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?

What DamnCommandments said.

Many people do not define themselves as Atheist.
I prefer to call myself 'without religion' which is how I have remained ever since I was first born.

Some of us haven't rebelled as we had nothing to rebel about and I think that is the point a lot of parents are trying to make about collective worship and religion. Why should a child, who is without religion, have to rebel against anything or be considered as rebelling?

I was kept out of school assemblies for part of my childhood and did not go to church or Sunday school. I would very much like the same for my son but I lack the courage to isolate him from the rest of the class - though I wonder if other parents feel the same and would consider doing it if they knew I was too.

This thread is really weird - although I see that it's going roughly the way niminy obviously intended.

I don't want any individual Christian to be put-upon, or put-down, or stigmatised. But I don't care very much whether Christians feel stigmatised when I finally get my way and disestablish the Church and ban worship in state school. All I will have done is level the playing field a little, after all.

I have to go out now, and I don't think there's much more to be said here.

All the people who are steamed up about collective worship will continue to be steamed up about it. My original post was meant to be a speculation on why there's so much heat around the issue. But clearly my posts have themselves provoked hot feelings, and I'm sure I have contributed to that.

I wish these debates weren't so adversarial. I'm sure I'll get blamed for being adversarial and introducing all the controversy. It doesn't feel to me as if I have done so, and I've tried my best to write clearly and unemotionally and reasonably. But it's so hard to judge how your words are going to read to people on the other side of a computer screen. So I am sorry if I've made people feel angry and upset.

I live in London.

The christians who don't mix are exclusive brethren - they used to mix more, I was at school with some. Now they have built their own school (I'm not sure who funds it) and they all go there, which I imagine fits in better with their ethos (it was becoming increasingly difficult as more things that they could not do were introduced into the national curriculum).

As for the bells and the others stuff, I was making the point that we are a christian nation and that is evident pretty much everywhere you go. On sundays you hear church bells. The fact of there being churches littered around all over the place. The televised services that go on. The marches up and down the high streets with the little ones playing kazoos (this can't just happen where I live!).

If you think that christianity is sidelined ignored and all the rest of it then you are wrong. It is very very evident in loads of stuff that happens all the time. I would suggest that as it's "your thing" you simply don't notice just how much christian activity is going on in plain sight all over the place really quite a lot.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that the Sun was pushed through the sky by a giant beetle. The Greeks believed Zeus threw thunderbolts. Throughout history, religious people have invented gods and their attributes to explain things they don't understand.

It just happens that we live in an age where the three biggest religions are all monotheistic, but in two thousand years' time they will all seem equally absurd. They will all have been replaced not by rationality and reason, but by something equally imaginative and unbelievable.

The answer to your question, though, is that yes, within our lifetimes it's probably become more socially acceptable to be openly atheist - at least in Western Europe - than it was thirty years ago. As for America, well, that's another question entirely.

I don't feel upset or angry

I am quite comfortable with the knowledge that I don't have a spiritual bone in my body and so find even the existence of religion - the belief side of it - simply utterly baffling.

My kids go to a CofE school (where they DO religion) and that's OK. I would far rather there had been an option of a non religious school anywhere nearby but there wasn't so OK. I do think that it is very hard for people where they have lots of schools of different faiths and if you are the "wrong" faith you have to go tronking 10 miles across the other side of the borough. It's all a bit "I'm alright Jack" for the CofE, RC and Jewish people, children who don't fit in those boxes have far less choice. And this will worsen I guess as with the academies thing more and more religious schools are opened. Like I say, the 2 new secondaries near me are both religious. One Christian, one Jewish. So that's the Hindu, Muslim, Pagan, Athiest & etc and so on kids buggered isn't it.

Why not just have schools for children to go to.

I also think that the enforced not mixing of religions can lead to intolerance. Stangely this tolerance argument was used upthread as an argument for having lots of CofE schools (when people talk about Christian schools I never know whether they are including RC, and no idea what they make of schools of non Christian faiths which are growign in number).

OP, plenty of people on the thread have offered calm non 'steamed up' explanations as to why people find compulsory provision of acts of worship within education wrong , and why a public articulation of atheism might be on the rise.

I just don't get why the OP seems to think it's not ok to be publicly atheist.That was, after all, the point of the thread, was it not?

My dc go to a CofE school because it is our village school and it's a lovely school, and anyway, most of the primary schools around here are CofE. I don't get 'steamed up' about them having collective worship because they are both quite certain they don't believe in god and are a bit that anyone would.

They endure the Christian bits when they are boring, or embrace them when they are fun (i.e. Christmassy). DS (7) was quite cross when he was told off once for not bowing his head during prayers though. As was I, and I would have complained if it had happened again.

