Calling atheists (and anyone else with an opinion) - am I right to get a bit peed off about this?

[Tinker]

Eldest daughter goes to a state school, no relgious affiliation. However, it does seem to hasve close (too close, for my liking) ties with a local church - Christian. Have tolerated that.

Yesterday, she came home very excited, telling me their school had been picked to sing on a cd. On closer inspection of the leaflet, and then reading the website, it's a Christian thing. I won't stop her doing it but I am a bit peed off that a) I wasn't told about it and b) I feel they are using kids to promote Chritianity.

I'm going to investigate the site (popconnections.co.uk) a bit more when I get a chance and will write to the head but just wanted some perspective on this. Anyone else know about them? Am I over-reacting?

Can I just ask a quickie? Is it religion you don't believe in or God? Because the two are very different aren't they?

clerkkent I think it's a lovely thing to go to church to support your daughter

it's not hypocritical to go if you don't believe in it as long as you take it seriously and respect the views of the people there

i've heard it said that 'belonging comes before believing'. and I do believe that even if the concept of a higher being is completely taken away, the basic teachings of Christianity are a valid way by which to live your life

of course if you are snorting with laughter and rolling your eyes it's a different matter

Is that to me Rhuby? Both. Well, if don't believe in god, religion becomes irrelevant, no?

No. There is God and then there is religion. Religion is a man-made thing used for the purpose of worshipping God. God is what you feel when you look at creation or the big bang and wonder about the intelligence that made it all happen. Whatever you think God might be, do you think we came to be because of a zillion to one coincidence that a big bang happened out of nowhere that just so happened to have in it the capabilities of producing life as we now know it? Or do you think something intelligent made that happen? That something gave the big bang a helping hand?

Sorry, yes you can believe in religion and not God. Not every religion worshipped God as such, some religions worshipped the earth!

AS dh said, singing humns never hurt him, and he's not christian

I sang hymns at school, never stopped me regarding religion as a contagious mental illness.
I've never quite worked out exactly why religious types want their stuff in school anyway. It seems to me the best way of putting kids off it.
Also if I cared about this stuff, I wouldn't want the state putting it's spin on it.

I wouldn't like this tbh Tinks, being a heathen myself and ds being not sure but with maybe a possibility of being Hindu. Just skimmed the thread and I agree with Pruni.

DominiConnor - my old buddy! How the devil are you?
I wonder if there is any kind of medication for my contagious mental illness? Tinker dear, I've met you, I do hope I didn't pass on anything unpleasant!

"Religion is a man-made thing used for the purpose of worshipping God." Quite. So if you remove god from the equation, religion has no purpose. Excepting Buddhists, I suppose.

"do you think we came to be because of a zillion to one coincidence that a big bang happened out of nowhere that just so happened to have in it the capabilities of producing life as we now know it". More or less. Absence of knowledge does not mean I therefore believe in god.

That's just it Tinker, if you remove God you will still have religion, I don't think it would make any difference I'm afraid!

I do think science and God can go hand in hand. The more I find out about creation and the universe, the more I am in awe of the idea of something intelligent behind it all. The fact that something was made from nothing I suppose justifies, for me, a belief in God.

I see belief in God very different to belief in religion. I can well understand why one would not want to have anything to do with religion, but a belief in God that is quite private.

But I guess you're a 'real' athiest then! Fair enough!

Don't forget confucionism- even Confucius didn't believe it, it was just a method of social control for him. I think that puts an interesting slant on the purposes of religion, personally.

"Religion is the opium of the people".

I believe that science can explain everything from the Big Bang. There is enough matter in the universe for a zillion to one coincidence to take place (more than once!), but it is not really a coincidence at all, but the end (or rather the current) result of a type of survival of the fittest - applied to inorganic and organic matter.

I have not seen any scientific explanation as to why the Big Bang happened. You can call it god if you want, but that was a single event aeons ago, and if that is all that god has done then he/she/it has no relevance to life today.

If religion and science are both to be true, then they would have to agree. However organised religion is a political entity, and since it's "product" is some view on truth, that gets into deep trouble.

Organisatons want "truth" to remain constant, and to control it. Christians threatened to torture and burn Galileo not because they thought he was wrong, but because they wanted a monopoly on how the idea was spread.

