Superstitious crap-peddling in non-church school, how to deal with it?

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

DS (6, in Year 1) came home from school today talking about what he's going to give up for Lent. I asked him if he understood why he was supposed to be giving up things for Lent (of course he had no idea) and made sure he knew that he didn't have to and I would be doing no such thing, and we had a little talk about superstitions.
I am seriously pissed off with this and want to speak to the school about it. We live in a very multicultural area and I want to know A) if all the 6 year old Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and whatever else are trotting home stuffed with this crap and if not, how can I get DS exempt from it? Just because we are English does not mean we are CofE, I am a hardline atheist and DS dad and I have been raising him with as little superstition as possible.
I do not think it's appropriate for a group of culturally-mixed 6 year olds to be fed this sort of bullshit (which is going to be beyond most of them anyway) - I have no problem with DC being taught about the various mythology brands but the actual practicing of this nonsense should not be suggested to them at school.

Certainly hate when Christianity is forced upon us. Christians are free to do what they want but their views are imposed upon my children and our choices and for that I do feel a certain amount of negativity.

Also I wasted so many years listening to the crap that came out of Christian mouths at school - never really questioning the origins of their faith, never really examining it critically - dull, dull, dull!! I do find the subject an interesting one to debate but school teaching was dry and lifeless - maybe they are a little more sparky now but I wasted many precious youthful hours on a pile of rubbish I had no interest in.

I turned my back on religion when I was 11 years old but was still forced to take part till I went to Uni. Applause to all you liberal Christains who allow your children to choose - but Liberal and Religious were rarely seen together 20 years ago, I broke my mothers heart when I told her I was an atheist - she had been in denial for many years, sometimes parents don't want to listen.

How are they imposed? And forced?

Middle-stump Anglicanism is generally a pretty inoffensive set of beliefs. But people become extreme, evangelism, more defensive and right wing when they feel under attack. Hostility towards Christianity in a Christian country is creating a warm host environment for increasing evangelism and its unpleasant friends, such as homophobia and mysogyny.

excuse me: I meant to say evangelical not evangelism

They are "imposed" when our child are required to worship God as part of everyday schooling. And if that's not what was intended by the legislation, that's how my dcs interpreted the situation, especially in their Infant School.

The rituals are imposed, not the views. And they are not imposed, the children can be withdrawn. I'm sorry you feel your children are damaged by them.

People should not have to withdraw their children, though. Teaching of superstition should not be the default setting. This is the 21st century, not the Bronze Age.

Nobody "hates" Christianity any more than they "hate" the Greek gods or the Egyptian gods, can't you see that? They just want all religious stuff to be taught on an equal footing - as equally mythical.

LOL at you have pancakes but he neednt know about lent

ROAR

I think they are bored by them, rather than damaged and I think they might be better served by doing something more production or more fun than praying to a diety they don't believe exists just to please the leader of the assembly/CofE.

I get the arguement that the collective worship doesn't do much harm but then I think about how they keep talking about falling standards about how they don't have time to teach the basics and then I think of the time they waste worshiping and over their primary years 5 mins a day is a significant chunk of time.

If it's harmless...if it doesn't mean anything, if it doesn't produce any "positive" results (no one gets converted) why do we persist with it - why don't we challenge the status quo and let our kids do something more productive for their 5 minutes a day and let parents and the CofE take responsibility for religious indoctrination and leave schools to their job - educating!

I think it's impossible to say nobody hates Christianity any more than they hate the Greek Gods.

I think some people do hate Christianity. You get this feeling that people imagine Hinduism, or take the religion of your choice, to be terribly gentle and spiritual, while Christians are just horrible right wingers who want to burn people. In addition a feeling still obtains in some circles that middle-stump Christianity is largely the preserve of middle aged Daily Mail readers and therefore ought to be crushed. If there is to be a dominant religion in the UK, Christians still want it to be Christianity. This will be interpreted by some people as racism and offers another excuse for condemnation.

There is bigotry against Christianity -- there's bigotry against religion generally on mn. The defensiveness shouldn't surprise you. The ignorant comments I've read on here by people full of loathing have been quite depressing. Bigotry would be prejudice against, based on ignorance: and that's what I've seen quite a lot of on mumsnet regarding religion and Christianity.

Christianity seems to come in for the worst of it though. Exposure to Christianity seems always to be seen as "imposition": exposure to other religions seems to be seen as "education".

I think it's more that parents are taken by surprise when the school that they thought wasn't religious, and might just have fairly broad thought for the day type assemblies (like most community primary schools really) in reality has a very strong local tie to a church and a vicar regularly coming in and giving very strong Christian messages. Given that in most areas there are church schools for the religiously inclined this can be very annoying and is certainly unexpected.

I'm not totally sure that 'middle-stump' Anglicanism is particularly benign (do you mean by this the sort of church that you might expect to find in a typical English village?) as mainstream CoE still holds women as lower class individuals and gap people as only OK if they aren't really gay (ie if they don't actually do anything). I also don't agree that evangelism is a result of the growth in secular or even anti-religious thinking.

Given that exposure to Christianity is significantly higher than to any other religion, and that the CoE is a part of the establishment that's not really terribly surprising is it? I suspect that most people who object to their children being expected to pray to a Christian god would be just as annoyed if they were expected to pray to Allah, or told that reincarnation was a fact.

