Do you feel it is important to share your views on faith or atheism?

[gingerdodger]

This is a genuine question, I am not asking to promote a faith vs atheism debate as we have plenty of those.

My question is whether people feel that it is part of their faith to share those beliefs with others? How far do you take this and how do you approach it? Similarly for those who are atheist, do you feel it is important to share your opinions and in what ways do you do this?

I know some faith groups see this as absaloutely fundamental to their faith whilst others are more relaxed. I also see that those who do not believe in God(s) also often wish to share their opinions widely. It interests me to think about what this achieves in terms of sharing opinions, understanding of each other etc.

From my point of view I strive to be open about my faith, I like to listen to other's perspectives as this makes me think (providing they are listening, I tend to bow out when it starts to feel adversarial and not inquisitorial). I don't feel compelled to actively knock on doors (metaphorically or otherwise) to share my faith but rather subscribe to the view that I hope my approach to life and openness about faith allows me to discuss my faith openly and honestly. I do believe actions speak louder than words and the best form of 'preaching' is to live Christian values of love (not saying I am good at this).

I am not asking you to disown part of yourself Hak, or change your beliefs or lack of them. I am saying opting out of collective worship shouldn't involve singling out or a child missing out on anything, in short opting out should not be discriminatory and need not be.

However abolishing collective worship, where people want it, does go against their religious freedom. It brushes a person's identity under the carpet, so to speak. It suggests religious belief should be hidden, as if it is something to be ashamed of. I believe spiritual needs are important and am pleased there is provision for them within schools.

^'religious identity', that should read. Typo.

capsium yo uhave an incredibly selfish attitude. You have all the religious freedom to practice and indoctrinate your children as you see fit- and I support that completely but what you are supporting is the denial of the rights of others not to have those same religious freedoms.

Doesn't that strike you as being utterly selfish?

Hak Not utterly selfish, no. I could say you were been equally selfish for wanting to abolish collective worship even where/when it is wanted.

So as selfish goes, I'll live with it. I would support others to make sure opt out was handled as sensitively as possible. It'll have to do I'm afraid, the world is messy and we have to live amongst others who might not share our beliefs.

No it's not equally selfish at all. You have all the religious freedom you want in your own time to worship as you please. Children are only in school 195/365 days a year, and of those you still have plenty time even on a school day to indoctrinate your kids.

I am not asking you to stop your worship, but you are happy to impose your worship upon my family.

At least you admit you are being selfish.

combust I would support you and others to make sure opting out of collective worship was handled well in school. That is not in posing my worship on their families.

However I think you are asking too much of someone if you are asking them to support abolishing something (even amongst those that wanted it) they feel is valuable.

Give it another context, would you go against your beliefs so readily?

^imposing not in posing. Typo.

But you support the default position of imposing religion on families.

It doesn't have to be any trouble at all Hak. DS's school line up in the yard before going into school. About 5 mins before the start bell HT comes to the yard and rings her bell. Praying children get in line and say their prayers. At the end of CW they are joined by the rest of the children and go into school. Assemblies happen twice a week during the school day.

Hak & Combust what did you do wrt to your DCs and collective worship?

Teaching children untruths.

There is opt out. So not there should be no imposing, if handled properly. But yes, I support the law, in this, as it stands, apart from being able to be selective on Faith, which I do not support.

dione my children had to endure collective worship. I spent lots time at home explaining that god is an opinion and not a fact.

^no not not. Typo.

combust do you feel the same about cultural traditions / festivals? Or are / were you happy for them to participate in the celebrations and rituals?

"Hak & Combust what did you do wrt to your DCs and collective worship?"

Mine went to it. Because I did not want them either to miss assembly or for there to be a pause while they left the room before the prayers under the watching eyes of 400 other children.

"combust do you feel the same about cultural traditions / festivals? Or are / were you happy for them to participate in the celebrations and rituals?"

I was. Because they were cultural traditions. Not worship

I can only think that people don't want to grasp the difference. It's not difficult.

I too am happy to have my children partake in cultural traditions- they don't proselytize or impose.

Hak ritual is not worship when you don't believe in it. So strictly speaking you cannot force someone to worship, as it is not worship if you don't believe.

So, for example, if you don't believe in the originally Pagan ritual of Wassailing, in terms of the worship element, would you let your children join in? If you would, how is that different to collective worship in schools for you?

There are others, the above is just an example.

Capsicum- I can only believe that you are being deliberately obtuse. I refuse to believe that you cannot see the difference between acting out a cultural tradition, like a Wassailing, and actually praying, as in "Let us bow our head and thank God for......."

I suspect that you can't let yourself understand the difference, because if you did,you would be forced to accept that you are imposing your views on others in a wholly unfair and discriminatory way by accepting your Christian privileges.

"The purpose of wassailing is to awake the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit in the Autumn.[8] The ceremonies of each wassail vary from village to village but they generally all have the same core elements. A wassail King and Queen lead the song and/or a processional tune to be played/sung from one orchard to the next, the wassail Queen will then be lifted up into the boughs of the tree where she will place toast soaked in Wassail from the Clayen Cup as a gift to the tree spirits (and to show the fruits created the previous year). Then an incantation is usually recited such as..."

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassailing

Spiritual, religious belief with incantations. You explain the difference, apart from being a different religion Hak.

I also think schools should be much more informative about what goes on in their assemblies before children even start there. When my children were coming up to school starting age I applied for the eight closest non-religious schools (in our area one CoE and one Catholic). I had a tour of several. None of the non-denominational schools even mentioned how religious their assemblies were, and as we have religious schools locally, and my personal experience was of a Catholic school (with religion in everything pretty much) I naively assumed that the collective worship aspect would be very minimal, thought for the day type stuff as the religious schools obviously catered for the religious families.

When ds went off to school there was no mention of religion. He found it incredibly hard to sit still for assembly so we had some discussions about that, but he never once told us anything about anything religious, so we had no reason to be concerned. It was only when dd started school and started coming home and telling us that 'Father Christopher' said this that and the other, and that all sorts of Christian beliefs were the absolute truth that we realised that there was in fact a large Christian element to the assembly and that the local vicar was a regular visitor.

There is no way that dd would have been OK to have been pulled out of assembly (ds would have been delighted, but then he'd already missed a few due to his behaviour). So we talked and talked at home, but dd said that Father Christopher had a bigger house than us and knew best (child logic huh?). Then the head changed and Father Christopher disappeared, and the assemblies moved to more of a thought for the day approach.

At no point did the school provide any information to parents on what happened during assemblies, religious or non religious. Choice in this context is utterly meaningless.

and does anyone still do Wassailing like that? Or at all?

Yep, that proves it. Deliberately obtuse. Or taking the piss. One or the other.

I saw some pretty authentic sounding Wassailing on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's program once... Incantations and everything.

I don't know why the thread got bogged down with collective worship- it wasn't the question asked.
I thought OP wanted to know if adults felt the need to air their views when out meeting other adults.