to think that my DD has a right to a secular education

[Tinnitus]

Two years ago my DD came home to tell EXP and Me about the "true meaning of Christmas". We are both atheists and had purposely sought out a non religious school and so we were perplexed. We took every opportunity to explain that this story was just that, a story, not the literal truth.

Inevitably DD soon started on about the true meaning of Easter and so I made an appointment to see the headmistress of her school. By the time of the appointment I had learned from DD that it was a classroom helper who was feeding her this guff and not a teacher, and I felt a quiet word would suffice.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only was the helper indoctrinating DD, but the local evangelical church held monthly assemblies with the children. Indeed it turns out that every school in the country must be affiliated with a church of some type, but is not obliged to brand themselves thus. The head mistress was courteous and obliging and agreed to my request that the brainwashing of DD stop. I made no demands about her education other than She does not come home spouting twaddle.

Two years on and she is beginning to again to talk about Heaven, Hell, God and the Devil. But she has no idea who Adam and Eve were. When I "tactfully" quizzed her about this I discover a local CofE vicar has been regularly talking to the children about his faith, but without emphasizing that it is only his own opinion. Worse still, He has had my DD praying in class.

I have asked the school to live up to their earlier agreement as calmly as I could.

AIBU

/ Fallen Madonna
It isn't that the more intelligent a person is, the less religious they are. That is a misunderstanding of the findings. /

There is a strong inverse correlation between intelligence and religous belief. Sorry, but they happen to be the facts.

Also, the 'more religous' groups tends to be even less intelligent. i.e.

Dogmatic/fundanmentalist believers tend to be lower on the scale than liberal/moderate etc.

Im sure this will make people cross, but there is lots of studies and stats for it.

And yes it's not simply intelligence.

Intelligence is a tool and it would certainly help to have some if deciding if you are going to be religious or not.

However it's the use you make of the tool which matters. If I decided I wanted the comfort of religion I'm pretty sure I could work out some intelligent reasons for doing so.

I think I'd start from scratch and make my own religion though. Trying to justify Christianity with all the contradictions is like trying to carry water in a net.

I think it is unlikely that the being enjoys watching people being happy, because the being could create a lot more happiness if the being wanted that.

/if you took all of the great minds throughout history, I think the atheists would be in the minority /

If this is trying to show that the premise (above) isnt true, it doesnt work like that, I'm afraid

claig 'we create our own purpose and meaning, but is there an underlying meaning of which we are unaware of, and which is the reason for all life itself?' No.

Again, there is a correlation between IQ and religiosu belief. I don't think anyone;s disputing that. But it is across a population. So my earlier point that there are many highly intelligent people with religious beliefs (and many unintelligent people without one) is valid. If SGB's assertion were correct, there would be no intelligent people with faith, and SGB would be the cleverest woman on the planet. The latter may be true, the former is not.

we don't know what the purpose of the being is. It is unlikely to be us being happy or us suffering. It is some other purpose of which we are not aware.

And studies and stats don't make me cross. Misinterpreting them does though rather.

it sounds like a metal parody to you because your mind is made up. You are not asking any questions, you think you know the answers. Maybe you are wrong.

Actually science is asking questions and faith is making your mind up and sticking to it.

Making up random 'facts' and then deciding to believe in them agaisnt all reason is not the same as being open minded.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I noticed some questions on Noah's Ark and resurrection etc., but I think these are the wrong questions.

I think the way to get closest to the answers is via philosophy because you are dealing with meaning and purpose and good and evil and beauty and love etc. Science won't help you there. I see science as a servant of philosophy.

Science is about asking questions certainly. But questioning is not restricted only to Science. And nor are Science and religion mutually exclusive. Just ask some of those fine minds.

If one person believes the world is run by little blue people who live in radiators, they get called mental.
If 100 people believe in the blue radiator people, it's a cult.
If a million people believe in them, it's a religion.

You need to teach children that some people believe in stuff like that, but how could want to encourage it?

science deals with the material world. I believe there is some sort of spirit which is non-material. But this is a belief for which proof is probably not possible. It can be grasped via the mind and by understanding and feeling.

Well done Monseigneur Lemaître It would appear that he applied his fine mind though and decided the bible was lying about creation.

One problem with religious discussions is that we talk as though religious people were of one mind. In fact there are nearly as many different religions as there are religious people.

Some see true faith as believing the bible even if the facts contradict it. Monseigneur Lemaître was clearly not one of those and good for him. Others like him have been burned at the stake for having ideas.

As ever we are getting sidetracked by bickering and irrelevant points.

Clever people believe stupid things.
Stupid people can be right about things.
Believing something stupid doesn't make you stupid.

Religious people have done awful things.
Atheists have done awful things.
Agnostics have done awful things.
This says more about people than religion.

There is research that shows that religious belief reduces with education/intelligence.
There is research that shows that religious belief is a human attribute and may have a evolutionary advantage.
Neither of these things have any bearing on the existence or non-existence of God.

There is no evidence for the existence of God.
There are philosophical 'proofs'. There validity is (I would say) dubious)

Religion is a belief system based on (for the purposes we seem to be discussing here) an an priori assumption of the existence of a God.

Science is a systemic method for investigating how the world works.

Religon can not be taught as fact by anyone applying a rational view of the world to the issue.
Science is a method, that method is a fact. The results are always provisional. Some are very useful. None require the existence of a God.

yes I think being religious is believing in some sort of divine power, not needing to be a follower of a particular faith or denomination

We all know that there ARE people who have mental issues who imagine they see,hear or feel certain things. So if I were to suddenly feel god close to me how could I know it was real and not me having a nervous breakdown?

Surely any certainty I felt could simply be a symptom. What method could I use to distinguish between those two things.

I don't think anyone teaches religion as a fact, that is why we use the term believer

you wouldn't know for sure, that is why you would either believe or not. Many people have asked God to show that He exists. He diesn't do that, it is for you to decide to believe or not.

I don't think anyone teaches religion as a fact, that is why we use the term believer

Did you read the OP? The vicar was teaching his beliefs as fact. That was the problem.