Do you believe in God?

[VirtualPA]

I am interested to know what the majority of people belive.

I personally believe in a Christian God, Heaven and hell etc.

I raised a strict an athiest

MrsY, people very often do not have a realistic choice as to whether to send their children to a faith or community school.

If there was a basic choice of schools as so many people on this thread seem to believe, then of course I would have sent her to a secular school.

There was one school in my town (CofE). 7 other schools in a rough 20 mile radius. All C of E. About 20 schools in the next large town. All linked to the church.

These are all state schools. Funded by the tax payer. What financial or other contribution made by the church is negligible compared to the funding provided by the state.

There is no choice in this country. How would you like it if you felt firmly that, as a Christian, you wanted your children to have religious instruction, and the only schools you could send them to were atheist?

Surely you can see this point.

And of course I don't think religion is an army? What are you getting at? The point I am trying to make is that 5 year olds will believe what teachers tell them. If they tell them in simplistic terms religious beliefs those children will believe that. Thus religious indoctrination.

If you lived in a Muslim country, would you send your child to a local Muslim school, or find an alternative?

People do have a choice, and they can always educate their children at home. Or if not, then you need to prepare your child with the idea that not everyone conforms to the beliefs set out at school, so that these things aren't an issue.

To be a non-Christian sending your child to a Christian school, you must expect the issue to be raised at some point?

You said earlier that the school had tried to recruit your daughter into Christianity - it's pretty emotional language to use.

No, what I want is for some kind of fundamental fairness where schools which are funded by the state are secular.

It is perfectly possible, France's education system is notoriously non-religious, despite France being a far more religious country than the UK.

Saying 'home educate if you don't like it' is breathtakingly arrogant.

If I wanted my daughter to have a religious education and all the available schools were atheist I would educate her at home. It's not arrogant.

Brilliant, MrsY. And if you had to work for a living?

OK, I get your frustration that your options in terms of schools were limited to only C of E schools, but when you realised that you would have to send your daughter to a C of E school, didn't you think about what you would do if the issue of Faith was brought up? Because it seems that if you had talked to her at the time and explained that you, for one, did not share the opinions her teacher had explained, you wouldn't have all this angst about it now.

I think 99% of posters on this thread experienced some kind of religious activity through school. Whether that was prayers in assembly, the nativity play at Christmas or RE.

It had no effect on my beliefs - I just paid it lip service to be honest as did my fellow pupils.

Just something we had to sit through.

I do work for a living, but bringing up my daughter as a Christian is something I value more highly that money.

And she and her dad have just walked through the door, so I need to go and make some tea.

I went to a CofE school and the whole religious thing just went straight over my head, tbh. Mind you it was very mild. I naively assumed that dd's school would have been the same - however teh Christian ethos was far stronger at her school, and had far more of an influence than I had bargained for.

I am not hugely angry about it now, just annoyed at the fact that there is no choice for those who wish to seperate education from religious instruction. And it is not about valuing money more! I don't work to buy myself jewels and turkish delight - i work to pay the mortgage and food bills, like most of us.

On top of the practical difficulties of home educating we are entitled to oppose the teaching in school of false information.

Whether or not god exists it is still false information to teach children that he does as a fact or that christianity is the one true religion.

Also no one is stopping you bringing up your child how you like. We are objecting to you deciding how our children should be brought up.

It is not essential to the upbringing of a christian child that every other child must be taught that their religion is true. You can do that part at home.

I really want some turkish delight now, dammit.

sorry UQD I am not ignoring your response, I've just been trying to do some stats! I like your question. In this case, the reason why I ascribe the happy outcome to God is that we specifically prayed for protection whilst carrying out the jobs. It would seem ungrateful to pray for something then not to give God the credit when it happens! I do see your point though, that there are plenty of unconnected events that could be linked by someone specifically looking for cause and effect. For instance, perhaps the moon was in alignment with Venus at the time and I would have said that this was the reason for the outcome if that's what I was hoping/looking for. I suppose that's where faith comes in, to see God-incidence, rather than co-incidence.

Shieldbug - I used to live in N devon - Lee Abbey is so beautiful, you must have loved living there for a time.

shieldbug - well, it's as I thought, then. The problem is that you retrospectively assign the outcome to something that you did before to which you personally attach importance.

