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).

Children are all just very accepting - they don't give it two thoughts the way some adults do. If they need to show work they would go to the front at the right time. If they want to sit with friends they can join the end of the line. They are not generally sitting with friends anyway- it depends how they line up. The TA is an adult- they make an arrangement.
You really are making the most easy thing incredibly difficult to suit your own agenda. I bet if you were sitting in assembly you wouldn't even notice!

fox just going on what has been said earlier on in this thread. Posters have complained the opt out has been handled badly in their children's schools but there has been little support from other parents in changing things.

I actually value collective worship, so this is not an issue that affects my DC but I would still support another parent in ensuring opt out was handled sensitively. The painfully honest was in reference to my honesty not being well received by some.

Hak I've discussed the how, regarding opt out, numerous times upthread. As I said before though, all the solutions are biased in one way or another. I still stand by this. In life we all have to learn to be flexible and until the law changes, if indeed it changes, in this instance it remains for you and your DC to be flexible. There are plenty issues I and my DC have had to be flexible in, we do not necessarily have it easier than anyone else.

The other thing you are forgetting, or possibly don't know, is that lots of teachers use the time for reading groups or catchup and those children go in later or children might have a music lesson and walk in late- any number of reasons and not just religious opt out.
They are not all sitting there in silence with all eyes on a late comer- they really don't notice.

I am dismayed at the selfish arrogant attitudes of the christians on this thread.

Still catching up but...
Back no child is forced to participate in collective worship though. So the force feeding meat analogy is not appropriate.

Okay try this. We will not force your veggie kids to eat meat. If they want to be troublemakers with no thought for the ethos of the school, they can opt out of eating a proper lunch like decent people and will be put in the corridor instead. We won't allow them a place to eat their veg since I'm pretty sure the worship opt-outs don't get a lesson/discussion on ethics and atheism instead do they. They are just dumped somewhere like trash until the real people have finished what they are doing.

I'm not quite sure what people are thinking when they say "handled sensitively". I'm pretty sure that making people sit at the back of the bus is still wrong even if they are quite nice seats and saying "look! there's a view!" isn't going to cut it either.

Back
Okay try this. We will not force your veggie kids to eat meat. If they want to be troublemakers with no thought for the ethos of the school, they can opt out of eating a proper lunch like decent people and will be put in the corridor instead. We won't allow them a place to eat their veg since I'm pretty sure the worship opt-outs don't get a lesson/discussion on ethics and atheism instead do they. They are just dumped somewhere like trash until the real people have finished what they are doing.

If using this analogy, you would just insist no one should be allowed to eat meat in schools. I would actually have no problem with the vegetarians eating vegetarian meals alongside the meat eaters eating meat, or allowing them to eat their vegetarian meal elsewhere if watching other people eat meat upset them. Quite straightforwardly and with absolutely no stigma involved. I just think the meat eaters should be allowed to eat their meaty meals together. However you would not be happy with either of these options it seems...

I just keep coming back to wondering why Christians feel they can't survive 6 hours without public prayer. Why?????????????!

^silent reflection could take place instead of prayer, for the non-religious, if using the analogy that would be meat eaters and vegetarians eating alongside each other.

I would have no problem with an adult reading a moral/non-religious story or passage, maybe with some discussion, with children who have opted out of worship. I think it would be a good idea.

Hak of course we could survive however if the school community wanted to worship together, because they find value in it, why should they not be allowed to?

If using the meat eater/vegetarian analogy this would be like saying why cannot all school lunches be vegetarian?

How do you know the school community want to? Most parents don't know that it even happens. So saying they must because they don't object is not an option.

I said 'if'. If not, they could all opt their children out of worship together, quite easily. It would be very difficult for a school to in any way stigmatise, or have such a large group as you are suggesting, miss out on all the important notices and awards etc.

And if they don't know it only takes one savvy person to spread the word...

Big So explain, in the terms of your vegetarian/meat eater analogy, what you would like to see happen re. collective worship. How have I got this wrong?

Oh no sorry, it was Back's wasn't it? I am surprised then that you can be so sure my interpretation is incorrect.

But here we go again, 'correct' me, in terms of the vegetarian/meat eater analogy what would you like to see happen in schools with regard to collective worship?

I don't often bother with anecdote on here as it doesn't prove anything, but i just want to say to those who think that opting out of assembly is a piece of cake - ime it wasn't.

I was excluded from assembly and it always felt like i was being punished - it was like detention, sitting in a room, sometimes alone, sometimes with a teacher - no effort to use the time constructively, no attempt to pass on any info from the assembly that we missed. Then there was the stigma of being separated from everyone else, and the weird/unpleasant reasons kids come up with as to why you don't go with everyone else. I didn't really understood why we were excluded as no-one ever really explained. It had a knock on effect in terms of being selection for other activities (nativity was obviously a no-no), as teachers perceived my dad was too difficult to deal with. Sometimes the school either forgot or couldn't be bothered and we did go - then i was scared i'd get into trouble at home for going, and my dad would go apeshit that we were suddenly singing Onward Christian Soldiers.

This was in an otherwise very good village primary, and yes, it was a few (!) years ago. It probably hasn't scarred me for life but it certainly didn't help an already shy and insecure child feel any better about herself.

I would dearly love to see the requirement for a daily act of worship removed and replaced with an opt-in activity if the school wants to provide it. In a country of many faiths and non it seems absolutely barking.

Oneegg- sounds similar to the treatement of the children excluded from assembly at my kids' school- and that was only 2 or three years ago.

The children's family were JWs and every Friday morning while the rest of the school was having assembly these two kids were made to sit on some chairs in the corridor outside the sectretary's office for an hour.

Very nice.

I absolutely think that opt out should be handled better than it was at your school, OneEgg and at your children's primary combust. As I have said if someone asked for my support in ensuring this I would give it without question.

If more people did opt their children out of assemble schools would be forced to coming up with a better solution.

However they don't. The reasons being they either:

1)want collective worship, wholeheartedly or on a more nominal cultural level,
2)they are not bothered by the worship element or
3)they are too scared their children would be stigmatized by opting out.

The scenario I am absolutely in favour of eliminating is the third. Without this parents would really be able to let their genuine wishes be known. Schools would have to make opt out simple and straightforward process.

The trouble with just changing collective worship from opt out to opt in, is that it merely shifts what is classed as being an exception to the rule onto a different group of children without addressing the need for schools to be more inclusive and just accept people's differences.

Right. For the millionth time, capsium, how would you practically organise the removal of children whose parents did not want them to take part in Christian worship from that part of assembly in a way which did not make them embarrassingly conspicuous or mean that they missed any other part of the assembly?

I note you have rejected my idea of the children whose parents do want them to take part spending the first 5 minutes of lunchtime doing it- even if lunchtime was made 5 minutes longer.

I really think the problematic element in all this is not collective worship with an option to opt out but the way schools treat any child who is seen as an exception to the perceived norm..(as a nuisance/trouble maker/weird/odd or their parents are all the possible negative connotations). This is what we should eliminate.

More inclusion, and the acceptance of diversity being the norm is what I would like to see. This includes pupils being able to worship collectively in schools or not - which means there has to be a compulsory element in that schools will make provision for it (because otherwise it would just be squeezed out) but not compulsory for the pupils.