We just don't think that religion should be presented any differently from other factual subjects or given a higher status (well OK some people don't think it should be taught at school at all, or should be a fairly small part of an morality and ethics type course at secondary only). Our Christian heritage is important to understanding the world, and the other significant faiths too, but belief should only be taught in terms of understanding why people think the way they do. The beliefs themselves should only be taught where a religious education has been selected.

Well those are very interesting points.

I would understand "middle stump" Anglicanism to be rather different. Traditional, warm, kind, forgiving, genuinely trying to accommodate change, and where it's difficult, a blind eye policy. When I attend, I go to an extremely middle stump church - that's the reason I go, everywhere else is being taken over and the last one we went to had a homophobic vicar. It's been a while, but I think the only men I saw last time were the sidesmen.

What is this "middle-stump" Christianity of which you speak? I've never heard the term. Are you attempting to make it sound all John Major, John Betjeman, village green, warm beer and maidens cycling to school?

It's no surprise that, if there is to be a dominant religion in this country, a lot of people want it to be Christianity. That's a bit of as "like, duh" comment, as there are more Christians than believers of any other sort in the UK. But a very large (growing) number of people - a minority or a small majority, depending on which skewed stats you believe - would rather we didn't have to lead our lives based on the edicts of any ancient text and imaginary being at all.

Given this context, it is hardly surprising that Christianity, or indeed any religious teaching, is seen as an "imposition". It's like the Escher painting of the people all going in different directions on staircases. It only seems reasonable if you are standing inside it. From outside, you get the clear picture.

But we don't force kids to worship in a Hindi or Jewish way in assembly, we force them to worship in a Christian way.

Never on this thread has anyone objected to teaching about Christianity or any one religion, we have objected to enforced Christian Worship. I suspect that the Christians who are all "well it's all harmless education" would get a little over excited if we started insisting that their kids worshiped a Muslim or Sikh everyday and put the Christian worship on the shelf.

'Exposure to Christianity seems always to be seen as "imposition": exposure to other religions seems to be seen as "education"'.

That's because it's only Christianity that's 'imposed' upon our children. Other religions are not.

Ah, late as usual...

Don't get so worked up.

On the first point, I just explained. I'm not really attempting anything.

On the second, I think not only do Christians want Christianity to remain the dominant religion, but non religious people too. I don't have any statistics to support this.

On the third, I don't think as many people think it's an imposition as you do. I think maybe if you talk to people who have different opinions to you it might be clearer. Obviously lots do, but I think you'd be pushing it to claim the majority of parents are very angry and outraged about it, they just don't vocalise it.

"Worshipped a Muslim or a Sikh"? I suppose they didn't overdo the RE at your school.

That's a fair point, but still, it's a Christian country, it's an established church, and you can withdraw them. If there are as many of you as UQD thinks, then there's no social stigma attached. It's entirely optional.

"I would understand "middle stump" Anglicanism to be rather different. Traditional, warm, kind, forgiving, genuinely trying to accommodate change, and where it's difficult, a blind eye policy."

You sound stuck in the past and deluded. I object to the association of religious followers with their fundamental goodness. Christians do not have a monopoly on goodness - you might be able to argue that the religion encourages them to be but like the atheists they fall way short of this and to automatically assume that Christians are good people leads you down a dangerous paths that allows you to believe in an unquestioning way that your child is perfectly safe with a priest.

LOL at "don't get so worked up." Meet my friends the
Talking Kitchen Utensils.

I really don't give a toss what is the "dominant religion" - all you reigious people can go and squabble among yourselves about whose sky-god daddy is bigger. Just don't teach my children that any of it is real. Then we can all be happy.

"I think maybe if you talk to people who have different opinions to you it might be clearer."

I think if you go away and take a long hard look at yourself you might be less patronising.

Doubt it though.

I suspect that having with absolute certainty been to church more often than you in the last ten years, I am far from deluded.

Apologies for the typo - as a Christian you are probably more able to forgive me for my lack of proof reading.

I meant

"Worshipped as a Muslim or a Sikh would do everyday"

Clearly as a forgiving Christian you wouldn't mock though world you? [wink}

I used to go to church every week. I decided at the age of about 23 that it was all a lot of nonsense, and since then have only gone under sufferance for weddings and funerals. Who's deluded now?

You are getting worked up, your language is very heated.

I mean it about talking to people with different opinions. For example, religious threads on mn are always started by an outraged person being forced to make an angel's outfit or some such. So you can start to imagine that the outrage is prevalent. We all do it; I have another area of interest where I almost cannot conceive that anyone can think differently to the way I and my "co-thinkers" think. [too many thinks there]. The reality is that I am in a minority. In my experience people who are deeply outraged by this in the way that you are, are in a minority too - but perhaps you don't realise it because it's so much a part of you.

Christians don't teach that Christians have a monopoly on goodness. That is a prejudice. Based on ignorance.

Actually I was responding to the other poster. I'm not sure why you going to church makes me deluded? I haven't said that you're deluded. I was defending myself against an accusation of delusion.

Yes, I am a very bad one. Hence the mocking tone.