Religious moral dilema!!

[supersox]

Hi All

I've never posted before, so hope you will not mind this intrusion.

I have a new friend, a woman I met at a soft play area who is new to the area. We get along really well, have lots in common and she is a really lovely person. My only slight reservation is that she is deeply religious (of the 'Happy Clappy' persuasion)which I don't have a problem with per se but why do I feel like a potential new recruit?

She's quite full-on and although I've been honest and told her it's not for me I think she thinks I can be educated!

This weekend she has invited my children to her Sunday School (they do want to go) so I feel I must accompany them! Any ideas? I really do value her friendship and we get on so well in every other respect.

I find it quite odd that some religious people think it appalling and wicked that anyone should tell their child that gods aren't real, they are just stories, yet are very happy to tell their children that their particular god is real, and so by inference saying that the others are all just stories!

I just thought i'd mention that I've taught in many schools in especially deprived areas as an artist and have found the children at catholic schools to be the most interested, self confident and good natured children of all the faith/ secular schools...
so there must be something they are doing right?

Madamea, thanks for the info, I'll look up the humanist association website, and have a chat with you viam email about it all.
thanks!

Sorry that should have been Madamez, and spelling all wobbly tonight as am trying to do this and bake dd's birthday cake at same time!

I've not read every post thoroughly, but I just wanted to put a view of Christianity that doesn't seem to figure very greatly. I believe that the Bible shows both the Old Testament prophets and Jesus to be deeply political in their preaching, which majored on social justice and supporting the weak, NOT on a hypocritical religiosity, which seems to be the type of Christianity people on here are criticising - and I'd heartily agree with their views. That's why the Old Testament prophets were on the margins and why Jesus was crucified - because they were deeply anti-establishment and made the authorities extremely uncomfortable. I believe that Christianity is about inclusive love, which should be worked out through lives committed to living simply and trying to make a difference by entering into others' pain (I thought nearly3's Celtic quotation hit the spot). The sort of things that really matter & we should be getting passionate about are people sleeping rough on the streets, being incarcerated unjustly in jails, the desecration of the environment and working in sweatshops etc etc. I can see why some people turn against Christianity because of all the suffering in the world (sorry, can't remember who said this), but I believe that God is with people in their suffering, & he made the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus. In my view, it's certain sections of the church, not authentic Christianity, that gets hung up on 'sexual sins' and personal salvation rather than grappling with the real issues, & personally I don't think God would give two hoots about whether people are straight or gay/live together before marriage or not as long as relationships show mutual respect and love. It's not surprising that mainstream society rejects the church if such a deeply individualised and judgmental attitude is what they hear. And I do go to church, and my views are broadly the same as the majority of the congregation.

SS, if she has any potential to be a real friend, she should be able to respect your view, and not push you to do something that you're not keen on. I personally would avoid her.

Overthehill - and fair play to you. I've no objection to any individuals having religious faiths of any kind, particularly if those individuals live ethical lives that go beyond just not killing and eating your neighbours. IE, if people engage in voluntary work/campaign to help the suffering of the world/give a big chunk of their income to a carefully-reserached charity then they are good people whether they believe in jesus, allah, ceridwen, the tooth fairy, the flying spaghetti monster or no supernatural beings at all.

Evangelicals are a pest whehter they're evangeilcal about religion, going to the gym, internet dating or bingo. And faith schools are profoundly undesirable. That's all.

We considered calling our dd Ceridwen - do you know what it means Madamez? (BTW I know we're not going to agree on faith schools so I'm not going to say anything more!)

...And don't forget being evangelical about atheism too Madamez.

Rabid God squad v rabid God doesn't exist squad - both equally irritating IMHO.

Madamez, I agree with you about the undesirability of people thrusting religion down your throat, particularly as those who do this often have a narrow view of religion. I also agree that the majority of people who lead selfless lives and work for social justice are not Christians, & I believe, like you, that what they do is more important than in whose name. It makes me very uncomfortable when I hear about evangelical groups going to other countries to try & convert Muslims/Roman Catholics and personally I think it's very arrogant and narrow-minded. People and cultures are so diverse that it's only natural that people find different ways to the divine. It's also true that a lot of Christians don't exactly do a good job of marketing what I believe are basic Christian values, & I'm not exactly blameless myself - ask my dp (an Atheist) or children!

