AIBU to expect religion to be taught & practised at religious schools?

[KristinaM]

I am getting rather fed up with the threads that go........

" Although we are not Jewish we have chosen to send our son to the local Jewish school, its got a good ethos and great results. Now he has started we are very angry and upset to discover that they celebrate all the Jewish festivals and have acts of worship with a rabbi present.They even take them to the synagogue.

I don't want to have my child brainwashed with fairy stories.I only want him exposed to my particular beliefs. I am worried he will grow up and have a mind of his own and not believe the same as me. How can I get the school to change to suit me??"

I thought it was only Germans who don't do irony.

Didn't sugarmatches say she was from the US?
Where 'irony' means having ferrous metal

Oh, I do irony Caroline, but only if it's done well!

irony my arse. is a bit rubbish to hurl abuse andthen say it was a joke.

i had to disappear (damned rl ) but have just caught up with the thread... and i have to say that UQD has been clear and well reasoned all the way through. unlike caroline i feel.

and expecting something to become reality anytime soon is not a barrier to wanting it to happen or believing it should. should Mandela have given up his dreams because the odds were against him? what a terrible argument.

someone pointed out earlier that they know not a single person who has converted from non-believer to a person of faith (in religion), only the other way round. they were making a different point, but i think tis pertinent to point out that there may be a very fine reason for this; ie it is perfectly obvious, when looked at with any reason or logic, that all religions are not true, to put it simply. many of them have perfectly charming and attractive elements, im sure, but none of them can seriously be regarded as fact.
the disbelief in religion is not another belief system, it is an irreversible realisation, and a very simple one at that.

but that is by the by. the discussion is about schools and i agree with every word UQD has said on this thread.

i was on this thread last night and once again I am with NG on this!

I wasn't even going to get involved again but feel UQD and those apples of his need backing up!!

If the football team analogy didn't get it across then nothing will.

After my comments last night I have now decided that I dont want my daughter taught religion at all! I will do it and then she can make unbiased informed decisions of her own.

In my mind religion has so much to answer for, so many people have died because of it and far too much money has been made because of it.

Ok so there will be no pearly gates openinjg for me but white aint my colour anyway!!!

oh and can I also add that I too love this discussion because we have all been able to have our say without anyone jumping down our throats - too much!

Nappiesgalore - "
and expecting something to become reality anytime soon is not a barrier to wanting it to happen or believing it should. should Mandela have given up his dreams because the odds were against him? what a terrible argument."
I am not sure whose argument this is, but it certainly isn't mine. My argument is this. If there is a call for a certain type of school then it should not be abolished just because I don't agree with cross-dressing, wearing purple, juggling with heinz beans, Christianity, Judaism or whatever. I am comfortable with people having different views I don't need everyone to feel the same, be the same, attend the same school etc. It is called tolerance.

Unquietdad said to me that he was slapping his head because I did not get it (implying I am thick. I don't agree with the majority always legislating for the minority. Personally, I think it is a bit rude to suggest I am thick because I happen to disagree with him.

Caroline, we don't all want all faith schools abolished. I don't see why they shouldn't be available as a choice - and state funded at that - the issue is when there really isn't any other good choice. And its not just atheists (rabid or not, woof woof) who fall foul of this.

For instance where I am, surrounded by CofE or RC schools. Our neighbour had her kids before us, being ignorant of how things worked we were rather suprised when she was driving off to tiny school in another village with 3 teachers and zero PE facilities. Well she explained, she was a Catholic so they couldn't go to our CofE village school. I realised in time before asking further that the RCs were also probably not an option as she was divorced and remarried.

UQD "...In other words, if faith schools didn't exist, would it be necessary to invent them? "

i think that yes, people of whatever religeous persuasion would like their children to be taught in te ethos of their faith - The differenc is - i think they should pay totally for it

he continued
"And what if things were not neutral but in fact the polar opposite of how they are now? If there were atheist/rationalist schools, which required people to deny any religious affiliation whatsoever in order to gain preferential admission treatment? And these were many people's local schools? Would religious people be clamouring for this situation to change? "

yes as per the point above i think there would be a clamouring for change - the law changed so that faith schools could exists.

i dont think that true believers would deny thier faith to get into am athiest school

i chose UQDs post as i thought he has the only point all evening worth responding to - the rest is personal/argumentative with no meaning - shit.

peace UQD rock on

despite my earlier rant i truly believe that children should be taught about ALL religions but this should include Atheism. Although some will argue this is not a religion it should be part of their education that their are people that don't belive and that it is ok!

