To want the Gideons to get the #### out of my child's school

[PatriarchyPersonified]

As I have made clear on threads on here in the past, I am an atheist (I'm actually a strong anti-theist) and I believe in the secularisation of society. (i.e religion can be there for people who want it but it should be irrelevant to anybodies day to day life unless they want to make it relevant.)

I believe that children should be taught about religions in school, as part of a comprehensive RE syllabus, and particularly about Christianity, as I believe from a cultural and historical perspective, it is impossible to fully understand the history and culture of the UK without reference to the bible. I would feel the same way about the Qu'ran if I lived in an Arab country btw.

What I am not happy about is that my oldest DC (12) has just had the bloody Gideon Society hosting an assembly in their school and dishing out Bibles! School is not the place for this. There is a reason why religious groups always target schools and prisons, its where the easy targets are.

I think if you make a big deal of it your children will want to know what is so powerful about religion and you risk them falling for it all the more.

A key part of being a Christian is telling others about the Christian faith. This is what the Gideons are doing.

If you children are not destined to respond to the message, them nothing will happen to them on being in the same room as some New Testaments.

However, if your children are destined to respond, then they will at some point on their lives, regardless of your intervention or disapproval Let them respond at a young age and have Christ in their lives, and the joy that brings, as long as possible. The Christian life is a wonderful one.

I always find it bewildering that self-styled open-minded people are actually the most closed-minded.

If you children are not destined to respond to the message, them nothing will happen to them

'destined to'?

Think of it as a collection of extraordinary and varied pieces of literature that have shaped western cultures for centuries.

You do come across as so petrified that your DC may believe in a religion one day that you want to shield them from anyone who may paint religion in a positive way. You obviously don't see religion as a positive thing but many thousands do. You can't expect your DC to only have it presented to them as you wish it to be. Not everyone feels the same as you and the very nature of religion is that people think it is the true and wish to share that truth with others. No one can turn your children in to a Christian or Muslim or Buddhist, etc. They will make their own way in life and will be exposed to people who believe in different things and wish to share their views. School is the perfect place imo as it is an environment where the teachers are listening to the assembly and watching for extremist views and can discuss the assembly afterwards in form time or RE classes.

Doesn't matter whether they are "required" to or not....many do. It's hard to imagine that a school with a representation of a bloodied, tortured corpse hanging on the dining room wall is likely to go down the "some people believe" route, for example.

If religious beliefs are as private & personal as we keep being told they are, why the hell are they forming any part of a school day at all?

Private and personal beliefs belong at home & in church. Keep them there.

I got a bible through the post as part of a mail out programme from our local church.

It’s going back with no postage. I’m tempted to wrap it round a brick to.

A school (and indeed your home) should be free of attempts at indoctrination

Given the Gideon's generally present children with the new testament there won't be any of that.

Treat it as a cultural exercise. Some people believe in a god and this is the book they read...

tabby Or the Songs of Solomon and the powerful female characters (especially if you have the Apocrypha). I'm not sure what your objection is - there's worse in literature - you just have to teach your DC to think and they'll be fine and make their own decisions. You can't bowdlerise literature or holy texts because you don't like many or most of the messages. .

My main objection to the Gideon bible is it's not King James. So the lovely redolent language is lost.

I also disagree with them being handed out. We are also atheists.

However, as we are a Christian country (for better, for worse it's a fact) our slant on it is to use it as a discussion point. None of mine have kept theirs although they did all choose to keep their primary school ones. I did too until very recently!

We have a potentially religious provocative Wifi 'name' - it's not offensive. DD had a joint party with a friend who's family are practicing Christians, as are some of their friends. DD asked me to change the name in case they were offended. I refused on the grounds that I wouldn't ask them to change theirs if it had a religious context and they have to accept our views as we do theirs.

CraftyGin

Did you read all my posts? I don't shove atheism on my children and I have encouraged them to look at religion from an open minded perspective.

My objection is the use of a school to proselytise young children.

I wouldn't want the Humanist Society talking to them either. Nobody with an agenda to push at all.

The RE syllabus is more than sufficient for them to get what they need.

I agree with the OP. I'd like my children to be taught about all religions and their beliefs but I don't want them to be taught 'a religion'. One of the teachers in their school is a very staunch Christian. Fine, that's her choice but her beliefs are brought into the classroom.

tabby plenty of oppression of women, ethnic groups, rapes and other unsavoury goings on in the bible so just go handy there with that kind of talk.

As for prisons, I’ve seen far more good than harm done by religious people supporting prisoners. When it comes to it and a homeless prisoner is released with nowhere to go and the Council can’t find anywhere it’s always the religious groups that fill the gap and find somewhere for them.

HotCrossBunFight

The New Testament is worse to be honest. At least in the Old Testament when God had wiped out your race and you had watched the Israelites rape your daughters to death, you could at least die to escape it.

In the New Testament the torture and punishment literally never end even after you die.

Notevilstepmother

You mean like this?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_to_Islam_in_prisons?wprov=sfla1

OP YANBU. State schools especially should not allow the unchallenged promotion of religion. I dispair at the doublethink that goes into justifying government policy on religion and schools in the face of a majority non-believing population and the horrendous impact of faith in places like Northern Ireland and the Middle East (not to mention England’s own history).

I am going to disagree about the RE syllabus being sufficient.

I briefly worked in a secondary school covering lessons (glorified crowd control!) and did a few RE lessons.

The majority of Y10s had no idea that Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in the same G-d but follow different prophets.
Y8s who couldn't grasp that what is normal to them is alien to others because of the religious teachings but that doesn't in itself make it wrong.

Personally, I'd start with primary school learning about the key festivals and religious teachings of all the religions. Then in secondary school you start with where the religions overlap and share the same teachings, moving on to where and why they differ in other areas.

What exactly are you afraid of, PP?

That your children might become Christian and have an amazing life?

Do you nitpick everything at school? There are loads of potentially objectionable topics across the curriculum, if you are closed-minded.

I have been to a Gideon presentation at my first school, and it was very much along the lines of “this is what our charity does” (basically put Gideon bibles in hotel rooms worldwide, and why they do it). Given that their modus operandus is to give away bibles, they have New Testaments to give out to children. Schools will have several charities from all walks of life that come in to do assemblies to inform the children about what their charity does. They give SLT/MLT a break, tbh.

YANBU - religious indoctrination should not be in schools.

Do you not feel confident in your ability to raise children to be independent thinkers, able to make up their own minds

If Christians did they wouldn't feel the need to indoctrinate children.

I am confident in my ability to raise my children but can't seen any reason for the need for anyone to fill their heads with sky fairies. Parenting is hard enough without the added unnecessary bulllshit.

It also puts people in the more difficult position of having to push back. Instead of being a lovely person who says "some people believe this" I have to tell my children it's all a lof horse shit and that it should be disregarded entirely.

And then the Christian parents are pissed off at me because my kid told them it's all a lod of horseshit.

It’s a one off. They’re a well meaning bunch but possibly a little old fashioned in their outlook and approach.

I bet there wasn’t a woman with them?

They came to the schools I taught at on an annual basis. Generally the talks were ok. Along the lines of this is what we do, we believe etc.

They didn’t preach. ( unlike one or two Christian groups who came in. Even as a Churchgoer/believer I wasn’t 100% happy with one group in particular - and this was in a secular school.)

I absolutely agree with you, OP. A position I have never found myself in before!

I'm with you OP. This stuff makes me really annoyed. Why should it be acceptable?