Religious types too often fall into the fallact of "I'm a Catholic/Moslem/Astrologist therefore I believe X". That means that their self image requires them to believe things that their reason would normally reject, or even simply have no opinion about.
"Faith" in the face of contrary evidence is seen as a virtue. But it is an effort, hence the
phenomenon of relgious types being "offended".
Point out the mass rape of kids by priests, the murders of widows by Hindus, the failure of any Moslem scoiety to work at all and within seconds you'll be called "offensive".
Do the same with scientists, and they'll agree with you. Books that detail that Isaac Newton was certfiably mad for a good % of his life sell well.
(at one point he believed furniture was conspiring against him). We know that Mendel's "original" work on genetics was faked, that Einstein was critical in lobbying for the production of nuclear weapons that killed huge numbers of people, Darwin assumed black people to be inherently inferior, and books that detail how Feynman treated women badly is routinely quoted in conversations by people who admire his work.
Do scientists riot at these attacks on their idols ?
No.
Do we verbally berate people for not showing "tolerance" of Feynman's sexism ?
No.

The point of science is that truth is independant of who finds it. The artists/religious position is that the source is critical, not only to try and work out the quality of the facts presented, but also whether it is valid.

Your arguments would be better if it were not for the huge chip on your shoulder that seems to hinger your logical thinking.

Mass rape of kids by priests? Really? How about mass rape of kids by men in general? As we've discussed before, you cannot cast judgement on one set of peoples, humanity is flawed therefore any organisation set up by people is bound to be flawed, whether that organisation be teaching or religion or taxi drivers. I might as well say that I am against education because of the mass rape of kids by teachers!

This is where your argument is illogical and leans more towards emotional thinking, which is flawed.

"hinder"

Yes, rape is by men, as is the majority of crime. However, there is a difference between an organisation that happens to be large and thus have many men, some of whom are paedophiles and the Catholic Church whose senior staff have actually helped in it.

DC I think you're out of line here. I am an atheist, hence no belief whatsoever in God etc. However, saying religion has a greater link with paedophilia is ludicrous. Singling out Catholicism is also ridiculous, since there is no evidence to suggest child abuse is more prevalent by priests than other ministers. For someone who harps on an awful lot about the merits of Science v Arts etc in relation to fact/statistics, you are actually very hypocritical because you make a lot of value judgements which are not evidence based. Methinks you just like to come on the site and make inflammatory comments journo style. Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

Bingo, plummymummy

Or do I mean bullseye?

Both do it Janh.

How about a nice hippy throwback:

Right on plummymummy, man

Or, from the Fast Show...nice...

Peachy, Plummy!

Nice one Plummy!

Hi guys, new to thread and briefly scanned it as thought was an interesting debate.

Tinker - I can totally understand your reservations about your DD being involved in a Christian outreach project, and especially that you're annoyed aboutnot being given prior warning and asked for approval. I also get the impression that you're especially worried because you personally have misgivings about religion in general.

Speaking as a Christian, and I may surprise some other Christians here, I actually aree with you. You should have been asked, as should all of the parents at your daughters school. There are branches of Christianity, and many other religions, that I would have a problem with my DS coming into contact with.

However, given that it's already happened I was thinking that you could actually turn the situation around into something positive. I thought perhaps you could use it as an opportunity to teach DD about ALL world religions and explain to her about why you're an atheist - without trying to sway her in any direction. My dad did this for me when I was about her age and I was really interested in it all but I didn't become a Christian until my early 20's.

I'm bringing my sons up in a mixed faith marriage (DH is a Buddhist) and though they're a bit young at present, I'll be encouraging them to find out all they can about people's beliefs and cultures - including atheists. I think it's really important especially as we're living in a world where many religions have bee 'hijacked' by fundamentalist groups and the media distorts the truth about beliefs and practices. If you educate your DD, I would think she'd be less likely (not more) to get involved with any far right religious practices/cults in the future because she'll have a balanced, moderate, and mature view. I guess what I'm saying is that it should be possible to have a respect for other people's beliefs, without endorsing them.

Hope this helps - and also, I had a look at the groups behind this organization and I don't think there's anything to worry about, they're not overtly evangelistic. I think they just do what they say they do and are interested in building community spirit etc. It might surprise some but that is just as important to genuine Christians as 'spreading the word'.