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?

And I do not for a minute believe there can be more than a handful of people on this planet who genuinely don't believe that some people are more deserving of help than others.

No they can't. Because it is automatically not inclusive if a child has to be opted out of part of assembly. However tactfully and unobtrusively it's done. You are discriminating against non Christian children. By definition

In my view of things, being non discriminatory means being accepting of people not all doing the same thing at the same time. It recognises people are individuals and being ok with this. Thus opting in and out of certain activities can be common place, with no stigma attached, to cater for individual needs. No provision needs to be removed for those that want to receive it.

If anything, I'd be happier for children to opt in, rather than out.
And it really wouldn't be called "assembly", but rather something like "spiritual time".
I could imagine, depending on the school, that some groups could be set up for Christians, Muslim, etc

Lweji

As I said up thread I would be happy with all parents making a choice over what provision they wanted their child to receive (or not), regarding collective worship / alternative activities. The children could perhaps make this choice themselves in secondary school. This removes the opt in / opt out potential stigma, as everyone makes a choice.

I don't see why this could not be done under current law, as it stands.

Which question do you feel I find tricky? Is it the Islamaphobic one, because you still haven't told me what that means.

I don't have a problem with any other religion that is benign and preaches love as its central message and doesn't turn a blind eye to the crazies in its midst or the FGM soime of its communities are practising illegally or the arranged marriage of its children.

What is it, about any of that, that you find 'iffy'?

...and I live how you try to diminish my contributions by declaring me 'very, very angry'. Not just very angry, then? Or merely angry? In fact, angry is not how I have sounded at all, if you read my posts objectively.

Bert, show me the hard evidence that shows state schools that pray in assemblies engender educational disadvantage.

Disco, so don't send your kids to a Jewish school.

swallowing one of your first posts on the thread was to tell people to "shut the fuck up" and has now been deleted.

And you keep going on about "haters".

Yes, you sound very very angry.

And yes you also sound like you have a visceral hatred for Islam.

Oh just seen you are accusing me of "trying to diminish" your "contributions".

lol given that you've been deleted due to a tirade

You've also made some interesting comments about gay marriage and also this:

"But you don't mind your primary school children being taught that men and women sometimes identify as the opposite sex?"

What did you mean by that? I meant to ask earlier on but the thread moved on and I forgot.

Oh just seen as well you said yourself you were "ragey". Is that different to "very very angry" then lol

And I do not for a minute believe there can be more than a handful of people on this planet who genuinely don't believe that some people are more deserving of help than others.

Your double negative totally threw me for a while there. I had to read this several times.

I think, I genuinely don't believe this. I believe that people are all equally deserving of help. Anyone needs help when we cannot do something adequately alone. Since none of us are perfect, this includes all of us at one time or another. Being 'deserving' does not make us more or less in needs of help. I would prioritise help in terms of greatest, most urgent, need. If 'deserving' is taken to mean the people who utilise the help best, I think it is best to consider everyone as potentially being able to utilise help, if it is the right form of help. What form help takes may differ according to the individual needs.

Disco, so don't send your kids to a Jewish school.

I'd rather live in a society where children mix up in the same school regardless of religion.

capsium I'm not being facetious and maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying.

So I take what you say to mean when you say that for you, no person is more deserving of help than another, that you are saying that for you (to take an extreme example), a person that has just committed the worst crime you can possibly think of is as deserving of help as a baby, say?

I honestly don't believe that there can be many people at all who don't make judgements like this, surely? This is the problem with leaving help to charity rather than governments - and I mean you can see it in donation levels - some causes (people / animals) are considered more deserving. The charities get more money, they find it easier to fundraise. People all the time make these judgements about people who need help for all sorts of reasons.

I think we must be talking at cross purposes.

"Bert, show me the hard evidence that shows state schools that pray in assemblies engender educational disadvantage."

I didn't say it did.

I said faith schools do. A completely different thing.

Disco I do not really attempt consider the question of who is deserving of help. It is too complex. Even if someone has committed an awfull crime, you don't know the extenuating circumstances or their future potential to do some good. As I have said urgency and greatness of need, I believe, are the utmost considerations.

