to think that some non-religious parents over-react just a teensy-weensy bit when their children are exposed to religion in the most benign form?

[SueBarooeeooeeooooo]

s'ok if I am. But threads complaining about this sort of thing are a regular MN feature, and I can't help thinking that some parents seem tremendously precious about it. We're Christians and it often comes up that not everyone believes the way we do, and I talk to my children about it and they wander off and scribble on the lounge walls again.

I've seen people complaining about Christian mums and tots groups, simple 'thankyou' prayers and christian charities. I am 100% ok with you bringing your children up atheist, theist, or chocolate-worshipping. Honestly, if I whipped myself up into a panic over every mention of different beliefs or none that my children encounter, I'd never get anything done.

(Please note, this is not a church schools whinge, I'm against selection on religious grounds.)

blimey o-reilly, am I chuffed to see Martin Luther getting a thumbs up at this time of year Oh, and protestant ideas had definitely made it before Henry made the big split. I'm fairly sure Anne Boleyn herself was a believing protestant.

Madamez, I wouldn't have a problem with those belief systems being evident if they were running a M&T groups at their own expense and in their own facilties.

Well, I've skimmed, but I think my position is:

Devoutly Muslim CM/devoutly evangelical step-grandmother/pagan best friend talking about their beliefs to my dc - absolutely fine.

& I'm quite happy with 'Well, your dad {Buddhist] disagrees with me [atheist] about........'

HOWEVER. As a child of atheist parents, the conflict between school (Roman Catholic) & parents ('well, you can tell Sister Claire from us she's full of sh@t') had a pretty negative effect on my attitude to school.

I don't believe it's possible for young children to balance 'Mrs X knows her stuff if it's Maths, but that stuff about Jesus? Load of old cobblers'.

Which is why I want my dc's education to be free of teachers talking tripe at them - I want them to be able to respect their teachers.

(M&T groups run by the church/mosque etc, obviously an opt-in exception)

Ruty you said ages ago

"Ok. so can I just point out that it is possible to believe in God and believe in the scientific way the earth was created, and evolution, etc. So if your child came home saying 'God made the world' you could say 'Well, some people believe......."

for me that is the problem. Having my child come home from school and say 'God made the world' is just wrong, diddly, wrong as far as I am concerned. Not whether he did or not but that my child is being taught at school that he did. The school should be providing the balance response you suggest I should.

She was indeed, Sue, and so was poor Catherine Parr (only just saved from being executed for it by Henry's very timely demise).

Henry VIII was in no sense a protestant, he was a devout Catholic who just wanted the Pope to obey his orders.

Oh, I love Catherine Parr. What a git her first husband was though. Anyway, I'm off to bed now and shall stop thinking of English history in the same manner as Eastenders...

The Christian religion is immensely powerful, but that doesn't automatically make it true. For a lot of us it simply is myth, and has no higher (or lower) status than the Greek pantheon, Norse mythology or the Egyptian gods. All very interesting and worthy of study.

But what non-religious parents get a teensy bit pissed off about is that one of these religions is presented as "true" by some schools, and, as someone else said, that children appear to be taught unquestioningly that "god made the world" and come home saying this.

I don't want to teach my children what to think. I want to teach them how to think.

I do have sympathies with the easy-going religious, who wonder why on earth we get worked up about it. I think if your mindset is of a particular faith it is often just impossible to step outside it and see that life is not "all about" that faith and that way of seeing the world. The only comparable thing to bring it home - and I know it is a daft one but there really is no other way of doing it - is to imagine something you don't believe in, like Thor or an invisible pink unicorn, and then picture your children coming home and talking about this thing and realising they have been learning that this thing, which to you is just a word or a concept, "made" the earth, and is worthy of worship.

It is a huge leap for non-believers to accept without evidence that god made the universe. Even if I ever got over that - so unlikely I'd put my house and savings on it - then it would be an even more huge leap to accept that this being was automatically worthy of worship, did all the things it was meant to have done, etc, etc.

A hornets nest has been stirred up here.
I am more than an aethiest, I am rabidly anti- religion in all its forms. But I held my tongue when my son came home with some religeous twaddle, (something about heavan) that he had been 'taught' at school by his Special needs teacher, who just happens to be the vicars wife. I held my tongue because I did not want to undermine his teachers authority and did the , 'well that is what she believes' bit, but if he doesn't start shaking off some the indoctrination soon I am going to have to do some counter brainwashing.

Unquiet dad - I do agree with you, even talking as an RE teacher. Simply put, no one religion has a truth claim that puts them above any other religion. I am an Atheist and I will be pretty peeved if my daughter is taught this when she starts school next year (because they shouldn't be, unless it is a faith school- where rules are slightly different). For my sins, I'll probably be very vocal that my daughter will not be told that God does exist and that God did create the universe etc. I will also not allow her to be forced into prayers etc at school (if she wants to that's fine) but I will exercise my right to withdraw her from worship if needs be. Sorry, but I really hate bad RE. Done well, it should be as you say - philosophical and encouraging children to ponder the great mysteries of the world. I would support that type of RE wholeheartedly.
God, I think the school is going to hate me!

