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?

justaboutback, You know when Jesus said it (if he did) it was pretty obvious from context that he meant it to be symbolic so I don't know why anyone ever thought of it as a real change. Also I don't think that culture practiced cannibalism so if his friends thought he meant it literally they'd have said "don't be disgusting! I'm trying to have supper here" and thrown a bread roll at him.

I'd be interested in what the Canon Law says about it and if anyone does think it it is a literal change.

Message withdrawn

I feel a bit sorry for the DCs of atheists who are violating their DCs mind. Everyone should make it quite clear that it is what they believe-not a 'truth'.

YANBU.
Loving mnet's pagan bunny ears BTW

There is more to atheism than "what I believe". It is a position which can be substantiated and defended with evidence.

But, of course, I've never said that on here before so I can forgive people for not having quite got it.

Right, bunnies? Flopsy? Mopsy? Cottontail?

Ooh, children, Cottontail's a bit miffed.

Sorry, just having a quick word with my magical sky-bunnies to validate my position, there.

The pro-religious here have answered my old-as-the-hills "why can't god do X then?" question with the kind of answer I've always got, so nothing new there.

Not that I don't appreciate the trouble, and not that I don't believe that they firmly think that to be the true answer, but it doesn't take me anywhere. I'm still stuck with the same problem. Transubstantiation, if it existed, would be a great carnival trick and would win you the Randi prize. (Google that if you don't know what it is.)

Message withdrawn

I'm going to have to leave people to argue it out, anyway, because I'm off on holiday tomorrow! Bye!

spongebrain, check them out for yourselves, www.secularism.org.uk/about.html

I haven't done the full analysis but humanism seems somehow to be providing an alternative 'ism' - which i don't feel the need for as such, there is no vacuum in my life caused by not having a religious belief. Having said that, I can now contradict myself because I have been part of humanist ceremonies which have been very moving and meaningful and I would definately consider these for myself at those life stages when a ceremony is called for.

The secular society is maybe more focused in its aims, promoting and lobbying for separation of church and state, and equal treatment of all regardless of belief - you can be religious and a secularist, that somehow seems more persuasive and more powerful to me, its not about who's belief is right, its about that belief being your own business and not negatively affecting anyone else.

Maybe I'll join BHA too and get all the bases covered - oh the joy of not being religous and therefore able to hedge my bets without being branded a hypocrite!!

enjoyed your posts by the way, fiesty!

UQD - We've been through this before, but here it is again

Actually, atheism cannot be defended with evidence, because there is no evidence that there is no God.

(Yes, I realize it is rather difficult to prove a negative, but still...)

As we discussed before, you can't even go at this problem from a probabilistic angle because we only know of 1 universe and don't even know for a fact if this one was created by some God or not, so cannot say "Out of 200 universes, only 50 were created by a deity, so probably no God created our universe" or some such.

So, the only rational position taking into consideration the whole body of (non-existent) evidence is Agnosticism: There is no proof for either side and all of you are wasting your time arguing as if there is

i agree Cote and have said the same many times.

How vair dare you justa.

[Just desperate to do an angry face with bunny ears]

where's it then? I'll have a look. Though an agnostic's perspective will be of course annoyingly vague...

Wow! Is this debate still going?!

Surely we've proved beyond all doubt by now that there is no god - end of argument!

dreamy, why thank you - I love a good debate! As for humanism, I really relate to the idea that we as humans are responsible for everything that happens in the world, the good and the bad, and that we alone are responsible for change.

This is one of the reasons I struggle with religion - it seems passive and accepting that, because something else has all the power, all we need to do is pray and change will happen. And if it doesn't it's god's will .

I have also been to humanist services - two funerals and a couple of weddings, and we are having a naming ceremony for our DS next month that will be run along humanist lines.

'Surely we've proved beyond all doubt by now that there is no god'

Could you list one single point that proves there is no God please. I have missed them. I haven't seen a single point to prove the existence of God or an single point to prove there is no God. It is a matter of faith and belief-either way.

I think it was a joke

Mind you we came close to it with the Transubstantiation thing. I'm still hoping to meet a christian who really believes in it