In the same vein as the Julia Frogspawn thread, let us all sympathise with the poor north London atheists who had to attend church for 6 months to get their child into a 'desirable' school, and had to miss out on weekends at their retreat in the coun...

[frogs]

Here

Really, my heart bleeds. Do these people not realise how they are going to make themselves sound?

no 100x. bloody static housing market. but i do love where we live really, and we have loads of family support, great friends, happy with school, blah-de-blah. if only dp were happier at work.

Is that what makes them hypocrites then frogs?

HC - oh sorry to hear plans fallen through. Was he looking for another job south west way? Hold tight. Things will get better, eventually.

I agree with you, 100x. The country retreat guy is a total tosser but the rest of them had relatively valid reasons for their choices.

I have no problem understanding why a non-believing Jewish person would want their child to go to a Jewish school to learn the culture/mores of their "tribe".

No, I've no problem with it either. I wouldn't even have a problem with someone who was not jewish wanting to send their child to a jewish school tbh. Though would be an odd decision I suppose, which leads me to

I'm not even sure why it's a bad thing to want to send your child to a school of people like you. Is that wrong? As such?

Marcus's partner/wife is a pretty strong in her Judaism, I've met both of them and their lovely children

Is this a valid reason?

'I really can't imagine a student reading English at A-level and university, as I did, without some familiarity with the Bible and Christian liturgy. So, culturally, I think my time spent at bog standard C of E primaries in the 70s was useful, and I'd like the same experience for my children.'

Quite possibly one of the flimsiest reasons ever given by a non-believer for sending children to a CofE school. I mean, what if they don't want to do English A Level?! And does this imply that if you didn't go to a CofE primary you have no hope of success in this field? Like if you are Jewish, a Muslim or a Hindu? Barmy.

It would only imply that if he/she had said "So, culturally, I think my time spent at bog standard C of E primaries in the 70s was the only possible way to prepare me for that".

would love to make an incisive comment but found article too turgid,and i don't care about their dilemma

I'm afraid the hewish guy seems to be justifying nothing much at all if his Wife is Jewish. DH isn't Christian, I am, the kids go to the (local) CofW. What's the issue?

Is this really all they can raise news-wise atm? blimey, and thre was I thinking there was a world full of injustice out there....

I think there is a difference between Jews and Christians in this respect.

As somebody pointed out in the article, Judaism is not necessarily about internalising beliefs. It can be- but it can equally well be about belonging to a cultural and ethnical group and following a certain tradition. So a man who says 'I am an atheist Jew' is not necessarily stating any sort of contradiction at all.

Christianity on the other hand is all about personal faith. Someone who says I am an atheist Christian is a hypocrite. If you are an atheist, then by definition you are not a Christian. The two are mutually exclusive.

There might still be reasons why you would want to send your children to a Christian school, but there can be no valid reasons for letting your children see you lie about your faith.

'but there can be no valid reasons for letting your children see you lie about your faith. '

well as I said I'm a Christian but

surely the problem with the above quote is that ifyou were lying to get your child into a faith school that was Christian then you wouldn't be christian- my sister diod this and her argument was there's no God t offend so what the heck. I don't agree but rather see her point- if it comes down to that then reaslly it does seem to be at the well I [aid my taxes so why not level doesn't it?

I wouldn't need a belief in God to feel that lying was wrong and not something I wanted to teach my children. I felt no different about this in the years when I was not a Christian. If you tell your children that lying is wrong, then you don't want to model it to them.

Do you really believe that anyone who has not got a belief in a personal god has no morals, Clarissimo? That every atheist thinks it's fine to lie or steal or murder just because there isn't a god to be offended? I know far too many upstanding atheists to believe this.

No and I never said that.

I said that God wouldn't be a reason for doing that though. Your post was talking about contradicting personal faith, no? Sorry- thats how I understood it.

My morals didnt change a jot when I became a Christian. About a year ago, only a few bodied under patio from those days.

Yes, you can be a Jewish atheist - my family's teeming with them.

IME, Jewish schools do like you to be Jewish in the religious sense as well as the cultural sense. It's not enough to be of Jewish heritage. One I know of insists you produce bar/bat mitzvah and marriage certificates going back two generations to prove you are Jewish enough...

I think Marcus de Sautoy is the lead-in to the article just because he's a prominent atheist recently appointed to a high-visibility position but whose children attend a faith school. So there's a vague interest (or, at least, the media can cook up the semblance of a vague interest) in why, even though the answer is the reasonably unexceptionable "because my wife's Jewish and it's important to her". And then it's used as a peg to hang the whole nonstory on.

If someone believes that it's wrong for there to be state-funded faith schools at all then they aren't necessarily being immoral if they lie about faith. In fact, I can imagine a quite interesting discussion with a DC about whether it's wrong to lie to subvert a system with which you profoundly disagree.

And, again, actual lying often isn't needed; just church attendance.

Port, I'm sure actual lying probably is needed at some point ...

