Compulsive Worship or discrimination for my children at school...

[recall]

My three children attend a Primary school, it is not a CofE School, or any other type of faith school. They have an assembly once a week and "Open the Book" come and act out plays taken from the Bible. At the end, ask the children to prey. My daughter who is 8 said recently that "God does exist" "God is all around us" I asked her who had told her this, and she said it was the Christians in Assembly. She said she bowed her head when everyone preyed because she did not want to upset anyone.

I have spoken to the Headmaster regarding this, and he said they have to have 15 minutes of Christian worship a week.

I feel this is so wrong, that Christians are proselytising to children as young as four at school where I as their parent am legally bound to ensure that they attend. They are being taught individual's personal beliefs as if it is fact. I see this as a violation of their human rights - its is compulsory worship, they are too young to decide whether this is desirable. I am told that I am able to excuse them from these assemblies, but this is segregation and discrimination. It is heart breaking that children are being segregated from each other due to religion in school, a place of education. Christians are free to proselytise anywhere else, why must they do it in schools? This is dividing the community unnecessarily.

So this is my choice as far as I can see it....either I allow the compulsive worship, or my children are excused/excluded.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can come to terms with this ?

Lurked, all this talk about "the majority"....so what. Five foxes and a chicken voting on what to have for lunch could be decided by the majority, but it's a bit harsh on the chicken. The will of the majority without consideration for the minority isn't democracy, it's tyranny.

The bottom line is that no ones faith or lack of faith should be plugged in school, because it's nothing to do with school.

If the majority of members of a particular church were maths teachers, it wouldn't be right for them to give a compulsory maths lesson before the service started!

I just wish people would treat their religion like a normal guy treats his penis; he keeps it mainly to himself and would never dream of ramming it down the throats of children.

TTWK totally inappropriate analogy. are you trying to be funny?

None of it's Christian to me personally, same as its not for I suspect many people. I'm just saying if we blanket banned all Christian overtones then a festival named after christ would have to go in terms of schools involvement or be renamed something else. And let's be honest in terms of most other faiths they don't all celebrate it even in a commercial way on the same scale many athiests do.

I'm just saying if we blanket banned all Christian overtones then a festival named after christ would have to go in terms of schools involvement or be renamed something else

Who was suggesting that?

TTWK. Your comment is unbelievably bad taste.

It's an old joke that I first heard about 40 yrs ago. I thought everyone had heard that line!

a lot of stuff that was said 40 years ago is rightly avoided now.

Yes I had heard it before and was just as sickened then. Clearly our sense of humour is as far apart as our beliefs.

TTWK- I thought it was funny.

jassy I posted it in reply to you and fours nitpicking at my previous post.
ttwk really not funny.

Grim. That's me leaving the thread for the second time.

lurker, hardly nitpicking, you made unfounded inaccurate statements.

I don't see why schools wouldn't celebrate Christmas if CW was abolished. People all over the country celebrate Christmas without having to listen to daily prayers forced on them in the workplace.

No four I didn't

No, Easter and Christmas are not "originally christian".

Bafflement returns. How can anyone read "I donmt want my child to pray during assembly at a state funded non faith school and think that means "blanket banning all Christian overtones" ?

No, you were talking about 'blanket bans on all Christian overtones' (in relation to Christmas and Easter) before your post that suggested Christmas is Christian because of the name, and well before I pointed out the slight logical flaw in that argument when you'd lumped it together Easter minutes before. I assume you were trying to avoid the fact that neither festival was Christian in origin, but rather were appropriated (complete with many traditions) as part of the clever PR job done by the early Church.

So my question stands. Who was arguing that every reference to Christianity should be banned in schools?

How can anyone read "I donmt want my child to pray during assembly at a state funded non faith school and think that means "blanket banning all Christian overtones"?

To be fair, we've also had 'not wanting collective Christian worship' meaning 'wanting a ban on all religious education'.

I don't get it either.

Actually if people were actually reading what I'd wrote rather than looking for random sentences taken out of context to make what they perceive to be witty and disdainful replies too, then you'll know I never said I interpreted 'worship' as 'blanket ban'.
As you'll be fully aware, I said I wouldn't bother either way if someone campaigned against compulsory worship as standard. I then followed it with the remark that I would object to a blanket ban on all Christian overtones, because that would include Christmas etc. Which is hardly a bizarre addendum to make considering how many have mentioned religious aspects ( other than pure education) have no place in school. It stands to reason if you don't want any more due paid to Christianity than any other religion or belief then Christmas holidays would be the obvious first to go. Turkeys and trees etc don't require it to be the 25th of December.
Yes jassy and four I'm aware you hoped I was ignorant of any origin of Christmas or Easter etc and wished to point score, sorry to disappoint

You're making sweeping assumptions about what 'stands to reason' again without anything to back it up other than what makes sense to you, and ignoring what I and others have said on these and similar subjects (including cultural vs observant Christianity; the entwinement of religious and secular festivals, the difference between worship and learning about and participating in the festivals of many cultures, etc)

Also, you may wish to reconsider assigning motivations to other people's behaviour. In this case you're way off base. You made a series of silly and inaccurate statements, you were called on them. No point scoring - simply not letting daft assertions stand unchallenged. Simple as that.

