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.)

aah back to myth and tradition i think rebel re Christmas.

Tho best schools ! Surely People don't really do that do they?? I can't beleeeve it.

Personally I'm more afraid of the corruption and power of Government, the negative influences of commercialism on society and the breakdown of community and values than I am of my local church.

I don't go to church and so do feel cross about people who may get a good school place with a letter from the vicar. But that is just bureacracy. I know some of them go to church just to get their child into the school.

Rebelmum: celebrating at midwinter and having eggs in the spring could just as easily be people commemorating ancient pagan traditions as Christian ones: Christianity, in particular, being a parasitic faith systems which simply absorbed symbols from other mythologies.

Hear Hear rebelMum!

Yes my friend (atheist) sent her son to a Catholic school and then complained about the religious teaching.

not parasitic madamez, rather just practical reasons - the festivals were already celebrated, they just introduced a Christian theme. I rather like to celebrate both the pagan and christian origins of Easter and Christmas, etc.

rebelmum you're right I too am afraid of all those things. But doesn't make me less afraid of/cross about the church.

anyway the church is dying out. The govt may use religious stuff as a smokescreen or excuse for doing dodgy things, but to be afraid of the church in this day and age is odd. It is very weak.

and sorry was being facetious about the going to church for best school thing.

There are certainly worse things than fluffy CofE. I'm not totally against having CofE as the Established Church in England because it acts as a buffer against more extreme versions of faith.

But - fluff can impede clear-sightedness.

What other pagan festivals do you celebrate? Summer solstice?

okay, not afraid (that would be weak! but nevertheless angry.

Absolutely EmsMum. The fluffier things are, the more one ought to shave the fluff off and examine the .. underside..bit.. for evilness.

But ykwim. Lots of ideologies make themselves powerful by projecting themselves as fluffy or common sense or the default position.

Rebelsmum: I like to mark the turning of seasons, so we tend to enjoy MayDay, summer and winter solstices, halloween, xmas, St george's day and easter as well. No particular need to take any of them seriously: we'd happily attend parties for bar mitzvahs, hannukah, diwali, eid etc if invited and bring along the appropriate food/card/gift.

true Emsmum. But there are many good things that people do within the CofE. Large organisations always have problems, but i think the good outweighs the bad.

I have been to Stonehenge to celebrate the Autumn Equinox. I do like the pagan festivals actually.

I don't celebrate pagan festivals, I'm even snooty enough to call Easter Sunday Resurrection Day

/ponce

ooh! hardcore.

I think what the Church likes to avoid though is that Christ's message was crucially a Socio Political one [in tandem with spiritual one]. I mean Christ's message was in direct oppostion to everything Blair and Bush have done in his name. Christ's political message is just too inconventient for the church and for politicians.

the best schools are usually faith schools.

i wonder why that is

and stop pulling me up on my spelling. im usually typing with one hand and rushing.

and im happy to be bringing my kids up as catholics. cant imagin not believing in anything.

Christ's political message? Enlighten me...

Oh Sue! where do I start? Will have to come back to this, ds, calling.

Berolina: "But for 'religious' you could equally read 'ideological' or 'political'. Ask dh, who was brought up in an atheist dictatorship with father who, it emerged, collaborated with the state security service and struggles with what he did to this day"
yes absolutely, but we would absolutely balk (baulk?) at political indoctrination for toddlers and children, getting children to repeat party slogans or idealogical messages.
the two things are very similar imo, persuading chidlren to believe something.
and children are very impressionable. what weare taught before the age of,say, ten is hugely influential for the rest of our lives.

harpsi, yes, you are right. I can often still see the results of this impressionability in dh - certain (to my mind rather -making, if not necessarily worrying) tenets of his upbringing are still deeply dear to him. He had a very happy, sheltered childhood and the collapse of the dictatorship when he was 14 was very traumatic for him. I do think, though, that the indoctrination he experienced was considerably more pervasive and devoid of a counterbalance than your typical CofE primary RE.

I suppose faith institutions work on the assumption, however inaccurate the assumption in the individual case has become, that the community as a whole shares and commits in at least a nominal degree to the faith. Some non-believers may not mind this assumption, some may accept it on the basis of 'culture', some may find it highly offensive. I actually think on the whole institutions are best with a default secular position, in fact. I do, as someone else said, see a world of difference between school without a viable alternative and a (presumably run on a voluntary basis) M&T.