to not allow my child to do a reading in church?

[GooseyLoosey]

Dh and I are atheists. The dcs attend the local school which is C of E (although wholly state funded). There are no alternative non-C of E schools locally.

The school tends towards being very religious and there is a special Easter service in church for the school this week. Ds (5) has been given a reading to do at this service. It includes many "Praise God" and "God is good" type statements.

I don't wish to over react but getting ds to actively participate in an act of worship may be a step too far for me. AIBU to object and to consider telling them to get someone else to do this?

kif, the divide you've presented there is between atheists who state their case rather dismissively and believers who are very tolerant of each others' beliefs. There's a whole world of variety in between those two points.

I don't see why it's disrespectful to regard people's preference in myth systems as on a level with their preferences in food, music or football teams. ANyone care to try and explain what the important difference is (particularly given how obsessive some folk are about farking football?)

peachy - interesting point about the SEN unit - thats a big shame for you to have to carefully balance the needs of ALL of your children - and I take your point that people cannot move as easily as all that - but this is why VERY careful consideration should be given to where you move to lookign at schools and things BEFORE the house imho. The OP appears to have moved to somewhere that clearly had a school that wasn't of her belief - I merely suggest that possibly she should have considered this more carefully before signing the dotted line......

I have looked at more posts and can see many people are uncomfortable with the idea of CofE schools generally....(or other faith schools - lets not be discriminatory!)

I do feel personally that there is a disproportionate number of CofE schools compared to the number of actually PRACTISING CofE followers...

An example in a town near me there were always 2 primary school - both cofe - desperately overcrowed so the council chipped in the money with a local developer to build a new school on the new housing estate....guess what? Its also CofE - so in that town if you are not CofE -you suimply have to either put up or cross the county border to where there are plenty of non denominational primary schools and 1 RC school

Its madness to me that the 3rd school was deisgnated CofrE before it was even built when there were clearly 2 other (heavily religious btw) primarty schools in the town.

This perhaps is where the problem is - the govn assume because it is the faith of the queen then it must surely be the faith of her subjects.....roll on prince charles - "defender of all faiths"

See i don't quite find that Kif, I find much in common with humanists: truth be told I rather prefer the company of anyone who has considered their beliefs than someonoe who has no spirituality whatsoever. That includes Atheists.

AS longa s they don't feel a need to ridicule obv; that takes someone from Atheist into nasty. I would never call the beliefs of soemone else imaginary friend etc and I do lose interest in the posts of people once that gets trotted out.

But I find Atheism comlpetey understandable and in many ways the logical choice- just not what I believe in my heart.

kif, I love the idea that other believers of different faiths all happily tolerate each others' faiths! If only that were true - in many cases, couldn't really be further from the truth though could it?

I can happily accept someone else's belief without contradiction because I don't believe in god so it doesn't upset me that someone believes in a different god to me or thinks that I was responsible for any pain/grief inflicted on others of their religion.

The idea that religious people all happily get on with each other while us atheists are the ones that cause the divisions in this world is just not borne out by the facts is it?

sorry about the typos - I get over excited

Nomore - why do you assume everyone is choosing to move somewhere for the schools? Some people live in places because it is where they have always lived and see no need to change their whole lives because the state only provides denominational education in their area.

A bite at last. I have read the bible, the apocrypha, the Quran, the Torah, the Bhagavata Gita, some of the Vedas, hell, I even did a degree in religions. The more I read, the more I see religion as a means of social control.

Niecie, i think you are being naieve if you think athiesism is the default position of drunks on a Friday night. To go back to the original point of this thread. We are culturally conditioned to accept Christianity. Our head of state is, by difinition a Christian, our schools indoctrinate children from an early age into the concept of god, paryers are said at all state occasions, you swear on the bible in court, MP's swear an oath of allegience which, by default, includes god. It's all around us. Scratch you average Friday night pub goer and they will probably admit to a belief in "something out there". That "something out there" probablly has the form of a Christian god because, as is well documented, the religion you follow is, to a large extent, the religion of your culture. I doubt if may of them would describe that amorphous spiritual being as a bhodisvatta because it takes a bit of thought to take on and process the religious ideas of another culture.