But really, although I have no immediate worry that my children will be brainwashed, I do think that people should have the right NOT to be educated in a religious environment. And that shouldn't mean they have to find a distant school for their dc. All state schools should be secular. I don't think that's unreasonable or 'steamed up'!

I am reading... just don't have as much time as I would like to reply. Thanks for all the replies so far.

I just don't get why the OP seems to think it's not ok to be publicly atheist.That was, after all, the point of the thread, was it not?

That is not what I said, or thought. I said at the beginning I wasn't taking sides. It was an observation, nothing more. It's true that a question often implies disapproval, but not this time. I said I used to have strong atheist views. People can be as pubicly atheist as they like. At no point did I say I thought this was not OK.

What a depressing, yet wholly predictable, thread.

Firstly, OP, the thrust of your post seems to be, "Are atheists reacting to their childhood blah blah blah".

No, we're not reacting to anything. We are trying to promote equality within our society. Shocking, huh?

Let's take this from the top....

1. This is a very diverse nation...lots of different thought processes and beliefs. That's good.

2. One particular belief has decided it's so fucking important it deserves to be given a special platform in almost every area of public life.

3. While paying lip service to "respect" for other beliefs/lack of them, adherents to this particular belief still vehmently reserve the right to have their own personal beliefs foisted on everybody by law, regardless of whether the rest if us share them or not.

4. So lost are they in the delusion that their mythical story is so precious and relevant to everyone that they fail to spot the stunningly backwards train of thought that demands children have to "opt out" of part of the school day in order to avoid it.

The only possible way to promote true equality - which embraces freedom OF religion as well as freedom FROM it - is to maintain a secular, neutral position in all areas of public life.

No special seats in the HoL for big wigs of ONE religion and no other. No legally demanding that all children worship and talk to this one random Bronze Age desert god once a day.

This is NOT a Christian country. How very rude to suggest that it is. Christianity, like all religious ideas, is a belief that you choose. I am British and I am not a Christian. Am I somehow less welcome, less British? How about Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews et al? All living with beliefs at odds with the "values" their home country apparently holds dear? What fucking crap.

We are a thinking, educated country (mostly) - wonderfully diverse. Stop undermining that by pretending that one thought process matters more than the rest.

Schools should support all children in all areas of their lives. Prayer groups and bible study can be opt-ins - no one objects to that. But not one moment of the compulsory school day ahould be given over to a single belief system, whatever it is.

We have a Christian heritage, indeed...slave owning, barbaric, murderous, homophobic, racist and divisive. Our schools and hospitals were started by Christians who were extremely picky about who they helped...secularism took over and that's why these institutions have flourished.

Everyone is entitled to their have their say, to express their beliefs and worship whoever they want. But it is a despicable arrogance to demand special dispensation for your own belief and then have the nerve to whine about discrimination whenever anyone suggests that we might not all appreciate having our kids forced to talk to your non-existent God.

I used to have strong atheist views.

Hmmm.

You are not the only Christian on these sorts of threads who claim that.

So....you used to use reason, evidence and critical thinking to form your beliefs but you dumped all that to buy into the inconsistent ramblings of an ancient, fragmented set of books that make ridiculous, untested/untestable claims about walking zombies and angels?

Uh huh. Sounds plausible.

Applauds Apricot

Well said Apricot .

There is a saying: to have faith, you have to have doubt. My doubts were when I was 9 years old.

Being told it all and accepting it straight away is one thing. Doubting it at first then believing it later is another, in my book.

wonders when this board turned into AIBU

wanderings, I don't think anyone's been unreasonable here

I think there's a general sense that religious belief is respected whereas atheist views are not given the same respect.

I totally see the argument that to have faith, you have to have doubt, but it's one reason why I'm uncomfortable with religion in schools - younger children don't have the capacity to question so we need to be careful in what we say to them.

The OP started with an observation and a question, and various answers have been suggested and debated, without much common ground, it has to be said. Personally I think it's quite likely that there is truth on both sides - that is, that atheists are now more confident and that the decline in religious observance is correlated with an increase in anti-Christian sentiment.

I'm not aware of anyone having made statements to the effect that a) there should be Christian collective worship in schools, b) that there should be more church schools c) there should be bishops in the House of Lords - although it has been averred that they have. I couldn't find any evidence on the thread of such positions being argued for. (Though, of course, I found plenty of examples of people arguing against them.)

I do think it's regrettable (if, perhaps, predictable) that what starts out as a question has become a standoff. I cannot see any evidence on the thread of any Christian being as belittling of atheists as Apricot is of Christians in her/his posts. For my own part I try to behave as well as I can, and if I think I have gone too far, apologise, because that's how I'd like people to behave to me.

