Cant get DC into a faith school

[angelfireabbey]

I know this is possibly the wrong place because it seems the whole of MN is atheist or totally secular. However, there is a lot of discussion by MNers here about getting intofaith schools ( often without any faith because they are good schools).

I am a little bit fed up with it. I take my faith seriously. I take my DC to church and we believe. I wanted my DC to have a faith education. There are only two faith schools where I live. They are oversubscribed by parents who seem to have suddenly aquired a need to attend church to get a vicars signiture.

I had my pastors signiture but we didnt get a place. So instead my DC is stuck in a state school where the teachers and other children laugh and say that they have " imaginary friends" ( or simply they are nutters!) and that they believe in fairly stories etc. Sound familiar MN parents? ( I bet you wouldnt say it if someone were of say Jewish or Muslim faith though would you?). It is offensive you know.

They have an atheist teacher who clearly knows next to nothing about Christianity.

I would settle for any faith school although there are no others ( of any faith ) within 40 miles of us.

So how do I get into one? I have asked my church community. I know they are doing their best and we are praying hard but I am sure some savvy non religious types must know more here. So I am asking.
I see thread on thread where parents are scamming the system.So how does a genuine person get in?

Thanks.

"There are as many different types of atheist as there are atheists."

Yes- but the only thing which links them together is them not believing in God. Whether or not they are also bird watchers, or vegetarians, or believe in extra terrestrials is nothing to do with their atheism

"he fact that Christians follow Christ but have a range of opinions about other stuff is often used by Atheists to try and undermine the core belief"

What do you mean?

If you are an atheist you do not identify with any faith.

You may formerly have been brought up in a faith, according to the wishes of your parents.
But once you realise there is no god and become an atheist, you are not identifiable under any religion.

can you expand on what you see as the different types of atheist in terms of what they believe?

Well, for starters, there's the type that believes it's ok to sign off with "God Bless", and the type that thinks it isn't.

And there's the type that believes it's ok to go to church because they enjoy the community and cultural experience, and the type that thinks it isn't.

And there's the type that believes they should evangelise about their atheism, and the type that doesn't.

And there's there are the types that identify with groups such as the BHA, Brights etc, and the types that don't.

And there are the types that respect other people's right to choose religion, and the types that don't.

etc, etc.

And then there are the agnostics. Even Richard Dawkins defines himself as technically an agnostic, because as others have pointed out up thread it's not possible to prove that God doesn't exist. However, he also says that the probability of a God existing is so low that it can be considered to be mathematically negligible.

Presumably other agnostics have their own measures of probability that are less scientific, but which are still meaningful to them.

But none of those other categories have any connection with being an atheist. As I said, you can be anything and also an atheist- apart from believe in God.

The only thing which links atheists is not believing in any God.

This thread started with an OP who launched into a rant about not having been given the choice of a Faith State School that she clearly felt entitled too and in the process taking derogatory swipes at those who are "Athiest or totally secular" and moaning about what she perceives as the offensive way in which Christians are treated in community schools, without the same consideration as is given to Jews and Muslims (though in the end it boiled down to an inconsistent account of one teacher who may have been offensive, or may just have been misunderstood)

I think if we are talking about people oversimplifying the diversity of people's views and beliefs, stereotyping and oversimplification, we had an example right there.

perhaps the OP was really upset. Sometimes things seem alot worse than they really are etc.

alemcii When you are upset you do not come out with a set of attitudes and perceptions and a subjectivity that you do not actually possess. it unleashes inner prejudice. A shame isn't it that OP did not have the education at school and since, to be able to put her upset in a more balanced context, understand the points of view of others and not be offensive in expressing it. I strongly suspect that conversations of this nature are very common place within the groups she chooses to associate with in her congregation to the point she is completely oblivious to what actually goes on in the rest of the world.

