Live webchat with Richard Dawkins, Wed 23 June, 10am-11am

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're pleased to welcome Richard Dawkins for a webchat on Wednesday 23 June from 10am-11am. Richard is a celebrated evolutionary biologist and atheist, and author of the best-selling God Delusion.

He has presented programmes on Channel Four that range from enthusing about the Genius of Charles Darwin to arguing against religion in Root of All Evil?

His latest project is taking a long hard look at education and the role religion continues to play in it.

He wants to hear first-hand from Mumsnetters what faith and church schools are really like. How successful are they? Are they selection by another means? Are they divisive? And are they making hypocrites out of non-believing parents who go to church just to send their children to them?

If you can't make the discussion but want to contribute, please post your views here.

Thanks and hope you can join us.

boiledegg you need to have a look at Richards previous posts he would also not want an atheist school

I would love a free-thinking school of that type for my children.

Pofaced - not self-satisfied. But it is a relief to speak freely.

Richard, I would love to send my (future) children to a free-thinking school. In fact, me and my partner have vague dreams of setting up our own small school along those lines (although we baulk at idea of being like that odious prat Toby Young and his ilk, in that regard).
Firstly, I would like to commend you on your tone in your writings. As a militant Atheist, I think you are very measured and I don't find you too strident at all - in fact, have joked to others that you didn't go far enough for my liking

Do you, like me, despair at the perceived notion that talking about Atheism and one's non-religious beliefs is often automatically seen as offensive, even though it seems to be taken for granted that religious people, particularly Christians, should be allowed to talk openly about their beliefs, even though much of those are offensive, upsetting and maddeningly illogical to others who do not share their beliefs? Would you agree that the next step for Atheists is to get society to see that there is an unconscious belief in society that there is an intrinsic 'truth' to religious belief, and which therefore means that the religious have more of a right to speak their views and that these views are therefore not offensive (or not as offensive) as non-religious stating their views and that this is why people seem to feel that people stating that they don't believe in any kind of deity or supernatural force are somehow trying to be rude and hurtful?

Thank you.

Some people think you need faith education in order to instill morality. What do people think of that?

Richard - you would consider setting up a petition against faith schools so that the matter is debated in the House of Commons?

In the coalition document page 27 it states that "any petition that secures 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament".

Personally I have one DS who is not yet school aged but I am an athiest (converted from being an agnostic by you ). I am rather horrified to realise that it was my schooling in CoE primary and non-faith secondary which resulted in my choosing to get married in a church. I think the religious assemblies and prayers normalise religion - and in real non-school life at home with my parents and now I do not say prayers etc.

I am very upset at the stories of "teaching as fact" about various aspects of religion and that these are in no way limited instances within faith schools.

Surely there is some mechanism for "complaining" about this.

Should parents be seeking the policy on religion for schools?

I know you are involved with the British Humanist Association - others on this thread will probably be interested in the website and this Humanism for schools website.

Are you working with the BHA on this religion/education project?

I feel that it's fundamentalism of any kind, religious or atheist, that's the problem. It causes people to close their minds to anything except what they want to believe. I personally have no problem respecting the beliefs of others as long as this does not impact negatively on other people.

Perhaps Faith schools are the most academically successful as they instil values of compassion and respect? Perhaps they are the most successful because the children feel, generally ,happy and secure? Perhaps SHOCK! they are taught a wide variety of ideas, including other religious beliefs and rigorous science too?

But you don't want to hear that.

RichardDawkins said: "Infant baptism is bizarre when you think about it. Pre-empting a child's right to decide for herself. Actually committing a child to particular opinions about the cosmos and morality before it has learned to speak."

Weeell. Yes, that's true. And I don't agree with infant baptism.

But - parents teach their children their particular moral views all the time. For example, telling a child it is wrong to steal or hit. Is it really any different to tell a child that God exists, than to tell them it's wrong to steal? Either way you're not allowing them to decide for themselves.

Scorpette, thank you

Faith schools are academically successful because the kind of parents who go to church just to get their kids into the right school are likely to be the kind of parents who take an interest in their kids education and want them to do well. It is the influence at home which is most important in any child's education. If the parents care, take an interest, encourage a love of learning, provide a stable and quiet environemnt in whihc to study - the kids will do much better.

Hah!! That would be the morality of the COE who think there's nothing wrong with discriminating against people who are homosexual?

Or the morality of the Catholic Church????

Or the morality of the islamic faith that insists that women's word is worth half of that of a man in a court of law?

Give me the athiests any day.

Richard, again, are you asking whether parents have the right to choose for their dc an education that has a religious context, or whether parents should have to fake a religion in order to get their dc into a local school? Two completely separate questions, which you seem to be conflating.

I live in New Zealand were most schools are secular. Morality is instilled by life experience. You develop it as you go through life and find that people treat you better when you act in a certain way. It does not have to come from religion.

Richard, do you think it could be feasible to have critical thinking as a subject on every school's curriculum, and examined at GCSE and A level?

Pofacedagain it is just this point that we want to explore in this documentary. We want to see the evidence and speak to many schools

I don't see the need to learn a particular faith to learn about moraility. There must be plenty of children who grow up in atheist / agnostic families who know about respect, integrity, honesty etc. I'd be insulted if anyone thought that kids with no instructed "faith" were amoral (or immoral!)

Ithink that faith schools are successful because they are the so well established as part of the state. Many of our leading universities have a background of religious patronage, and until this link is severed it will continue to be the norm.

EnglishPatient, there is no such thing as atheist fundamentalism. Fundamentalist doesn'[t mean passionate, it means unchangeable. Every atheist I know would change their mind in a heartbeat if any evidence appeared in favour of religious belief. Could you say the same thing of religious fundamentalists? Obviously not.

great post by lavenderbongo am in NZ too and in a similar situation to you.