Say I consider it hugely significant that I rub my arm before leaving the house. And I rub my arm, leave the house and narrowly avoid being hit by a truck. Does that mean the arm-rubbing saved me? Or is it more likely to have been a combination of my alertness as a pedestrian and the driver's reactions?

GOML It was beautiful, but I was just there on holiday, rather than living there. The coast is just breathtaking in places.

UQD I do get your point, but there's a significant difference between being alert and avoiding a collision and being actively flung out of the way! Of course there's plenty of ways in which co-incidences can be assigned to whatever you attach important. It's not necessarily retrospective though- having prayed, anything that then saved me from damage would be accredited to God. Maybe it's a small difference, but having prayed, that then changes the way in which I interpret events as they happen. That's what faith is partly about. I hope I'm making sense, even if you don't agree.
Actually, slighly on a tangent, this reminds me of something C S Lewis said along the lines of "I don't pray to change God, I pray to change me". Through prayer, we gain the ability to see things through a different perspective. Also, the more time you spend with someone, the more of their habits etc you pick up. If, by praying and spending more time with God I can become even a smidgeon more like him, (eg more loving, more forgiving, more patient etc), isn't this a good thing?

"religious people versus "nice people" in general"

You're right, Christians aren't necessarily nicer than anyone else. That doesn't mean we can't at least try to follow what we believe God wants from us. Surely the reason many of us choose to accept what God offers is the very fact we realise how imperfect we are? Jesus said "I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts". We're still human beings with failings like anyone else. A more interesting comparison is between Jesus and any ordinary human

Snobear, no the Bible doesn't mention the earth revolving around the sun, or dinosaurs. But the order in which things are created in Genesis is pretty much the same as what our later discoveries about evolution confirm.

"why God did not think to arrive, three hundred metres tall, in a puff of smoke and tell us "X-religion is the one true one, now stop your bickering""

Funny you should say that Christians believe that God did arrive, in the form of Jesus, to tell us that humanity had got things wrong in many ways, and to offer a better way forward. No record of him being 300 metres tall though

Oh you must watch it UQD. It isn't even that fabulous, but it's pretty catchy. You'll be singing "Rest in Peace" for the rest of your ever-livin life. I think it's season 5, so get watching.

I do the same as UQD said awhile ago (I got bored and stopped reading a page ago or so)in that I usually just tell people that I'll be thinking of them, rather then put them in my prayers as I don't know what they believe. The only prayer we say with regularity anyway it "May we who have enough to eat remember to feed those who are hungry. May we who are safe remember to help those who are in danger. May we who are well remember to help those who are sick, and may we who are loved remember to care for those who are lonely." You can say amen afterward, or not. DH and I say this with DS, and once a month or so we evaluate how well we're doing. We try to do all of those things as often as possible, because we are teaching DS that this is what humans must do for each other, and also, I admit, because it is what we feel God wants of us.

I do get a little irritated when people talk about how we're (believers I mean) "brainwashing" our children. I can't tell my son anything else than that I believe in a Greater Being and in our continuation after physical death, because it's what I believe. Anything else would be a lie. I don't present it to him as fact, though, just, "Mommy thinks that..." he's not quite three yet so we haven't gotten into full-on theological discussions.

Lamplighter, of course you will be in my thoughts or prayers or whatever you'd like. I'm so sorry; I'm very close to my Dad and I can't imagine. I wish there were something I could do.

Am an atheist and have been since I could think for myself. Agree entirely with GetOrf and am similarly perturbed by the Christian indoctrination of my DC at their local community school.

DS(6) asks why DH and I don't believe if they are being taught it at school. I resent being put in this situation. ( I have explained that he needs to learn about it so he can make his own informed decision about it when he's old enough ).

Oh and also I am in favor of secular education. All the schools here are (at least the "state" schools) and this comes from a nation positively "steeped in Christianity."

You could do it as a Venn diagram. "Nonbelievers" in circle A, "believers" in circle B, "nice people" in the intersection. There is no actual correlation.

The way I see it is that, when I do good things I am hoping to contribute to the sum total of human helpfulness, and maybe vaguely hoping somebody else will be helpful to me in the same way. I'm not doing it to please god, or get in his good books. Or even to realise how imperfect I am.

One of the problems I always had when I used to go to church was with the self-abasing language: "miserable offenders" and so on. I am not a miserable offender.