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.)

I agree with Sue's OP. I'm pretty much an atheist, but it doesn't bother me if people have religious views, and it won't bother me if they try to share them with ds when he starts full-time education.

It's all part of the thinking process, the wondering about life and people and all that it entails. I fully expect him to go through a religious phase when he's about eight or nine (as I did), and it doesn't bother me remotely.

If it is myth and fable, than all the better. I love myths and fables. There's no reason why biblical tales cannot engender the same magic as Harry Potter, if told honestly and without dogma.

Lil, I agree that Christians don't 'own' decency and charity and so on. Those things are fairly common currency virtues in our society.

But those of us of a religious persuasion often hold to those things as an outworking of the faith we hold to, so, while religion may be an irrelevance to others who are indeed decent and charitable, to those who are relgious, it's all of a piece when it comes to motivations and so on.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the thread... most of the discussions I've seen have been mainly about children being taught what to think, rather than how to think, in schools.

Which imo is a no-no and also a huge waste of time which would better be spent on other things - including even more time on learning about religions and world views. Not blumming hymn practice in a non church school.

Hold on..I just said that in my eyes religion is all myth and legend.

That's rather polite isn't it? where's the blood bath? I didn't call it anything derogatory, nor did I attack you personally as believers (ad hominem).I attacked the idea not the person. That's what true debate should do. If I can't say, as anon-believer, what religion seems to be in my eyes, how on earth can atheists question religion at all without religious people shouting heresy????

except no-one did shout heresy, lil

I agree with Lil there, to be fair. Ideas themselves don't have any command of respect if someone doesn't agree with them.

ok not heresy but Cappu said it 'rubbishes something that others believe in strongly and base their lives around' and was a 'low blow' and Justa said it was 'derogatory'.

It was neither!!!!

justabout...'s posts seem very sensible to me

Sue, could I ask you a cheeky question relating to your faith?

well honestly I reserve the right to be offended to have my faith written off as 'myth'

and if someone tells you something is offensive then at least an attempt at some respect for their point of view is a good thing, no?

PW, go ahead

Cappu, I'm sorry if you've been offended by this thread.

But all religion is myth and legend in most respects. That is not to denigrate its worth, power or usefulness. The problem with all religions, particularly over the last two hundred years, is that people have taken it upon themselves to take the ancient texts literally. That was never the intention.

If we are to take, for instance, the Bible literally, then Adam and Eve had two sons.

If they were the only people on the planet, then who slept with who to beget the human race?

Cain or Abel must have slept with their own mother. Obviously, this is not what the Bible intends for people to believe, which is why it is perfectly valid for even believers to suggest that there is an element of myth of fable.

Hmm Cappo why should me not agreeing with your view be offensive? ..where else in your life do you get offended if others don't agree with your beliefs on ..breastfeeding? smacking? politics.

why do non believers have to tiptoe round you? isn't your faith enough for you? i am happy to be an atheist without being offended because you don't share my views.

A while back on some thread or other, I posted something about the established church being bigoted WRT homosexuality, and you posted something like, 'Twins!' - I took that to mean that you agreed with me - yes? It's just that on another thread, I saw you referring to yourself as being more right-wing than left-wing, and as we know left-wing people have a monopoly on tolerance . Anyway, to cut a long story short you're not fitting into any of my boxes and this is causing me some anxiety, as you can imagine.

at PW's anxiety!

good thread

hang on, hang on

I object to a sweeping statement and I get turned into some kind of religious hard case

I'm not, I'm so not

I've just seen this happen time and again and it does offend people. It rankles me, yes, but I'm not boiling mad about it

What happens on these threads quite often is that eventually non-believers start throwing around reductive words to describe faith and I don't believe it's necessary

lil from the context of your messages, with words such as 'banging on' and brainwash (let's step away from that one) that 'myth and legend' was meant in a derogatory manner. From another poster maybe it would have been fine. But you had already set quite an angry case and I felt it inappropriate in a thread which had such a gentle OP.

Many posters before Lil have used the phrase 'myth & legend' with regard to Christianity and other (if not all) religions.

I and others of my faith have to put up with far worse on a near daily basis.

Throwaway comments that no one stops to think about, ones that I have mainly given up complaining about because very few even care to listen.

Not worth worrying about to be honest Cap.

Anyhow, to get back to the OP a little... one of the reasons you get a certain amount of overreaction on MN threads is because its an opportunity to vent. IRL most of us are too polite to say what we think and bottle it up to let out here. I know (and like, and love) quite a lot of Christians and I do a lot of tongue biting, not out of respect for what they believe but out of respect for their right to believe it.

So - please don't get too annoyed at some of us sometimes using this as a safety valve.

policywonk wrt the church's views on homosexuality, my own vicar has said things in the pulpit of a Sunday which go against what 'The Church' is saying

I think there are prob a lot of vicars who disagree similarly

EmsMum - that is very true. I haven't even told some of my religious friends that I don't believe, because it almost seems rude to bring it up (I realise that this is my hang-up, not theirs).

Sorry capp, that rambling post was an interrogation of Sue!

A bit of a long cut and paste from wikipedia on Karen Armstrong and 'mythical narraitives'. To call religion myth is not necessarily derogatory.

"Central to her reading of history is the notion that premodern cultures possessed two complementary and indispensable ways of thinking, speaking and knowing: mythos and logos. Mythos was concerned with meaning; it "provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives; it directed their attention to the eternal and the universal" [3]. Logos, on the other hand, dealt with practical matters. It forged ahead, elaborating on old insights, mastering the environment, and creating fresh and new things. Armstrong argues that modern Western society has lost the sense of mythos and enshrined logos as its foundation. Mythical narratives and the rituals and meanings attached to them have ceded authority to that which is rational, pragmatic and scientific - but which does not assuage human pain or sorrow, and cannot answer questions about the ultimate value of human life. However, far from embarking on a wholesale rejection of the modern emphasis in favour of the old balance, the author contends, religious fundamentalists unwittingly turn the mythos of their faith into logos. Fundamentalism is a child of modernity, and fundamentalists are fundamentally modern."

oh stop it with the myth thing people

I've elaborated

yes, I'm a bit tricky about boxes I'm more right-wing than left-wing in general economic terms. I believe in putting my money where my mouth is, for example, when it comes to looking after folk, rather than assuming a government body will do it for me. (that's a bit of a generalization, of course, and my best mate is a raving socialist who will give me a clout for it, too)
I'm not really a big fan of the established church, being a non-conformist fundie, doncha know. I'm also bisexual with a very chequered past who is firmly convinced that the Christian faith is true, and I believe in living with the consequences of my own choices.
I also don't believe that Christianity is primarily a 'how to be good' moral code, I believe it's a 'no-one is good enough against a perfect standard, isn't it good news that God is full of grace, now, shall we respond to that by loving other people' sort of thing.

If you've got a box big enough for that label, I'll hop in