To think all schools should teach children the old traditional hymns

[Staringintothevoid616]

Just switching between channels and Songs of Praise came on. It was a run down of the most popular school hymns.complete with recorders It brought back many memories and how important communal singing is. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, everyone should know the most popular hymns as a way of uniting society.

Kids aren't given a full grounding in Christianity. All the nasty bits are omitted. Learning to sing hymns by rote means nothing.

Yes there should be a really good grounding in Christianity, all aspects of it, this obviously includes learning one big expression of it - singing hymns

For starters, very clear and direct lessons about how being gay is a sin that will send you to hell. God made man & woman to ‘fit together’ like a puzzle piece etc etc. Leading to coming out much later than I likely would have. Teaching children they need to repent for their sins is wrong and damaging in my opinion, children aren’t sinners. Never mind the complete inconvenience of learning NOTHING about other religions which caused me issues around lack of knowledge when I went to train as a nurse when I was 18. Obviously I have sought my own education in this area to better support patients, but in a multicultural and multi faith society why be pigeon holed by Christianity just because of history.

As PP’s have said, if parents want to choose religion for their children, send them to religious schools, church or teach them yourself. Don’t foist it onto everyone when it’s clear from your thread that the majority don’t support it.

I think I have fully integrated into my new culture without blindly singing lies. I eat haggis and help my children learn their Scot’s poems and dance like crazy at a ceilidh and volunteer regularly at the local food bank and am on the PTA and raise money for the school library. I have worked to improve my new community and I promise we are very much part of it. None of that includes converting to a new religion though.

They should not be teaching them ANY hymns. Education should be secular.

"I Welcome anyone into the UK willing to fully integrate into traditional British culture and not try to change it."

The entire fabric and culture of the UK is built on generations of immigrants who have changed the culture. Vikings, Romans, Normans.

But that would apply across all religions surely? I don’t think I’ve said anywhere about Christianity being taught as fact? So it’s down to the person teaching it as to how you felt about it surely.

The fact that you can't even conceive that such negative impact is possible is incredible!

I HATED every wasted second I was made to learn about Christianity, most particularly because we had a single lesson about other religions, where we were basically told that Jewish people were a bit different 🤨 it was appalling and an absolutely epic waste of time. The only useful parts were knowing the various saints so I could decipher old Italian paintings when I was at Uni. I genuinely hate that kind of art though so not very useful now.

I would much rather have spent my time learning something useful and interesting.

The last of those, the Norman’s invaded 1,000 years ago!

Sounds a bit fascistic. Fancy being a child under your regime being force fed absolute nonsense.

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.

Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.

Amen.

Why call it dilution? Why not evolution?
Things change, often for the better.

I asked a question - I didn’t indicate my ability or inability to conceive of something. You seem to be mixing up emotions with basic comprehension

so what would you say is “useful and interesting” it’s a Shane you didn’t use all the other things you would know about Christianity to interpret to deep symbolism in much western art

And yeh my kids are probably going to be rubbish at deciphering Renaissance art but they will have a much better ability to understand and appreciate multiple religions and cultures.

What is a "really good grounding in Christianity"? Which era are we going for?

So my point was in relation to you saying that you don’t support parents who opt their children out of nativities/social events with their friends. My point is, religious events don’t often happen without associated religious teaching, which can also be damaging. To be honest I would say it’s a heck of a lot less damaging being opted out of a show (I’d of loved that) than being told you’re a sinner.

The long and short of this debate - if you want to raise your children in religion, great. But not everyone does. I would say the majority of the posters on here are showing tolerance toward those who make the choice of religion. But you are showing complete lack of tolerance toward anyone who wants to opt out of religion. And that’s a problem when choice is taken away.

ETA - I am not opposed to religion. I am apposed to religion being forced on my children.

I’m all for things changing for the better, unfortunately the current direction of evolution appears to be leading to extinction

Extinction of what? Hymns?

Having only been exposed to it following the death of a sibling, I found it deeply confusing and frightening to be told about heaven and hell and that everything was down to some omnipotent being that nobody could see, actually. Oh, and that people could come back from the dead.

I find much greater comfort in science and reality and nature-based (Pagan/Druid) beliefs.

That sounds like is was poorly handled by adults in your life at the time. Sorry for your loss.
Yes I would love our schools to also teach us about more ancient belief systems in the land (the bits we know about them), which I appreciate might not be the same as your beliefs.

My daughter had nightmares for weeks after they did Easter in school. I hadn’t realised just how much they’d talk about it. My best friend had just died and for weeks after my daughter was insisting we check in caves to see if she’d come back to life and asking if we should try harder to ask God nicely to make her alive again. So I think it can actually be quite damaging to hear some of these stories from your teacher as children are conditioned to believe them.

Science, reality, AND your pagan beliefs? Well, at least you are covering most eventualities there, I guess 🤣.
How any fables about Heaven and Hell would scare the bejaysus out of you is a wonder, though.
(And nobody comes back from the dead, in Christian scripture. That’s rather the point of the Resurrection story!)

Lazarus

@Staringintothevoid616 I Welcome anyone into the UK willing to fully integrate into traditional British culture and not try to change it.

Aha.

All immigrants to this country have, as part of integration with the culture, changed the culture. It has been happening for centuries.

Cultures are never fixed, nor should they be. What makes a culture interesting, vibrant and sustainable is change.

At what point in history do you think it would be best to have stopped British culture changing?

All like of music relies it being your style. I hate pop songs, but also hymns. As an athiest I would never buy into singing a someone else's hymns. And I was raised Catholci wher there was plenty of singing, always made me cringe and I would stay silent in any case.