DS2 (6) came home from school yesterday and said that one of his friends, O, had been talking about God. DS2 said he didn't know whether he believed in God or not, to which O replied that God would destroy him for saying that (liberal C of E teaching there ). DS2's reply was "How can he destroy me if he doesn't exist?" I was dead proud and will be encouraging him to read some Dawkins...

Our school, while also not officially C of E, does impart quite a lot of godly stuff and I try to counter it at home. The teaching is mainly in assemblies rather than in lessons and I would be shocked and angry if they were taught Biblical stories as 'truth'.

"harpsicorpse you're very reasonable and clever."

The biggest problem with the sort of woolly CofE stuff and the mindset that 'it won't do your kids any harm to have it soft-peddled to them as fact' is that too much of public education and public services for children, be it state schools or M&T groups that have not made any specific announcements that they're peddling superstition along with the tea and biscuits, is run by a particular brand of superstition. Which is eating up funding and resources. When this brand of superstition is not universal. If you live in the sort of area where everyone is white then it's probably not all that inaccurate to assume that most of them will at least pay lip service to Christianity. If you live in a place with a diverse population (given that the superstitious seem to find it impossible to believe that the non-superstitious can possibly have any valid opinions), how can you possibly think it's OK for one brand of superstition to have the default position of being the 'community' organisaition? How can a Christian group, if it;s the only school/parks committee/playgroup possibly give a proper, non-discriminating service to the community of TAXPAYERS if they are peddling Christianity to all the Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, etc?

or indeed atheists...
this is a very interesting thread suebaroo, I have found it very stimulating and enlightening.
so thanks
though it did make me late for choir
again

lol harpsi. But never a good idea to have headstone done. Tomorrow you might want to go crazee and then I'd have to come with a corkscrew and a meat hammer and chisel it out.

anyway I am not planning on dying, what with there being no afterlife and all.

just realized that sounds rather scary 'chisel it out', above and beyond the demands of halloween.

actually it sounded perfectly normal to me
that is probably not a good sign is it?

Excellent harspi. Do love that nonconformist spirit. See you in 2078.

actually it was the meat hammer bit that i thought might trip mn 'mad poster' spytech.

Still wondering about the 'wooly c of e' position that basically assumes that anyone who has a problem with it is just an attention-seeking ex-christian. There are plenty of secular muslims/hindus/sikhs/jews who would find even the softest, fluffiest peddlling of Christianity by any group that;s supposed to serve the community a bit off-putting, a bit 'you;re not one of us'. Superstiton, particularly branded superstition, should NOT be part of any public facility or public service.

OMGhelp are you someone I know? I have noticed you being erudite on two different threads and I don't know who you are

Great thread, loved reading it.
To reply to OP, yes I think we do overreact. After all religious knowledge is just that, knowledge/culture.We can discuss it at home with our kids. discussion is what develops their critical sense. It's not like we live in Iran is it?

we are not catholic but my daughter goes to a catholic school (which we gladly chose for her) It is a lovely school and they really emphasise the need to respect and help others.
They involve non catholics in everything, go to mass on holy days, say grace etc... my daughter really loves it.
What I can't understand is when i'm in the playground I often hear other parents moaning about the "God b@ll@@@s"
Why send them there then?

Jezzemx: so what other school options were there for your daughter/all children in the area where you live? And how much adherence to the relevant myth system is required for getting one's child a place. And, more importantly, how is this particular school funded?

If a utility is funded by taxpayers, then that utility has no right to discriminate amongst taxpayers. We currently have a Government that's stupidly obsessed with pandering to the superstitious to the extent of happily ignoring all the bad things the superstitious do (ooh, let's see, prejudice, violence, financial corruption, protecting nonces...), which is bad news for anyone not prepared to go along with the official superstition - despite having to pay for it.

I'm sure this has all been said, but I haven't been around to rant on my favourite subject, so just in case....
I don't object to lovely church based playgroups - I have taken the Baptists' cups of tea on many occasions and smiled benignly as the dcs sang "Who made the World" and listened to Bible stories. I chose to go there - and I think children should know the stories - they are part of their culture after all. I was outraged once - when a visiting minister gave a little talk about Christmas with a felt Christmas tree on his table, the whipped off the felt bit and it was like a tea cosy with a Cross under it 'This is the true message of Christmas" he said. Grusome, unkind and theologically unsound, I thought.
BUT when it comes to schools. There are faith schools. I don't like selection on faith criteria, but it's the system we've go and we have to live with it. What I do object to is overt Christianity at non faith schools. I think it is very important for children to be taught about religions and all the different faiths - that is what RE should be about. But they shouldn't have to actually DO it. As I said yesterday, the Christians among us wouldn't like their children to have to stand in a pentacle and invoke the Mother Goddess, or pray to Mecca on a daily basis. Well that's how I felt when my dscame home form year 1 saying that he hoped he was good enough to go to Heaven when he dies, or when my dd came home in year 6 with a booklet saying that Secondary school was a big and scary place and to quote on of the case studies "I was worried about bullying, but I knew that I could talk to Jesus and he would understand"
It's not the exposure to Christianity I mind - I want them to understand it. I just don't want them to have to DO it!

Oops, a few paragraphs would have helped. Damn - now nobody's going to read my "great thoughts"!