Religious schools discriminating against atheists

[MNersanonymous]

Dh and I are just having a discussion about this. The best state schools in our area are all religious and we, as atheists, feel discriminated against.

Could we take action against our local council under the religious discrimination legislation?!

Just curious really.

You might well want your child to go to the local school whatever your beliefs. And many CofE schools are 'the local school' especially in villages. These days you don't just have to be CofE to get into them, you have to be a regular worshipper. They have become an exclusive club. Which is wrong:
a. because it's a misuse of taxpayer's money
b. because children are being discriminated against on the grounds of their parents' beliefs, not theirs
c. because any religion should be interested in the welfare of the child, not what its parents do on a Sunday morning.
d. because it encourages people to lie. There are thousands of parents who suddenly 'get' religion in order to get their children into popular schools. And the church knows it.

You'd think the church would be crying out to get their hands on the children of athetists and convert them... especially if anyone involved remembers 'suffer the children to come unto me'. Load of Pharisees, the lot of them!

Belief is possibly not a choice, but the extent to which we follow through on that belief by actually practising the religion is most definitely a choice.

If we're going to get all theological about it, faith is a gift from god which we can either respond to and act upon, or we can turn our backs on it. (Or half-believe it and not do much about it, which is possibly the most popular option).

You don't catch religion like chickenpox, but nor is it a lifestyle choice like joining a political party or a bookgroup.

gosh this is circuitous.

Oblomov, you are mistaken. I quite definitely did not contradict myself.

I made the point that I pay taxes to support The Public Good, which includes the childless and the elderly.

Once I have paid to support them, I do not expect these institutions to include only part of that particular interest group.

So, for example, I would consider it a very unjust use of my taxes if some state-run old people's homes only catered for Roman Catholics, or Muslims.

As for your question regarding why an atheist would want the right to attend a religious school, it is usually because they feel that they have paid for it.

Others, including myself, would like to see an end to all faith-based education. Children cannot vote or choose to harm their bodies by drinking alcohol etc. Neither can they make an informed decision as to the existence of a deity. Which is why most atheists consider faith schools to be indoctrinating their pupils.

No, I object to STATE FUNDING being given to something that excludes people on the basis of religion. I would prefer the (is the French?) system where religion is kept out of school entirely by law. School is for education. Faith should be for home/church.

I don't think private schools should have charitable status when they blatantly aren't, either. They are a business. I don't object to private schools, and (if local sink comp doesn't improve) we may well try and work out a way to get our kids to on although I'm not sure how we will afford it - and only then to one which isn't highly hot-housing.

I have no desire to have my children indoctrinated at school. If they choose on their own backs to become a Christian or a Muslim or a Pagan then fine, but I want that choice to be based on proper knowledge. What I object to is how divisive faith schools are to the community and use our money to do so.

edam: "Load of Pharisees, the lot of them!" - exactly. Well said

(and yes, particularly at primary - being able to walk to school was our BIGGEST criteria).

There are state-affiliated old people's homes that cater for one particular religion (well, I know there are Jewish ones, not sure about others).

It's pretty much analogous to the school situation the hardware (building etc) is provided by the religious or voluntary organisation, but the cost of keeping people there is provided by the state (as is the case in with many private care homes, provided the residents fulfill the criteria for state support). My taxes are paying for these people to be looked after I can't see how it matters whether they are looked after in a Jewish home with others from their faith or in a secular one.

Same with the school: the building is owned by the church (usually with money raised from parishioners years ago) but the cost of educating the children is met by the state, just as it would be if they attended the non-church school over the road.

frogs, are you really saying that there are faith-segregated old people's homes to anything like the extent that faith-schools dominate the agenda in the education system? Surely not.

In any case, it matters a great deal, if the old person can't go to the home up the road from where she has lived all her life. Where there may be better care. etc etc. And which has been supported previously by her own taxes.

OBLOMOV my child can't choose a religion!
Education is not about the parents, it's about the child. and a child logically cannot 'believe', either by choosing or by being born into a religion.

O.K. I have to admit I have difficulty in understanding the all that the word faith means. But let me re-assure you , that my mum found faith, and carriews it through to all areas of her life, at alater stage in life.
This is very serious for her. And her faith, I believe is very real.
It was a choice for her.

one bat there are a number of christian care homes thta my mum has been investigating. Not as big a thing as faith schools are, at the moment. But there are ALOT of them.

onebat the parent chooses the school for the child.

What age are children able to decide.? Do you believe that a Bar Mitzvah is celebrated at too young an age ?

OOO what an interesting debate!! I think maybe the point is more does religion have a place in eductation? Please don't forget that all state schools have an obligation to have some form of "collective worship" and many state primaries (particulalry village primaries like my local school) choose to do this in a Christain manner. So the debate is not as simple as church schools vs state schools as many many state school sing hymns, pray, have special services in the local chruch. I don't think its right to have a go at the chruch schools but I do think its right to question and debate whether religion has any place in public funded educations system. I am not pretending to have the answers, but in the multi cultural world we now live in I think it is a useful debate.

Sorry lots of typos

Taxpayers money is spent on Mosques and synagogues aswell, you know.

I think that is a much wider issue, Playing. What is being debated here is whether it is right that state funded schools are allowed to select pupils on the basis of their parents' churchgoing habits.

It is also part of the bigger debate of whether religion has a place in our political system as well, because schools are part of that system. Don't forget our head of state in also head of the church. In the UK system Christianity and politics and entwined. It would take a complete shake up of the system (and probably abolision of the monarchy) to achieve this. Again, I am not about to let slip where I fall into within this argument

Iorek, I thought the issue was discrimitation in education against atheists according to the OP?

I see that would say that "discriminaion" applies to state school as well as church schools and then again into the wider political system.

If the OP choose to send her child to the local state school instead of the C of E school she might still find that there is an element of religion involved that she is not happy with.

That is why I believe that the role of religion in education is a much wider debate than simply church schools.

Of course Christianity plays a big part in british life. Many of our laws, school holidays etc are based on them.
It is interesting from an historical pov.
I agree christianity and politics are entwined.
I don't understand what the big deal is tbh.
There are plenty of other things such as the war in Iraq that I resent paying taxes for.
I guess I have mellowed since I realised I couldn't afford to move to a better area for schools and I also couldn't pay school fees, so I am grateful to have the RC school as a choice.

Yes, Playing, church schools discriminate against atheists because they are allowed to select against atheists.

This discrimination could easily be ended by making church schools abide by the same rules on selection as non-church schools.

I agree with playing- most schools celebrate lots of religious festivals

Oblomov, this is all debating angels and pinheads.

Q: Is it right that the state - which must be just and seen to uphold equality - should, through the taxes we all pay, fund an education system which excludes some children on the basis of belief?

A: No, it cannot be right. It might be as wrong as other percieved wrongs (private schools/postcode lottery/old people's homes) but that does not make it RIGHT.

All the rest - what belief is, whether parents choose for kids (yes they do, because CHILDREN ARE NOT JUDGED TO BE CAPABLE OF CHOICE AT THAT AGE), whether you or your child can 'choose' your faith (okay, today I choose to be CofE because that's the best school in the area) is marginal, and to leap from one to another in order to dodge the fundamental truth outlined above, is sophistry.