I wonder, Lorelei9, if you see any contradiction between your statement that children don't have capacity to question and the testimony of several people on this thread that they simply didn't believe in the religious teaching they had at school. It certainly isn't my experience of my own children that they can't question what they hear - quite the opposite, in fact! Luckily I welcome the chance to talk through their questions with them. In any case, there is a problem if a belief (that children can't question) is contradicted by experience (many atheists stopped believing when they were children, or never believed at all).

BigDorrit I often wonder where your vast experience of Christians comes from. Doubt is an integral part of the Christian tradition and many of the classic Christian writings are about doubt. I wonder though if it is that when you occupy a polarised position where the other person is characterised as unreasonably and rigidly certain of their beliefs then you make the other person act in that way. If you mostly meet Christians in internet debate then you will meet them in situations which very quickly resolve into a polarised standoff - as this one has.

niminy - I was a child who questioned at school, as I said in my earlier post. But many did not.

for me it's more about the lack of need for it. Worship doesn't belong in a school. What is the merit of getting a 5 year old to "pray" - or should I say "play at praying" because they don't know what they are doing.

People can raise their children as they wish but why must that impact on education? I am fine with official RE teaching as I realise that it relates to history and culture and also frankly some parents wouldn't teach their kids about the existence of other religions, so I think RE should continue.

but the "worship" thing in a school just seems very unnecessary. It is a personal choice and it is not one that a very young child can make.

Going back to the OP, I have other atheist friends who didn't go to religious schools so they are not remembering anything that they now rebel against.

I agree with previous posters that I feel some people are assuming atheism must be a "response" to something but the same doesn't seem to apply to theism.

I think of theism as a response to God

I really don't want to get into an argument about whether there should or shouldn't be collective worship in schools. There's nothing to be gained from it. None of the arguments are new and I haven't noticed anybody doing new thinking as a result of arguing about it.

The OP asked a question I thought was interesting, and it seems to me a shame that it's become a standoff.

I don't think it is a stand off, I think it's an interesting discussion

in terms of theism being a response to god, I think what I meant was that some see atheism as a negative response to something in a way that they wouldn't describe other stuff.

I do like to engage with these things because my uncle became an atheist in his 70s after a lifetime of faith. It wasn't easy but it was very rewarding for him. So I guess watching someone I never thought would become an atheist do exactly that and then live more happily as a result has had a big effect on me.

I am not on this boards a lot but I find atheism very rewarding too so I guess I am always interested to talk about it and the OP did ask a question which I felt invited that discussion.

There's only one person seeing this thread as a standoff TBH.

And of course little children don't question - if you tell a 3yo something as fact they believe you and take it literally.

It's when they're a bit older - by DC are at a faith school DD1 started questioning whether God existed and so on at age 7. My 6yo still believes it is all literal truth. Jesus, God, all unassailable fact.

It does cause some issues as when their logical side kicks in and you start getting questions like "If God created the Earth in 7 days and it was humans then where do the dinosaurs fit" and then you have to give it the whole "well some people believe.." & etc which I for one feel really uncomfortable about as I'm an athiest with a science background and to have my children believing that God created the Earth in 7 days & etc I find it a bit upsetting really TBH that they are filling their heads with this nonsense. And no they don't teach creationism but at that age (reception year 1) they aren't teaching scientific theories but they are getting a lot of religious teaching at school.

We have weathered this with DD2 but really why the hell should I have to be confronted with trying to explain in an inclusive manner why her school has been teaching her a load of old rubbish.

Anyway. Went off on one a bit there as I just remembered the very intense theological conversations with a very confused 7yo and I really could have done without it to be quite frank.

Actually, Niminy there's rather a lot to be gained by adressing the issue of whether there should be collective worship in schools. COMPULSORY collective WORSHIP of the god you just happen to believe in. Handy for you, eh?

Some of us think equality matters. Evidently, you don't.

And I can think of nothing more "belittling" to an atheist/Hindu/Sikh etc than the implicit suggestion that a particular belief trumps everyone else's to the degree that our children are required to pay daily homage to it.

I accept other people see an interesting discussion where I see a standoff. I think it's interesting that not one of the posts following mine contained anything like 'yes, I see your point of view': they've immediately taken an opposite position. Heaven forfend we should agree with each other once in a while, or at the very least admit that the person we are talking to may have a valid point!

I can see, Lorelei, that for some people atheism does feel like a positive and happy choice, and that's great. For others responding to God's call is also a positive and happy choice, and that's also great.

BigDorrit, I may have phrased what I said unclearly, or you may be misreading. Let me repeat. I didn't say that all atheists are rigidly certain. I said that you treat all the Christians you debate with as if they were rigidly certain - and when you set up a conversation as a polarised debate then shades of grey, nuances and doubts become more difficult to voice. If you expect Christians to be rigidly certain then it's quite likely that that's what you will perceive in them.

Disco, I had the same theological conversation with my children. We talked about how the creation story is just that, an allegory that tells us more about God than it does about the formation of the cosmos.