I hope that isnt argumentative shit

'world views' then not just religions? I'm not sure that 'atheism' is quite distinct enough - as I understand it Buddhists are atheists and that quite rightly does get covered already. Secular Humanism maybe?

ok I chose the word 'atheism' as a word to depict non-believers, so that our children can be educated in the true fact that as well as main religions, not to mention the 'minor religions' there is also the option not to believe in any of them.

Just wondering what I said that was "not worth responding to".
???

Its such a simple concept though, which I'm sure any small child can easily understand, that its probably hard to stretch it to a whole lesson

Surely as there is a budget for schooling, as long as every child receives adequate schooling it doesn't matter if they are at a faith school or non faith school???
It would certainly be a bit ridiculous if the faith schools just opened the flood gates to all children and the religious parents had to send their children to non-religious schools???
I think it is a pretty reasonable assumption to make that faith schools are going to take people of faith.
Having said this in my old town my daughter could not get into the local C of E (and I wanted her to go for religious reasons) because there were no places, were they all taken by Christian children? No, they were taken by Muslims, the school was attended by around 80% Muslim children.

Oh and as a reply to the actual OP's thread, rather than the argument that seemed to stem from it, of course you are not being unreasonable, I wonder how many of the Muslim parents of the the local C of E pupils were annoyed at them being taught about Christianity.

Re the OP: Of course YANBU.
Re the other debate, someone mentioned the need to make religion irrelevant for education (I think it was UQD). I think that is not possible because education is tinted with the moral values of the educators, and these values are different depending on whether one is xtian, muslim or agnostic or atheist or whatever ism. In practice, you cannot separate education from morals/philosophy of life/personal values/whatever you want to call it. Examples: sex education, origin/meaning of life, human dignity, etc etc will be taught differently. Even if these are not subjects by themselves, there is an underlying layer of moral values which come out when you teach science, philosophy, history, and these happens in both faith and non-faith schools. I don't agree that faith schools should be self-supported financially. People have the right and should have the choice to have their children educated in the moral values they believe are right, as long as these don't involve hurting other people: these moral values include from non-faith to faith ones. Or is it that people with no religous faith have no moral values to pass on through education? Of course they have them. So what makes one set of values more worthy of tax money than others?
BTW, I went to a catholic school all my life (OK, not in the UK) and apart from practicing the catholic religion, we were taught about other religions (including the "minor" ones, their origin, history, beliefs, geography and social environment) and of course about atheism (this was VERY well explained in Philosophy classes). No proper faith-school should leave atheism unexamined.
Purely from the academic point of view, the difference is not between faith and non-faith schools but between good and bad ones. Let's concentrate on make all schools better.

The same is true in our school Lorayn.
I personally don't even feel this is really an issue because the Non-Christians at our CofE school are the minority. Apart from a prayer at meal times, there is really no faith left imo. We no have a nativity, but so did the local non-faith school last year.

Maybe it's because I live in London, but most of the faith has been taken out of the school. But they do respect Ramadan by giveing the children alternate activites to take their minds off of lunch.

I can also see where UQD is coming from, but I don't think he really bothered to read my posts as I was posting the same time as another person he was arguing with!

Obviously it is not wrong to want to change something that you see is wrong. It is also not wrong to be a bit cynical about change happening.
But this is all about personal opinions and it is impossible to tailor suit a contry based on individual desires.

The Nelson Mandela comment was out of order imo...and really inapropriate for this thread imo. An entire population were being abused for far too long. He was left in prison for 27 years and any change that happened occured because of that more than anything he ever did before being imprisoned. That is disgusting!!
I can perhaps see where that poster was coming from and maybe another example may have served her better.
But that comment crashed and burned!!

country

sugarmatches
Rest assured I did read your posts. It's just not always easy to keep up with a fast-moving thread when you are working at the same time!

I have a lot of work on today but will maybe pop back in here tonight to see if there is any more I can add.

Thanks to those who have agreed, and those who have disagreed intelligently (e.g. sugar & custardo!)

Glad we can agree to disagree...but see, I don't really disagree with you.
I even agree on Grammer schools, but just because my dc are sooo clever! ;)

Dd's school is a C Of E school. It is the local village school. I accept that there is a religious leaning - assembly etc but I am glad it is not too overt, because quite frankly we had hobson's choice (as agnostics) but to send her to the local village school (well we could have gone literally miles out of our way for a non faith school but why should we)

Blimey UQD, you know how to end discussions gracefully