To judge parents who do not even tell their children Easter is a religious festival

[Tuliptana]

I'm shocked that 12 out of 20 children in my childs class had no religious knowledge of the meaning of Good Friday or Easter Sunday for Christians.
All aged 9yrs old.

Like Christmas it was a pagan festival first.

To be fair (and because a PP has demonstrated that they don't know this)

Muslims believe God gave Moses (Musa) tablets containing commandments including one on the sanctity of Friday prayer.
Christians believe God gave Moses two tablets containing commandments including one to observe the Sabbath. Well, if you ignore the different groups and thousands of words written debating/disagreeing about the content and order of them, at any rate - and that not all Christians agree about observing the Sabbath on x day (or at all).
Jews believe God gave Moses (Moshe Rabbeinu) 613 Mizvot including to observe Shabbos, all but two of which came via Moses and 2 were said directly by God. Well, if you ignore the thousands of words written discussing and debating whether this number is correct, at any rate.

Same God, same bloke, much difference in content.

They weren’t fighting about religion in NI you know.

But it’s not irrelevant to everyday life on Easter, is it?

Everyone who wants to understand western history, literature, and art needs a rudimentary understanding of the Bible and Greek mythology.

Which ones do you mean?

Evidence please.

https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2025/04/15/the-pagan-myth-of-easter

Completely agree. People think it's ok to mock Christianity far more than other religions.

Many are not Christians. Happy to help.

Christianity is in decline in the UK. Most people celebrate the germanic Eostre traditions focussed on spring - baby animals, eggs, rabbits for fertility etc. This is certainly the case in my house.

We aren't Christian so we why would teach our kids a load of quite random stuff about jesus/resurrection etc that has nothing to do with hunting eggs in the garden & having roast lamb in spring?

I asked teen DS why today was called Good Friday and he said because it was when Jesus was born so got the Christian relationship ok but not the event. But really why is it called Good Friday? It's quite confusing for non Christians!

To understand the wars of religion, you don't necessarily need to have a detailed knowledge of the religions involved. The basic mechanism is that some people, call them Group A, get very affronted that other people (Group B) worship a different god or gods, or worship the same god in the 'wrong' way, or don't bother with a god at all, and therefore feel justified in inflicting violence on them. It's happened many times and, unfortunately, keeps on happening.

In most English villages for historical reasons there is only one school & it's typically CofE.

So where i live, the dying local church with its congregation of about 10 geriatrics, refuses to release its hold on the popular village school. It is desperate for children in the church so has eagerly increased the amount of evangelising through school - with church attendances for easter/Christmas etc.

Most of the parents chose the school for its academic record, good teaching staff, and proximity, and if anything would rather it was not a church linked school.

Everyone who wants to understand western history, literature, and art needs a rudimentary understanding of the Bible and Greek mythology.

Yes.

And I think for the same reasons people should know at least a little about Islam, for example why no images of God are allowed ( philosophically interesting at least); and also that in Islam seeking knowledge is a religious duty, meaning a great deal of our scientific knowledge was originally inspired through that culture too.

I don't agree with children being exposed to religion other than by giving them very basic facts (e.g "people believe different things and believe in different God's and they live their life based on those beliefs and we must accept people for who they are as long as they arent hurtinf anyone else") so I cant imagine going into much or any detail about how Easter is a religious festival to some people and not just about bunny's and chocolate.

That being said, my extended family are largely Christians so my children are likely to know just because my family will likely talk about it around them at some point.

My kids all attended a CofE primary school. I’m not a practicing Christian currently but made sure my kids understood the background of the festival. I just asked my 9 year old son and he could give me a good run down of what Christians believe happened over Easter weekend. They do go to church with school and they do celebrate Christian festivals.

Over their time at school my kids have studied Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. They’ve visited temples and synagogues and had parents in from different religions to chat about their faiths. They’ve done little celebrations for Eid and Passover as well as Easter. They’re a very values based school and operate on a welcoming and celebratory basis for all. Despite my various problems with the school I’ve always loved the way they teach about and include all faiths, and think we could do with more of that in general!

Why does it bother Christian’s if people mock their religion. Surely as Christian’s you turn the the other check and pray for the souls of non believers. Didn’t Jesus say “forgive them they know not what they do”
fyi I don’t mock religions I just don’t believe in them.

I grew up Irish Catholic and went to catholic school and am delighted mine don't know about the horrific stories and the will never know the subjugation of women caused by the Catholic church in Ireland in my and my parents time and before. Wonderful how things have moved on. And I'm as entitled to an Irish passport as you, it's not dependant on being a practicing catjolic

Christians should forgive and pray for people, including people who mock the faith. But that doesn’t mean mockery becomes good or respectful.

While I think some of your posts are unreasonable, I am surprised that in a catholic school all the class didn’t know the story behind Easter so voted YANBU.

My son went to a C of E school. We are in England. It was our catchment school and a good school. I am agnostic, my son’s dad atheist, but we were not put off by them teaching religious stories in school as there is good moral guidance to be found in many of them.

There were whole school productions and services at church for all the religious points in the calendar so one year they studied easter in depth and put on a production for the whole school to watch (with parents invited). There is no way a 9 yo wouldn’t know the Easter story at that school!

Mocking the faith itself is one thing. Even many Christians are prepared to laugh at it - the film Monty Python's Life of Brian is beloved by many Christians. (Note that it is not so much a parody of Christianity, but more of what life was like at the time: Roman occupation, crucifixion, stoning etc. In the brief scene where Jesus appears, he is treated with respect.)

But what I think is very different and much less acceptable is the Mumsnet habit of mocking the people of the faith: calling them deluded, having an imaginary friend, away with the fairies, otherwise intelligent, and so on.

Linguistically , some sources say it derived from “God’s Friday” and became “Good Friday”. Another explanation is the use of the word good as holy/sacred.

Religiously, it’s because despite Jesus dying the way he did, by “erasing” the original sin it through his sacrifice it gave people a chance at eternity in Heaven.

This is a very simplistic explanation. It’s not called Good Friday universally around the world.

Yes, it is not only offensive, but often smug and off the mark and very much less clever than the mocker realises.

Based on my experience most parents want to get their children into a “Christian school” because the perception is that they are more likely to get a better education than the local “big standard” comp.
if that means going to church for a few months beforehand then they are going to do that.

I doubt our ten year old knows about the christian version of easter, I’m a sikh, my husband is a secular jew, but doesn’t even really follow anything traditional, so no passover etc. Not knowing about christian easter isn’t any different to not knowing about sikh, hindu festivals etc.

RE is not part of the National Curriculum yet. Government are still to do this as part of the recent review