To think that religous education should be complusory for EVERYONE

[ReallyTired]

I think that everyone should learn about ALL the major relgions in the world, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Buddist, Hindu, or Athesist or agnostic.

However I think that religous education should be taught as "This is what Christians believe" rather than "This is what WE believe". Children should not be subjected to attempts to convert them to different relgions, but they need to understand and tolerate difference. Ie. Learn that there are times that we should agree to disagree.

A basic knowledge of the five world's major relgions helps children understand current affairs, history and avoid offending people from other cultures to themselves.

If parents want their children brought up as a Christian, Muslim, athesist or pagan then they can take their children to church/ Temple/ Mosque out of school hours.

I like the assemblies at the the special school I work at. They have no relgious songs, but the school has fun singing pop songs. Although the songs are non religous they have lyrics encouraging good behaviour.
All the children are included and gain from the experience.

scary, no one is attacking your professional integrity. The point has been made more than once, on this thread and others like it, that RE at primary level is not always taught in the way you describe.

The RE lessons that my son have are taught in a similar way to Scaryteacher's lessons. One of my son's friends observed an RE lesson because she was worried about content and she was impressed. My son's teachers do respect different views on religions.

The RE lessons that I have seen the MLD secondary school I work in are fanastic. Its been unfortunate that I only ever get to see snippets as my job is to fix Pcs.

Out of curiosity Scaryteacher, is there anyway that you would change how RE lessons are done nationally? Would you reduce the freedom that schools have with the RE syllabus or allow schools present RE as religious instruction as many faith schools do?

Its really interesting to see scaryteacher's opinions as she actually teaches RE. My knowledge of how modern RE teachers teach is gained by fixing the RE's teachers Pcs.

Scaryteacher, do you present Islam in a positive light? Or do you talk about Mohammed ordering massacres and genocide? You see, that's the problem for me. That's what I call indoctrination. It's simply not HONEST.

I've had a look at some school websites, such as Learning Alive which includes stuff like: " After Muhammad's name Muslim people recite a small prayer asking God to bless him and give him peace. This is often shortened to PBUH ( Peace be upon him).

Muhammad (PBUH) was poor, both of his parents died by the time he was six years old. He grew up honest and trustworthy. He did not like conditions where he lived and often went out into the mountains to think about life. One day while he sat and thought, God's messenger the Angel Gabriel came and gave him a message from God. This happened regularly over a period of years. The words sent by God were recorded and are the content of the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book."

Come on, this is absolutely NOT objective, unbiased teaching! It is pure propaganda. This is absolutely not the kind of stuff I'd want children exposed to.

UQD - I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough with the dice example. To make it clearer:

Think of flipping a coin - two outcomes, heads or tails. (God exists or doesn't exist).

Probability: 1/2 for each outcome.

Flip the coin in a dark room. It falls on the ground. You can't see it, can't touch it. Therefore, you have no evidence whether or not it is heads (God exists).

Probability of heads or tails is still 1/2.

I am trying to illustrate an elementary aspect of probability studies - evidence or its lack thereof has no bearing on probability.

That is, whether or not you have the means to observe the outcome does not mean it is less or more likely to happen. It just means that you haven't observed it (yet).

As much as I like what Dawkins is saying, especially his wit, and his courage in flying high the flag of atheism, I have to point out that his logic is flawed re "No evidence of God, ergo near-zero probability of his existence".

UQD re 'agnosticism' -

Agnosticism is not akin to moral ambiguity, or a hesitation to put your foot on one side or the other. I have consciously and rationally decided that atheism is just as much a dogma as belief in God, for there is no proof for or against the existence of God.

Sweeney Todd, re "I think in light of the "evidence" (millions of people around the world believe in God)"

That is NOT evidence!

evidence = proof

CoteDAzur - hmm, OK, I don't think we are disagreeing, essentially. But the coin thing only has two possible known and equally likely outcomes, both of which can be empirically proven by simply switching the light on.

I think Dawkins uses the word "likelihood", so if I quoted him using "probability" that was just my mistake, not his. His point is that the two outcomes are not equally likely. So totally unlike a heads-tails choice. It makes perfect sense in the book!

That's his atheism, and mine - not a dogmatic "there can be no god", simply an acceptance that all the evidence points more strongly towards one outcome being more likely than the other. Even if I'm wrong and there turns out to be one - hey, I still went with the more likely outcome. Nothing can change that. Something can be true and still be unlikely.

If I bet on Trinidad and Tobago winning the World Cup I might get 200-1. And if by some miracle they did it, yes, I could crow a bit about my winnings, but that doesn't mean everybody else was a mug not to bet. They followed the logical course of action defined by the existing evidence - the somewhat less-than-stellar international record of Trinidad & Tobago as a footballing nation. It was still the right thing to do.

And one day, perhaps, we will 'switch the light on' and see whether God exists or not. Once we find the switch. Or find out the proper wavelength of 'light' that can see God.

In the meanwhile, our lack of evidence (=proof) does not mean low probability(=likelihood). The two things have no relation to one another.