The problem of attempting to judge who 'deserves' help, and following on from this only giving help to the most 'deserving', is that it gives people an excuse to blame the most vulnerable and needy for their difficulties and effectively 'write them off'.

Of course the form of help would differ in individual cases. For example, giving help in the context of a secure facility setting would be best for a dangerously violent individual.

I have already apologised for my earliest posts containing profanities. I'm neither angry nor ragey today.

Bert, what is it that faith schools do and state schools that pray in assembly don't that causes you to think the poor would be educationally disadvantaged in the former?

Disco, don't you feel visceral about FGM and the arranged marriage of children? If you don't, I think you have far greater problems than your perceived Islamophobia.

But most people do this, don't they. It shows up in charitable donations, it shows when people are victims of crime, it shows up on waiting lists for various things, like housing or medical treatment, it shows up in how criminals are treated, these judgements are simply everywhere. It's not an "attempt" a conscious weighing up, it's a thing people just do, all the time and about all sorts of things.

I mean I get that you don't do it (try not to?) but you recognise that there are surely only a very small number of people in the world who genuinely succeed at this in each and every situation?

I've not heard this claim before from a religious perspective or any other - trying not to judge yes but I thought the approach was we are all flawed ie we can try but really hardly anyone gets there, that sort of thing.

I don't believe governments are any better than charities regarding helping the people who are popularly perceived as less deserving.

The only thing that does help IMO is a change in perception, where we stop seeing whole sectors of the needy population as something 'other', which to my mind takes a Christlike compassion and genuine humility.

Swallowing yeah you can't try that one.

You have simply referred to "Islam" in many places throughout this thread as if it and everyone in it is one and the same with the same practices etc.

Most (all?) organised religions have branches which do or have done indefensible things, or things that people have done in their name, Christianity most definitely included.

You would like to see the end of collective worship in schools and I would like to see the end of five year-olds being taught about males and females identifying as the opposite sex.

There are far more people in this country concerned about the latter than the former.

Fact.

..and with that, I am off to spend the evening with my atheist husband, the heathen rotter that he is.

Disco, name any religion that in modern day is practising anything quite as hateful as the aforementioned atrocities performed in the name of Islam.

Who's finding things tricky now?

Oh, I see, Disco, you mean how successful am I in not judging who is 'deserving'?

Enough, I think, to say it is my aim and to consciously stop myself when I catch myself doing this.

It helps me too. I like to tell myself I don't have to go through the mental hoops regarding who deserves this or that, I also do not have to waste energy in resenting what people, that I might have decided were undeserving, receive.

I think there is a difference generally, although TBF I'm thinking of the UK and we are a pretty socialist country.

So even with the "deserving / undeserving" rhetoric which is popular with the right, there is a tempering with pragmatism:

• Lots of people not helped, even if undeserving, can lead to worse problems that may be (are) more expensive in the long run

So things like, You don't help drug addicts, you get more crime. While addicts aren't a very appealing group when it comes to attracting charitable donations, the benefits of the government helping them mean huge savings in cost in the short, medium and long term, and less crime, which is good for lots of reasons, so they do it. Even if they don't like it. If you see what I mean.

If we left the whole lot to charity in this country there would be groups on their knees.

The problem comes when there are causes which are not compelling to lots of people and also that if the govt does nothing there aren't obvious adverse effects in terms of costs or unrest, things like rape crisis centres spring to mind.

"Bert, what is it that faith schools do and state schools that pray in assembly don't"

As I said-a matter for another thread. But faith schools are selective. That is, if they are oversubscribed, they have admissions criteria which are not simply "distance" And selective schools regardless of the selection criteria discriminate against disadvantaged groups. Which means they help perpetuate the social and financial divide, that you rightly say is one of the biggest issues facing education today.

Ah yes Capsium I understand that now.

I did misunderstand what you were getting at and in the judgement thing took it as "never deciding who to help above another" rather than "not judging about things you are not directly involved in" which is a positive thing and as you say resentment does no-one any good.