I suspect that you have to check some belief box somewhere on the form (altho have no actual experience so could be talking rubbish) and I can't imagine that it is sufficient to be open about your lack of faith at church and still get a place. The hyprocrisy of going is in my book "actual lying" in any event and a pretty crap message to your DCs.

I just don't get this at all. Ok about the jewish religion / culture thing, you can be a jewish atheist. But as an atheist I wouldn't want my DC to go to a christian school, however good it was - I would find it hideous. It might be equally evil but I would far rather just move to get into the catchment of a better school, if the alternatives were that bad. How can true atheists stand a) "worshipping" in church and b) actually choosing to have their kids taught religious dogma? They are not proper athiests if they can, IMO .

But the thing with Anglicanism being the established religion is that you do, sort of, belong to it by default. And when we were younger a lot of parents got their children christened automatically. And it's a broad church in terms of belief (just look at what some clergy have maintained over the years).

It's quite possible for someone to be able to truthfully state "I am a baptised member in good standing of the Church of England and have been attending my local church every Sunday for the last two years".

I had an ex-boyfriend once who was very active in his local CofE church. He did readings, rang bells, was on the PCC, was elected as a churchwarden in his mid-20s. But he didn't actually believe in the literal truth of Christianity. He just thought that religion (and more specifically Anglicanism) was vitally important to society and that everyone would be better off if they lived their lives as though it were true. Now, he didn't mention that set of beliefs to most people.

He's married now with at least four children. I would be astonished if they aren't going to a CofE school. I don't know whether he's a hypocrite or "actually lying" or setting a bad example to his DCs. I don't know whether it's more noble to pretend you believe for the good of society as a whole than it is for the good of one individual for whose welfare you have a specific responsibility (although I do think it's a whole lot more weird). I don't know how many like him there are out there (surely not many...?) but at the same time I don't know how genuine and fully-thought-out the faith of anyone else is, either.

Interestingly I know one Catholic priest who argues (and will argue in a technical way drawn from canon law, too) that if parents are prepared to have a child baptised as Catholic, take it to church and send it to a Catholic school, then the Church jolly well ought to make sure there's a place for that child, if necessary by expanding provision. What the parents' actual beliefs are doesn't enter into it, because it's about the child who is a baptised Catholic and should receive a Catholic education. But that's off at a tangent.

If circumstances were very slightly different I might be in a position where I had a choice between attending church to get DCs into a local school within five minutes' walk or not attending church and getting them into schools (and, yes, less "good" schools) the far side of the borough two bus rides and an hour's journey away. Circumstances aren't very slightly different, and I don't have to make that choice, but if I did, would I really give a four-year-old a two-hour return bus journey every day with a pious explanation that I thought this was a less crap message? I don't know (well, actually, if I did have to make that choice I'd probably go for option C, home ed).

I understand your view, snowleopard, but I can also kind of see theirs.

I think it hideous if "proper" atheists feign belief to get their child into a school but, in respect of (a), I know quite a few people who would class themselves as believers but enjoying going to church and get a great deal from it despite not strictly speaking believing in the Christian doctrine per se and, with respect to (d) I know a lot of atheists who are very comfortable with their children being exposed to religion, in fact, they actively encourage it and feel that their DCs should be exposed to religion in order to make an informed choice.

Well that's a whole other issue about the only school nearby being a faith school - I find it horrendous and shockingly wrong that that can happen. No I wouldn't make a primary school child go to a school that was an hour each way - again, I'd have to move rather than have them go to a local faith school.

Blimey is it 2009, why can education not just be about the facts, and keep personal views and beliefs that everyone does not share well out of it?

Am going to hide thread however as I don't mean to get sucked in.

Yes stillstanding exposed to it of course, I want my DC to learn about religion, all religions if possible, and I'd respect a child's choice to choose to become religious if they wanted. Teaching it as if it's the truth though - totally different matter.

Arrrgh I must feck off right now!

Have read original piece but not this whole thread.

I am an atheist and DH is agnostic and so far we have decided not to have ds christened for reasons that should appear obvious - we will be making promises to someone that we don't really believe in that we know we won't keep.

Trouble is I am starting to worry about finding a decent school for ds (16 mo - I know I am starting early)and have started to wonder of it might be worth getting him christened just in case. I realise this won't get him in to a religious school on its own but presumably he'll stand zero chance if he isn't.

We live in an urban area where the schools are rubbish (bar one and of course you have to live next door to get in) and are prob going to move to an area with better schools later this year (we hope)but I can't help wondering what to do.

I'd feel like a rank hypocrite if I sent ds to a church school but then I'd feel even worse if I screwed up his education by sending him to a dire one.

To be fair, there are three nearby state schools. Two of them are faith schools and one isn't. But that one is itself oversubscribed, and children who don't get in there do sometimes/often end up being only offered places on the other side of the borough.

I agree entirely that there's a big difference between wanting your child to be exposed to religion (we have books of religious stories from a wide range of world religions, for example) and wanting them to go to a school where one particular religion is taught as fact.