I find that (with apologies to Peachy, I have great respect for Quakers) most of the Christians I have met have read less than me. It's a source of amusement to me to take a quick dance through Leviticus with the door knockers and those who accost me in the street to spread "the word". I find it does not ususally take very much time before they are tied up in theological knots and resort to shouting slogans in my face.

I only wish that all Christians were like my BF's father, a retired vicar who converted to Greek Orthodoxy after retirement. Now there is a man with whom crossing intellectual swords is a delight. We have agreed to disagree about god. In fact he admitted once that the athiest aregument is logically more sound, but that is no reason for him rejecting both his life's career and his intellectual interest. Besides which, it pays to hedge one's bets.

SGB I suppose equally I would never criticise someone for liking a certain food / footie team- why wuld I? IN what way is it anything to do with me? If it directly harms anyone then different but taht's separate and not based on the same thing- why can we not live and just accept that other people have a right to their own life path without it being called names?

I suspect if faith schools were abolished people would feel less incined to be so dismissive but there are plenty of religious peole on here who are anti faith school, assuming we are all not is a big assumption.

subtle mouse - I would agree that the state only providing one denominational school is unacceptable - totally

HOWEVER - the OP is suggesting that her beliefs are SO strong and SO important to her and her family that her child couldn't possibly read in a church. That is my point - if its that important to you then it surely overrides everything else like whether the area is smart, or the right tube station is local, down the road from granny etc etc

aaah peachy being quaker explains the excellent view toward freedom of expression! Like slug I have massive respect for the quakers - shame it can't be a quaker education system.....but I see of course why it would never work!

Slug that sounds like a fascinating man.

I get what you mean abut social control- the Law of Manu is a read is it not? But I do believe that the original messages of many faiths gets lost in the texts and practices. Christ was a rebel who actively lives outside the controls of his time, as was Mohammed. Sikhism is supposedly similar (though I acknowledge the tales some of my friends have about the levels of bigotry in their gurdwaras).

I beleive wholeheartedly that religion is often used as a method of social control and would rail against that, but I do think that's often because the original message has been lost.

We ahve the same degree IIRC? From different institutions.

SGB: you've done it again. Stating that it's a preference of "myth" systems.

So what is the basis of your morality? Is there right or wrong? What is the origin of this? What stops you from going out and killing people: is it just because it is against the law, or do you actually believe that to do so is wrong.

I agree, there are people out there for whom football is their religion, the basis of their life.

bleh, morality does not belong to religion. I believe killing is wrong, of course - no god has to tell me that.

And it would appear that god's words fall on many deaf ears as millions have been killed in the name of religion so I don't really understand your argument.

The Christian religion is only 2000 years old - do you think people just randomly killed people for fun up until then, before god turned up and told them it was wrong?

"So what is the basis of your morality? Is there right or wrong? What is the origin of this? What stops you from going out and killing people: is it just because it is against the law, or do you actually believe that to do so is wrong. "

I think that it's prefectly possible to live a just and moral existence without recourse to a god - not killing because it's against god's law isn't so different because of not killing because it's against a state's law, if that's the onlty way one thought about it.

But of course it isn't - in order to live and function in a civilised society we have to work within some generally understood parameters, and those tend to exclude cruelty, violence etc etc. Now, obviously, people do go outside those parameters, and that applies to both people who believe and don't believe in gods.

This is the argument that riles me when the Thought for the Day people trot it out - that it's only possible to be a moral being if you believe in a supernatural being. No - you have to be a human who thinks.

Moving on to the bigger disucssion re religion, I do not "bring up ds as an atheist". I actually I have deifficulty with the definition of defining myself as an atheist if the definition of atheist is "someone who doesn't beleive in God". It suggerst too concrete a non-belief.

I don't "feel" any sense of a God - therefore I don't "feel" the need to state I don't believe in God. It is an irrelevance.

So, I bring ds up with a sense of values, an understanding of what is right and wrong. This does not have to founded on Christian (or any other religions') beliefs. It is simply common sense, ie to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourslef": be considerate, be kind, don't be selfish and so on.

