff that there's no evidence for and you believe to be untrue. I think people sometimes assume that athiest means you have no belief. As opposed to actively believing that eg It's all a made uo story in the same way people used to worship trees / the sun / the wind etc. I am really hoping my son's school doesn't do this as if they do I will have to gently explain to him that his teacher is telling him nonsense - upsetting and confusing for a 4 year old, of course you should be annoyed! Anyway that doesn't actually help. They explaining that stories are ways to talk about ideas but somepeople don't understand that and think it's all something that happened. Eg Red riding hood is a story about not wandering off into a dangerous forest on your own but it didn't actually happen. In a similar way my mum explained to me that the jesus story was a made up story to illustrate the importance of kindness/ non-violence, which has got tangled up with a different story about an oppressed group who did exist a long time ago. It's actually only a little bit harder than explaining about Santa or the tooth fairy. The hard bit is explaining why school is teaching the oppositr and all you can really do there is say that some of the teachers don't understand that it didn't actually happen.

ollieplimsoles · 20/03/2017 20:40

sparkle

Resorting to name calling is never a good idea in a debate.

scottishdiem · 20/03/2017 20:40

EdmundCleverClogs is correct. Belief and fact (or science) are separate things. As SJ Gould called them - non-overlapping magisteria.

Epipgab · 20/03/2017 20:42

"Which bit of the bible refers to Santa?"

Start at the beginning, and read until you find him.

(You won't actually find him of course, but it's a good read nonetheless Grin)

FritzDonovan · 20/03/2017 20:43

I'm assuming all the "atheists" who don't like their kids being taught Christianity at school also don't celebrate Christmas or Easter at home
Haha. Atheists are just as able to adopt celebrations as Christians have been to adopt previous religious celebrations.

realtruth.org/articles/228-prh.html

missyB1 · 20/03/2017 20:46

It always amuses me how some parents like to get their knickers in a twist about this. Ffs we all had religious input at school, assemblies, RE lessons, Nativity play etc... All without becoming radicalised!!

PlymouthMaid1 · 20/03/2017 20:49

Edmund sounds very rational unlike those who have 'faith'. I was never keen on the God stuff at school myself or for my kids but we are all rampant atheists. I would just provide her with skills to question it and save the stories so that she can be good at quizzes when older.

ILoveDolly · 20/03/2017 21:09

I am a Christian, I go to church, sometimes my children come too. Only one is really interested in church. My children go to a CofE school and learn about other religions as well as Christianity. They're not baptised, I'll let them choose.
My husband is not a Christian and does not hide his atheism. We have chats about belief and religion at home, and about being ok with your own personal take on the world, on questioning yourself and what you've been told. I believe that we should never stop questioning and being open minded to new ideas. This may seen a strange standpoint from a Christian but I was an Atheist for 30 years.....
Teach your children intellectual curiosity. Don't worry about their beliefs. You can't really force them to believe in what you believe in either way....

Crumbs1 · 20/03/2017 21:16

Well you can withdraw the child but that might be a pity to single her out, stop her taking part in Christmas shows, school carol concerts etc. Christmas is a uniquely Christian celebration - its in the name. Of course you can celebrate something else like the solstice but that isn't Christmas. Easter likewise is a Christian celebration - again you can celebrate the spring/lambing season or whatever but it isn't Easter. A pity to be so hypocritical and use the foundations of Christianity without some degree of understanding.
Much better surely to educate, to teach about others beliefs, to understand our Christian heritage and traditions and allow your children to accept or reject later in their lives.
Most adults sang hymns at school. Very few would consider themselves Christian.

Puffykins · 20/03/2017 21:17

But, bible aside (and those are stories and parables that should not necessarily be read as literal - which children come to realise in their own time without its being pointed out to them and thus naturally question faith and religion) Christianity is basically about loving thy neighbour as thyself, whoever thy neighbour might be. I simply don't see the harm in it. And many of the stories in the bible are excellent starting points for philosophical debate - but one has to know them first.

ollieplimsoles · 20/03/2017 21:21

Not goading at all and I hope you don't think I am, but how did you come to have faith:

This may seen a strange standpoint from a Christian but I was an Atheist for 30 years.....

It is an unusual view for a christian, do you not feel that a belief in the bible and in god kind of stifles intellectual curiosity? As the more we unfold about the world through scientific endeavor, the more we move away from religious beliefs that were once accepted as truth?

noeffingidea · 20/03/2017 21:21

missyB1 got to agree, the word 'radicalised' is a bit strong in this situation.

ollieplimsoles · 20/03/2017 21:27

Christianity is basically about loving thy neighbour as thyself, whoever thy neighbour might be. I simply don't see the harm in it. And many of the stories in the bible are excellent starting points for philosophical debate - but one has to know them first.

I slightly agree with this, but that's a very broad description of Christianity. There are many factions to Christianity, and not all of them are very nice.
I do agree its useful to know bible stories but the problem is, children are always fed the same ones (I work in Children's publishing and I see the same stories come up again and again). Its very easy to manipulate the story of say- Noah and the great flood, to make it all friendly for children. In reality its quite a dark and vengeful story when read directly from the bible.