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.

So 'vegetarian child' is also wrong? Because 1-year-old babies don't have the ability to decide it's wrong to eat meat.

How about 'gypsy child' - children don't have the ability to determine they would prefer a nomadic lifestyle either.

Parents have the authority to make choices for their children. Where my wife grew up, children learn to sing and dance at family weddings, whereas my parents would recoil in horror at any kind of foot-shuffling whatsoever.

Such is life - we do have 'Muslim children', we do have 'bilingual children', 'travelling children' etc. etc

ALL of these things are a consequence of the decisions of the parents, some of them are positive and some of them are negative, but Richard Dawkins is being arbitrary in singling out the religious choices as somehow invalid or void.

As for whether these parental decisions are negative or positive, it's well-documented that religious people live longer - true or false, religion works.

I can think of many worse parental decisions than religion, and in fact, as a pragmatist, I would imagine that in 'bad' areas, such as parts of London, religion might be one of the best decisions you can make for your children.

So let's please not write off the 'Protestant children' too casually.

Druzhok asks why atheist is a dirty word. It is weird, isn't it? None of us believes in Thor or Wotan or Zeus, but Athorist is not a dirty word.

Yes - slip up there re daughters of muslims.

Even though I 100% agree with the sentiment, it is shamefully easy to slip into using those terms.

This is a great webchat.

Re labelling: sometimes is about more than religion, though, surely? Judaism is racial and cultural as much as religious.

We (collectively) have learnt to be careful about labelling children purely on the basis of their racial characteristics, so I suppose religion has filled that void, to an extent.

Any generalisation is going to be reductive in some way.

Pofaced, how much of Catholic or Islamic theology can a five year old truly grasp?

Because they were Catholic and Protestant.
It is an excuse. But religion is at the bottom of it all.

Pofaced - of course the situation in N Ireland is about far more that simple catholic/protestand division. Everybody knows that.

However, in simple basic terms, that is how it is represented to children, isn't it. As a child you are either a protestant or a catholic. You learn the whole horrific history as you grow older.

But, at a basic level for those children affected in that territorial dispute, they were catholics and protestants.

"Oh Gawd this is ridiculous. The Irish thing was NOT about religion - it was about territory and hatred of the English. STRAW MAN."

All the more reason, if true, why the press should not have labelled the children with the religion of their parents. But actually I don't think it is true. If it had been only territory and other political issues, how did people know which side they were on other than by religious tradition. If it had not been for religion and generations of segregated faith schools, the people of Northern Ireland would long ago have intermarried and would not have inherited their tribal hatreds.

Re atheism being such a dirty word: because religion is normalised in the UK.

I remember feeling terribly brave (and being labelled as a troublemaker) for continually stating that I did not believe in God when asked to participate in religious worship. I attended a pretty moderate CofE private school which in all other ways championed our academic development, but the shock was palpable.

It was about social control as much as anything, I think. I believe they thought that atheism was akin to anarchy.

"Atheist" hasn't been "a dirty word" for generations in this country as far as I can see. If it is becoming so once more, it is most likely a reaction to the recent rise of a few very high profile proponents of the notion that atheism is superior to all other belief systems...

Pofaced

An (English) friend of mine was hit on the head by a paving slab being thrown by a protestant protester at a 'Catholic' schoolchild, while serving in NI in the army (I nearly wrote Protestant paving slab, which wouldn't have made much less sence), so there's a bit more to it than hatred of the English.

However I would certainly agree that Catholicism, Irishness & anti-English sentiments have become intertwined. We have a lot of Catholic schools locally, and a very poor, very marginalised Irish community. This also undermines the myth that faith schools achieve better results.

In NI: Protestant = Church of England and RC = Chruch of Ireland.

But people who follow a religion naturally assume that their religion is superior to all others. Why is it that only those who do not have a religion are regarded as superior?

sorry, I meant to say: But people who follow a religion naturally assume that their religion is superior to all others. Why is it that only those who do not have a religion are regarded as having a superior attitude?

cauliffe - not quite true. I have come across many churchgoing people who recognise that their religion is expressed in a form which is specific to their culture, and who recognise other forms of belief as equally valid.

I'm not sure what you mean by your second sentence.

x-posts. A "superior attitude" is equally bad whatever side it's coming from imo.

It's a different form of superiority. One is 'my god is better than yours', the other is 'I am enlightened and intelligent, and you are an ignorant primitivist'. It's arguing superiority from a different angle.

I think the "superior" atitude that some athiests appear to have, is actually frustration at the maddness of so many religious ideas!

Is Atheism a religion?

I wish mad ideas really were the preserve of religion.