Is being pubicly atheist a recent thing, especially re. collective worship?

[wanderings]

Firstly, I'm taking no sides - I had strong atheist views when I was younger, but gradually changed my mind.

There are many threads on MN about this, especially annoyance by atheist parents about collective worship in schools, and I have been wondering if it's recent that people have felt so strongly about it. I find it hard to imagine buses in the 1980s and 90s saying "there probably is no God", or parents taking their children out of assembly, or people muttering and sneering in the back row when attending baptisms (under duress): if it happened I was blissfully ignorant.

Speaking for myself, I rebelled with my heart and soul when my parents suddenly dragged me to catholic church every Sunday when I was 9. I saw the whole thing as utter nonsense, and a waste of valuable weekend time. However, I gradually changed my mind as an adult, but went CofE rather than catholic. I took the view that you did not have to take a literal view of the Bible and the church's teachings; as a child I was very literal-minded. I also love the sense of community in church.

Does anyone think it is because a generation of young adults are remembering being forced to obediently sing hymns, hear prayers from their school days, had to learn "impossibilities" such as the great flood, and are now making sure their children won't have to do the same, now that they have the right to say something which they didn't as a child?

Do you want an exorcism? Stop that flabbering ghast, must be making you feel quite ill...

As for 'shouldn't be part of the school day!', this is according to your belief. It should be part of the school day according to the law, as it stands.

If your atheism, is an absence of belief, it implies there should be no opinion regarding God. He doesn't go against your beliefs, if you don't hold any belief regarding Him to go against.

Your (non existent if you don't have spiritual beliefs) ghast will continue to flabber all it wants, it is up to you to put a stop to it...

No, it is belief, shared as belief. The Christian Faith accepts it is a faith involving Christian beliefs.

Would you seek to impose an absence of belief?

DH is british but grew up in NZ. We don't do collective worship. His british parents withdrew him from any RE lessons in school. We are born in the 70s. Public atheism isn't a new thing.

How did this discussion get so - erm, stupid.

No one is wanting to impose an absence of belief on people who who have faith. They just want the imposing of faith rituals on in schools to be removed. Knock yourselves out with your faith and belief in your churches or other places of worship or at home. Schools are not places of worship and why on earth should they be?

Here we go again. Equating "removal of privilege" with "discriminating against"

Knock yourselves out with your faith and belief in your churches or other places of worship or at home. Schools are not places of worship and why on earth should they be?

In other words do not worship in the public arena.

The fact remains schools are places of worship in this country. The church co founded state schools. Schools are said to be a microcosm of society, so why should that not include faith and communal worship? (Until society decides otherwise at least.)

BigD making provision for Christian worship is not discriminating against people, it is schools providing a service which does not have to be taken up by parents.

You would not say the NHS discriminates against people, who do not want to use it's services because they can opt out. I suspect you agree with the blanket offer of screening and vaccinations to certain sectors of the population because people can opt out, if they do not wish to receive it / them.

In the same way parents can opt their children out of collective worship.

Capsium. You really can't see how selfish you are, can you?

I've got what I want, sod the rest of you.

It's so depressing.

Why am I more selfish for being content, with the law as it stands on collective worship in schools, than you are for not, Bertrand?

If you and others succeeded in making a change in the law I could be content with that too, if it was done lawfully. It is simply that I will not fight for change myself.

So, if you want schools to be this microcosm, then you have a provision for children to go and worship whichever deity they choose

There are 4500 CofE primary schools, whose land and buildings are owned by the CofE. In exchange for the worship provisions, they brought those schools into the state sector. Since the 1870 Act, we've been spared finding the money for 4500 schools (it's about a million places, if you include the much smaller number of CofE secondaries).

That's because the church got into education before the state did, and the state saved a lot of money by joining up rather than going it alone.

So all we need to do is build a million school places and we can tell the CofE to get stuffed. I haven't read 1944 Hansard, but my memory of secondary sources is that the 1944 Act's provisions were the codification of previous ad hoc arrangements which boiled down to "give us what we want in the schools we build, and you can have more control over the schools we have already built". Brutal realpolitick, in other words, because the government in 1944 needed to build secondary schools in order to raise the leaving age from 12 to (progressively) 16 over thirty years, and couldn't afford to build primary schools when there were perfectly good ones sat there on church land.

4500 schools is probably, at current land and building costs, of the order of £10bn, whether you do it by nationalisation or new build. Aside from obsessives, no-one cares enough to spend that money on the task. Given the CofE's current financial position, an excuse to sell those schools off for house building (it's prime, prime land) wouldn't break their hearts, I suspect.

give us what we want in the schools we build

give us what we want in the schools you build, that should be.

When you go to the doctor, they won't automatically start removing your appendix and expect you to "opt out" if that's not what you want!

If you go to a doctors they will assume you want to receive their advice. What is more it is expected that you will receive some examinations or treatment unless you speak up / do not cooperate. You will be informed, as schools inform parents that acts of worship take place. Ours does anyway. Being quietly present is all school worship has to consist of, that is children should not be required to do anything themselves apart from be quiet and still enough for some worship to take place.

You want to watch that ghast of yours, BigD before it overcomes you...

There is compulsory worship in all schools, not just CofE schools. Maybe we could start with abolishing compulsory worship at community schools?

And many of the more recently built CofE schools were built with public money, not church money. Not to mention that the teachers who are meant to conduct the worship at CofE schools are all paid with public money (and many of them are not even Christian themselves).

We just want you to realise that change would be fairer for everyone.

If I was to give out food to everyone, unless they said they did not want it, and some people really did want it, appreciated it, however some didn't (but would not tell me), is it fairer for me not to offer any food at all?

Swallowing your posts sound kind of Islamophobic to me, I'm a bit taken aback at the way you are expressing yourself.

At least you have had the gumption to say that you are unhappy with the existing non christian schools in the UK, you are honest about what you want. You are the only person who answered that question as far as I can see.

How do you feel about RC schools? RC have a lot of stuff currently and in the past that is questionable, to say the least. Do you feel a similar repulsion at the idea of one of your children going to an RC school? Or is it just the non Christian denominations that are not OK? Or is it just Muslim schools?

I see a claim that if compulsory worship were removed from schools, all CofE schools would shut down immediately in a fit of pique.

That's a really strange assertion. Apart from making the C0fE as an organisation sound like a selfish stroppy 13yo, there's the idea that the ONLY reason C0fE schools are in this is so that they can engage children in compulsory Christian worship.

How bizarre. That makes them sound more like a cult intent on brainwashing than the relatively benign organisation they are usually thought to be.

Capsium

The food isn't offered.

You are marched into a room and force fed.

And you're 4 so you don't know any different.

I am becoming increasingly at the posts on here, it's all quite amusing really. The religious people I know in real life aren't like this at all! If you say "wow this whole school marching down the road to church every tuesday is pretty full on isn't it, and is a bit weird for the (handful of) non christian kids there" they say "yeah I know what you mean".

They don't say

GOD IS GOOD AND IT MUST BE DONE
YOU ARE A HATER
THEY CAN OPT OUT AND SIT IN THE SCHOOL BY THEMSELVES
I AM VERY REASONABLE

This is all making me laugh really I mean do some of you know how you sound? Really not doing a great job on the "look at me so rational and fair" front

Disco

It is offered since worship cannot be forced. Schools do not need to force feed or even spoon feed. Quite often a 'say these words or silently take some time to think' is used.

So no marching or force feeding required. Also if there is an absence of belief what difference would saying some words and bowing you head make?

Added to this your parents can opt you out ! So it is an offer which does not have to be taken up.

Marching!?