Lack of evidence isn't the same as lack of proof though. It's impossible to prove one way or the other; it's not impossible to provide evidence.

And while our lack of evidence doesn't imply low probability, it implies low likelihood, just as the lack of evidence for T&T's world-class footballing abilities implies low likelihood of their winning the tournament, even with a probability of 1/32.

I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about. Probability is likelihood.

Did you ever study this stuff?

And I have been using the words 'evidence' and 'proof' interchangeably.

The fact that we don't have proof of God's existence at this point in time does not mean the likelihood of his existence is very low.

Whether or not you are capable of observing something has no bearing on its likelihood of outcome.

I think we are getting into semantics.

A probability problem in Maths - which I did quite a few of at school - will surely not take any account of factors other than the mathematical.

So you can say that a question with a Yes-No answer has a 50-50 probability, but that doesn't mean each of the answers is equally likely. Does it?! (Someone help me out here!!)

And I think you can't, or at least shouldn't, use "evidence" and "proof" interchangeably - surely?? They are quite different. I've always used them very differently. You can provide a body of evidence to back up a claim - many pieces of evidence - to attempt to make up a proof. Sometimes, your body of evidence doesn't constitute a proof. But you go by the weight of evidence.

CoteDAzur, are you suggesting that for all outcomes/concepts for which we have no proof whatsoever the probablity of them being true is 50% ?

If so it's 50/50 whether god exists as you say. 50/50 that the world will turn into a giant onion with a stick of celery on top before I finish typing this sentence (phew that was lucky)

Actually better odds that my telephone will turn into a serpent and eat my pc than the chances of me winning a horse race tomorrow with a horse that was 3 to one against.

Take a mathematical puzzle with a knockout tournament featuring 16 teams. Each team has, mathematically, a 1/16 probability of winning. But we know they don't have the same likelihood. Mathematical probability doesn't look at team stats and form.

That's where CoteDAzur has got muddled. When you look at dice you begin by saying that each side has the same likelihood of turning up. Given that each side has an equal weight, friction etc. Then you say that since all other factors are equal the odds of throwing a 6 are 1 in 6.

You're all talking about maths now?

"But the ones who seem to get REALLY steamed up, to the extent that they will seek to physically hurt those who don't agree with them are, I'm afraid, the religious"

Again it must be my English, but I think this comment says explicitly that the religious people want to harm others who don't agree with them.

I'm surprised there is any doubt about my statement. This is Bin Laden speaking after Gulf War of 1991 (from Goldwag's 'Isms and Ologies)
To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who can, in any country where this is possible, until the Aqsa mosque and the Haram mosque are freed from their grip, and until their armies, shatterd and broken-winged, depart from all lands of Islam...

Just out of interest has there ever been an atheist who murdered a religious person explicitly and soley in the Name of No God?

It's interesting and relevant, KayH, come back!!

UQD, to do maths? Are you mad? Although, the existence of neatly logical mathematical rules is one of those 'My, isn't random chance almost godlike in what it throws up?' moments. But that doesn't mean I'm remotely equipped to play numbergames.

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Just out of interest has there ever been an atheist who murdered a religious person explicitly and soley in the Name of No God?

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Spero, I'm kind of that you need to ask. It's part and parcel of the more extreme communist regimes to eliminate religious believers. There are examples even in today's world of religious believers being persecuted for that belief (and I'm not talking about just being told to take a Christmas tree down, or any of the whinging nonsense Western Christians claim as 'persecution'.)

People have the capability to murder other people, and they will find any and every excuse for it, too. Their own religion is certainly one. Money, territory, control are all common too. The religious are no more likely to be murderers than the non-religious. Sadly, from my perspective, we're no less likely either, so I can offer you no real positive comment on that.

But if there is no god why are most people throughout history all hardwired to believe in god? Nature is very efficient and everything seems to have a purpose, not the appendix perhaps but I've read that eventually we won't have an appendix....I don't see us evolving away from religious belief.....

but hopefully with proper religious education we will learn how to sift out all the rubbish and also maybe learn that everyone else isn't wrong and we are right...I hate that!

I'm very depressed by how religion and war are all muddled up and polarisation and wonder will we ever learn from our mistakes....

by rubbish I mean our prejudice, ignorance and fear of unfamiliar religions.

One of Dawkins' more amusing asides is his comment on Stalin - yes, he was a mass murderer, and yes, he was an atheist, but he also had a moustache, so you might as well extrapolate from Stalin that all people with moustaches are murderers.

rosylily - it's a cultural meme. People believe what they are brought up to believe. There are exceptions - Western women who marry into the Islamic faith and convert - but generally, if you have a religion it'll be the one your family had. In previous centuries it would have been "the gods" (Apollo, Zeus et al, or the Viking gods).

But why is it in everyone's culture all over the world? What is the point of it?

People have a need to make sense of what they see as a disordered universe? It makes more sense to them if they impose a "creator" on it?

For myself, as I've said above, the exact opposite happened - I felt enormously liberated once I had thrown off the shackles of needing to try and square everything with "belief".