To those that continue to suyggest that the OP should have sent her child elsewhere - effectively bussing her kid away - or that they should have moved. Why should she? If that is the only choice of state schooling within a reasonable radius (as she explained), the alternatives being suggested are a form of ghetto-isation: only those that "agree" can remain. Where is the encouragement of alterntiave beleifs. If soemone has lived in that community for many years (whether ornot in this specific case the OP had), why should thier conitnued participation in the local state school be dependent upon thier beliefs?

oh dear the religion = war argument (yawn)

People will never agree and some people feel the need to insist others agree and will use any methods to enforce their opinion.
Often its not the "true" believers who go around killing - its maniacs who have realised they can use religion as an excuse for their own sick behaviour.

If AL Queda were true muslims they would be all for sharing with "peoples of the book"

pretty bird - would you suggest that NO school was denominational/faith orientated?

I think I could live with that - and we are big "believers"

Kif: I don't see how I would be "limiting my child's experience and understanding of the world" by not letting him do this particular reading. I have no problem with him experiencing religion or the church or even in taking part in collective acts of worship (although I'm not too keen but won't isolate him from his peers). It is the fact that here he is making an individual declaration about God that I don't like.

Happwomble: "I can't believe a 5 year old would comment on the content of a reading being silly" - what can I say, he did and I tend to agree with him although I did explain to him how many people thought it was important and he should not be dismissive of what other people thought. Sadly, I cannot type the exact text here for fear that would reveal who ds is.

Peachy - I personally know very few christians who are as eloquent and considered in their faith as you are. I am in awe.

Rhubarb - I have mentioned it to the school and I know that ds has told them in the course of RE but I have never banged on about it. I generally like to try and appear moderate and reasonable so the teachers don't think I'm the parent from hell (which I probably could become).

"why should thier conitnued participation in the local state school be dependent upon thier beliefs? "

because the state IS CofE - but thats a whole other argument......

Well technically the faith of Christianity isn't 2000 years old as it takes the OT into it's belief, Judaism may not accept us but we have to accept them as Jesuswas Jewish *

However I entirely agree that morality exists independently of religion. We may givce reason to our own morality by it, bbut to suggest that it exists because of it is wrong: they evolved together throughout time and no doubt affected each other, but are not the same.

This thread has given me the confidence to actually amke contact with the Quaker meeting instead of being too shy LOL, thanks for that.

*- I put the asterisk their to relate the tale of a Catholic Father who once taught me who stated that elementary fact about jesus on the radio and who was alled by his supervisor to warn him of a tide of mail: almiost of of which criticised his basic error (! LOL) including a letter from an old aldy railing against him as ill informed as 'everyone knows Jesus is a Good Catholic Boy LOL )

I don't think sponge wa saying religion = war, yawner. I think she was refuting the morality = religion argument bleh put earlier.

On the "Christian culture" thing. It is possible, even though people claim it is not, to enjoy singing hymns, appreciate church architecture and art, and generally enjoy the interesting things which a Christian mythology has brought to Western culture - without believing a single word of it to be true.

Now, I am not one of those who doesn't believe a single word of it (although there are some). There is evidence for parts of the Bible being based on real events, although you could spend a lifetime unpicking the truth from the half-truth and the history from the exaggeration and the biography from the hagiography. So I don't propose to do it here. I do think the teachings of Jesus are basically sound. He seems like a decent guy. I just don't accept that they are divinely inspired or that there is such a thing as "the divine".

On the question of people queuing to get into faith schools - undeniably. But to presume that this has anything to do with the "faith" element is the typical "post hoc ego propter hoc" fallacy. It's not necessarily because of the faith element - the number of "hypocrisy" threads on here shows that, if anything, it is often in spite of the faith element. What people want from faith schools is what they want from any selective, superficially "better" school - a chance to send their children to somewhere better than the average bog-standard comp up the road. I imagine that, for some people, something as superficial as the nice uniform is a plus point.

If there are four crap schools in your area and one good one, and the good one happens to be a faith school, then parents jostling to get into the faith school does not, I am afraid, indicate an upswing of religious zeal. Just an awful lot of pushy parents.

prettybird, I see what you mean about not clearly stating that you are an atheist. However dh and his family have suffered at the hands of religion and therefore I do feel a need to be more positive about the non-existence of God.

peachy - Go you! You know damn well they will make you exceptionally welcome. Enjoy!