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.

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

Sure. if they aren't gay.

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

I didn’t think realise that Christianity was a condition of having an amazing life.

YANBU. "Don't worry, they won't be converted by one assembly" is not a positive reason to allow this. My dc are staunch atheists and attended/attend our village CofE primary. Pretty much all the local primaries are CofE. The local secondary is not a church school and I'm pretty sure it would not allow religious groups to hand out bibles. I'd ban faith schools tbh.

We had someone come to our school assembly to tell us:

a. That glue sniffing was bad. His brother had done it and it had caused all sorts of bad things.
b. That Anarchy was bad.
c. That if the 1967 abortion act had been brought in earlier, a lot of us wouldn't be there. (Abortion was bad too).

I have no idea why they let him in, but we all thought he was a nutter and got on with our lives.

If anyone is doing assemblies, it should be part of the RE/ethics and philosophy curriculum/PHSE and should be part of the syllabus and have the same standards. There are far too many organisations that treat schools as a captive audience for their views (not just religious). I have no objection to Gideons giving out their bibles and telling children that they think it is good to read a bible (they won't anyway) but I have just googled and there was an account of a school assembly that was about bibles etc, and they brought along a load of snakes and exotic creatures for the children to handle, and I thought that was .

*ignore think

I agree, cults should not be allowed to proselytise to young children in school. The sooner we raise our countries consciousness to a legally secular society the better, more tolerant and enlightened we will all start to become.

The majority of people in this country would lose their shit if their child was offered a qu'ran..

Maybe the school can invite the Humanist Society if they want to show they're inclusive

've noticed some schools in my area (the ones I kn ow about) talk about their inclusive ideas and indeed make it clear they introduce the children to all sorts of religions.

Yet it seems rare that they also cover the non religious beliefs that people hold. (OK, this is based on the different people I talk to, although I have had reason to deal with a few schools here.)

Interesting that isn't it?

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

Yes, because whether you have an amazing life is definitely dependent on becoming a Christian.

I wouldn't be happy about it either if that were a lay school.
DD attends a Catholic School even though she's not baptised. She doesn't have to attend some stuff around the Holy Communion but she goes to church on Fridays (which she considers boring but likes the walk in the fresh air) and even got a blessing yesterday even though she got no cross. They are pretty cool about it and so is she, to be honest. We are both atheists and that's how she is brought up but I also believe that she needs to be exposed to different religions and ideas and thinking.

BertrandRussell fwiw I often agree with you, not about everything obviously!

Tabby where did I say she likes them? I said she finds them interesting...

The creation, the parables, the disciples, the commandments, the prophecies have all been mentioned as "interesting". I've never actually asked her if she likes them... probably like anything else, she likes the bits she chooses

“He that has ears to hear, let him hear”

@CraftyGin

“Let then hear as long as it’s how we want” huh?

Nonsense

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 fail to see the advantage of having a Christ in my DD's life. What is he going to do? Help her with maths? Wash her uniform?
The Christian life can also be a pretty fucked up one. And an atheist life can be an amazing one. It all depends on circumstances.

Someone of us go out of our way to get our children to a non religious school. It is ridiculous that the government doesn't provide enough secular schools for children.

The Christian life is a wonderful one

As long as you’re not gay of course.

And by enough i mean ALL the schools receiving government money or tax breaks. If people want Christian schools they should pay for them like they do in other countries.

I agree with OP as well. it wouldn't be so bad if representatives of all the main myth systems were invited in to hand out their storybooks to kids, but the fact that only one lot mostly get to do this is Not On.

I have no particular objection to DC reading a variety of books, but the trouble with keeping it to just the one myth system in school is it gives the impression that this particular set of fairytales is more true than the others because, if not, why would the school be endorsing it?

(Mind you, I dislike the fact that shitty manufactured z-list pop bands come into schools, as well. It's basically marketing specific stuff at DC in an environment that convinces them that The Zit Twins are more special than any other pubeless squeakers peddling generic pop because the Zit Twins actually came in to their school...)

@Valentinesfart totally agree. If you want a C of E school, smashing. But don’t expect tax payers’ money to fund it. Pay for it yourself

*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
*
Firstly, do not presume to tell me what to say. Who on earth are you to tell anyone to "go easy on that kind of talk"?

Secondly, yes...I was quite clearly talking about BOTH the Bible & the Koran.

Alright, Mummy?

Didn't this debate get done the other day?

I imagine schools would be quite happy to allow Scientologists in to spread their good word?

Gideon Bibles in school
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/3161366-gideon-bibles-in-school

I did read once that kids who go to church primaries and Sunday school are not the ones who get drawn into the extreme Christian cults. Presumably because they found it all a bit boring and normal, so not interested!

Damn straight OP. The Bible is chockfull of revolutionary ideology about how God will lift up the poor and hungry and humble the rich and powerful. Fucking outrageous.