"It stands to reason if you don't want any more due paid to Christianity than any other religion or belief then Christmas holidays would be the obvious first to go"

That does not stand to reason remotely!

jassy I apologise profusely for assuming people weren't deliberately taking things out of context, however it's easy for me to see that when people get irate at an opposing view they sometimes struggle to follow the logic, so thankyou for correcting me.
Suprisingly I don't agree it's been my statements that have been silly or inaccurate. Nor has anyone been mostly disagreeing with what I've actually said, they've been disagreeing with what I've not actually said or what I state is my personal opinion.
A prime example of taking out of context and disagreeing with statements I hadn't made would be when I explained, in response to your question on how I expose my dd to other religions, my reasons for not attending normal services at synagogues, mosques and temples as being due to the possibility of offending the actual followers, but said she'd had exposure to both the religion and worship side at both celebrations and in home life. Which you pounced on asking why Christianity was the only worship I'd exposed her to. Again I obviously wrongly assumed that was down to being deliberately obtuse, how would you interpret it? Because 'daft assertation standing unchallenged' or 'calling you on silly inaccurate statements' just isn't explaining either that or many similar responses to what I've posted.
bertrand clues in the name- christmas. Like christian or jesus christ or christingle. You get it now?
You personally might not celebrate the religious side, but if we're going to treat all religions the same in school, then Christmas as a school holiday shouldn't get preferential treatment over eid etc. Just because culturally you celebrate Christmas no reason your culture should be honoured above others by the school calendar.

Who's irate?

You first stated that Christmas and Easter were of Christian origin, which is demonstrably untrue, then followed up a diversion into the absurd with the idea that Christmas cannot be divorced from Christianity without a name change (thereby logically ceding Easter to pagans, and undermining your previous argument?). What were people supposed to take from that series of ideas, particularly considering you continued to talk about a 'blanket ban', which had only been mentioned by you?

You have also made - and have had pointed out to you - a series of unsupported assertions about how you think other people should behave with statements like 'it stands to reason' without actually backing up any of it.

I said I thought it was interesting that you chose to expose your daughter to more Christian influences than influences of other faiths, given your previous statement that you wished for her to make her own mind up on religion. To me, there is an inconsistency between that statement and the information you've provided, which strongly suggests that you're exposing her more to Christianity than to other faiths. It's natural - and part of a culture that elevates Christianity above other religions in education, the legislature and other aspects of public life.

You use very emotive language when you're talking about other people's posts - 'pounced', 'irate', 'wished to point score', etc.

On Christmas - I tend to think that if people believe it is truly primarily a religious festival, rather than a cultural event akin to New Year's Day, the consistently secular joy that is Boxing Day, or Thanksgiving in the US and Canada, then there is a very good argument for it being treated like every other important religious festival (such as Eid, Hanukkah, etc).

In 2013, around 2.4 million people participated in a CofE service on Christmas Day. I've had a hard time finding similar statistics for Catholics. But even if equal, we're talking about a tiny proportion of the population. Given that, does Christmas really have a religious nature above its cultural, secular role in people's lives?

There's quite a few surveys out there about what Christmas means to people - here's one commissioned by the Children's Society:

"A survey commissioned by The Children's Society in 2010 found that only 10% of adults think that it's religious meaning is the most important thing about Christmas. Only 4% of 25-34 year olds thought the religious aspect was important whilst 20% of those over 60's years feel that it is the key aspect of Christmas. 67% of all adults said spending time with family was the most important thing about Christmas."

GoblinLittleOwl

Yes, I believe you do have the right to withdraw your child from religious instruction, which includes the daily act of collective worship. Your child will be separated from the rest of the class during assembly, religious instruction, assembly rehearsals and performances, and presumably Christmas, Easter and other, possibly multi-cultural, observances and activities.

Is this what you really want, to isolate your child and make her feel different from her peers?

No

If I have read your post correctly, you don't approve of teaching about Christianity (and presumably other religious beliefs) in schools, therefore no-one should be allowed access to it. Sad.

You can't possibly have read my post correctly. I never said I don't approve of teaching about Christianity in schools, therefore no one should be allowed access to it. That would indeed be sad.

Alternatively,you could allow your daughter to attend, discuss the ethics with her afterwards, and impose your beliefs that way

A further ad hominem attack - It is not I that is imposing beliefs on anyone.

Is your use of 'preyed' a Freudian slip?

Yes.