I have been similarly called a Humanist by a faith group (not that I regard that as derogatory, just not accurate) though what I was objecting to was not their faith starting a local state school (which actually is the faith of my own family background, and that of my DH ) but rather starting a school through a convoluted process precisely so that they could exclude the majority of the children in the local community on the basis of their parents religion at a time when the community faces a shortage of school places (partly as a result of the high prevalence of exclusive Faith Schools in the area). It was a view shared by many of their congregation, even a couple of the governors. However the old guard (and it included the Bishop) seemed to think that calling anyone who objected a "bunch of Humanists" was not just accurate but also validly derogatory.

It is an astonishingly narrowly minded view and the best state and private schools in my experience equip their pupils to have a more balanced perspective

Woddaya, that's not different types of atheists. That's different types of people.

Atheists = don't believe in any gods. There are huge philosophical divisions about how you can describe different approaches to atheism, which is why I was interested in what you said. But the fundamental is the same - don't believe in any gods.

Theists = believe in god or gods.

There are some pretty good philosophical arguments about how best to describe agnosticism in that dichotomy which is where I find Dawkins's spectrum of theistic probability interesting and the language probably more accurate than the theist / agnostic / atheist descriptors.

Woddya- with a little tweaking you could substitute Christian for atheist in all your statements. They would not be different types of Christian- they would be different types of people who happen to be Christian. However, there a Christians who believe in transubstantiation, and Christians who don't. Christians who believe in salvation through faith, or works or both. Christians who believe that evangelizing is a requirement, Christians who don't.

Different types of Christians. But all Christian.

Hakluyt: "... with a little tweaking you could substitute Christian for atheist in all your statements"

Course you could - that was my point. There are lots of types of atheist, and lots of types of Christian. Your points about transubstantiation and salvation are as irrelevant to the definition of Christianity as having stripes is to the definition of a fish - they define different sub-sets of Christianity, but not Christianity itself. The one thing that all Christians, by definition, have in common is that they believe Jesus was the son of God. (Unless of course they don't, in which case they're not Christian, but don't realise it ).

There are sub-sets of atheists (notably Humanists), but they are less well organised and defined than the sub-sets of Christians, partly because large-scale identification with atheism is a relatively modern phenomenon, but mostly because atheists tend towards non-conformism.

p.s. Have you noticed how many arguments about religion and belief are semantic and therefore a waste of time?

angels on the head of a pin

the atheist version of which is multiverse theoretical physics

"There are sub-sets of atheists"
No, there aren't.

How can I explain this so you understand?

The one thing that makes and atheist an atheist is not believing in God. That. Nothing else. No different stripes on different atheist fish. An atheist can be practically anything lose as well as being an atheist. But it does not change the sort of atheist they are. Because there is only one sort. You can be a Roman Catholic Christian or a Protestant Christian- they describe the sort of Christian you are. There are no similar desriptors for atheist. Honest.

Depends on who you ask Hakluyt: commonsenseatheism.com/?p=6487

Don't get your knickers in a twist about it though.

wodda
American website : America a much less secular and religiously tolerant place than UK

I was not being serious when I said " God Bless". But as an atheist I can say whatever I like as long as it is legal. So can anybody else, of course.

My knickers are not so far twisted that I don't recognise a joke when I see one- did you miss that "tall" "short" and "Caucasian" were also types of atheist?

Nope - got that - and they're all types of Christian too. They just don't have an organisational structure .

Like I said before, most arguments about religion and belief are semantic.

I am guessing that there are probably Roman Catholic atheists and Protestant atheists too but I am not sure where that leaves us!!

I was not being serious when I said " God Bless".

'Course you weren't.

I think it would be difficult to marry those to things, vdb, unless you're referring to secular/cultural Christianity/Judaism, where one feels a cultural affiliation and 'feeling for nostalgia and ceremonies' (Dawkins) of the religion in question without following its teachings or believing in its gods.

That is what I am talking about Jassy as I do think there are many people who would say they were Catholic/Protestant for whom that is a cultural identity and not a belief system.

A survey conducted by the Free University of Amsterdam in 2006 found that one in six Protestant priests in Holland were either atheist or agnostic.