So how exactly do yuo explain to your 9 year old ds he misses out on a trip to a Sikh temple because you are devout Christians and how can hat be right?

[DrNortherner]

DS's clas visiting a Sikh temple today. His friends family are extremely devout Christians and he is being taken out of school for the day.

Now I am curious as to how they explain this to their son. As far as I am concerned should kids not be encouraged to learn respect and tolerance for other peoples religion?

I find this attitude totally bigoted actually.

Thoughts?

They might be worried thats it's not a great intellectual leap from him realising that if all those hindu gods don't exist there might also be one less than they believe in.

I am a Christian, and would not have any problem with my children visiting another religion's place of worship or learning about that religion. However I would not want my child to be encouraged to participate in any aspects of the worship of the religion. Sometimes school trips can incorporate parts of the the worship to make the visit more engaging for the pupils (light this candle, face this direction, say these words, kneel down here, etc.) and I would want to be sure that my children were not being encouraged to participate in another religion which is contrary to the one we follow. I don't think this is particularly bigoted.

My sister works in a church primary school which took all its pupils on a visit to a mosque, temple and gurdwara. No Christian families opted out, but a large number of non-believing families took their children out for the day because they didn't want their children learning all about "them people". I think that's a lot more bigoted.