However, I personally think mainstream faith schools do a lot of positive work in their communities; surely so many middle-class parents wouldn't suddenly invent a faith in order to get their children in. This I think is pure hypocrisy, but again if they get something unexpected out of going to church, then that's a positive spin off. I once heard a talk given by the headteacher of a Muslim school in Bradford and was very impressed by her & by the apparent inclusiveness of the school. In fact, if I lived there, I may well have considered sending my dc's there.

Rosylea: ceridwen is, as far as I know, a celtic name for a goddess but I don't know the precise meaning of it.

Overthehill, OK so schools vary but I think a big part of the popularity of faith schools with some parents is they prefer that church schools (let's be fair, we're not really talking about Islamic or synagogue schools in this thread: there isn;'t that much of a rush of converting to Islam among middle-class parents in order to get your DCs into the local mosque school) emphasise uniform wearing, respect for "authority" etc and supposedly get better exam results.

How much of this supposed betterness is to do with the faith ethos and how much of it to do with lots of middle-class children attending the schools is perhaps in some dispute. I'm currently pissed off about faith schoos because it seems as though the only primary school provision where I live is church schools (despite living in a pretty diverse area: it's not all-white-on-the-night by any means). I don't want to send my DS to a faith school because a) I don't want him taught mythology in his science lessons b) I don't want him taught abstinence-based sex education because it's ignorant, misogynistic crap and b) I don't want him (or any other kids) marked as 'odd' because they don't attend Christian churches but have to attend the Christian school because there isn't another one available.

harmlessmacaroon, in truth I've met very few "rabid" atheists. As I've said below, unbelief is not generally something people "think about" in the same way as belief.

Think about the weirdest, geekiest hobby in the world; one that you'd never in a million years entertain taking up. You're glad that the people who do it enjoy it, but you'd never actively seek them out, and rarely, if ever, give the activity any thought. That's how I view church.

Most of the committed religious types I know are continually asking their faith to help them, and I'd be very surprised if they are not consciously thinking about it every day: What would Jesus do? How can I ask God to guide me in this? etc, etc. But I don't know anyone who wakes up and thinks, ooh, I'm an atheist, how's that going to inform my moral decisions today? And you certainly don't go out with the aim of evangelizing or converting. It doesn't work like that. Generally it only comes up if questioned.

Unquietdad, I couldn't have put it better myself.

The other point I would like to clarifly is that whilst I may be every bit as "rabid" as a comitted Christian (or Muslim, Hindhu or whatever) all I want is for my kids to be left alone as far as being 'educated' in various religions goes. I do not wish to preach to or convert people (or their children) to my way of thinking. The reverse, unfortunately is not the case.

Unquietdad - you live by an ethical code, don't you? People with faith live by an ethical code that is informed by their religion. The problem is, of course, that there are so many different interpretations of what any religion teaches. 'The Bible clearly says...' when usually it does nothing of the kind. But then each atheist will have a different ethical code from the next. We are all just muddling through in our own way.

Supersox, if you are that uncomfortable with the idea of this church, say so now. If you go and your dcs love it and your friend says, 'Oh, great, see you next week then' your problem is a whole lot bigger.

Our village school is relentlessly secular. The surrounding schools are both CofE. Academically ours beats them hands down. The head of dd1's school is happy to say he 'doesn't like Christians', despite a good many of his pupils being Christian. He used to ensure that every Christmas they did nothing religious at all. But when the children's council went to him and said they actually wanted to do the traditional nativity play and carol concert, he was big enough to let them, and now he does the 'for Christians harvest/ Easter means...' and allows a Bible reading. No indoctrination, just a mix so that both povs are covered. Sadly this isn't a multi-cultural area, the only part of the dcs' education that will be lacking is to see people from other faiths living their religions rather than just seeing it in books or on television.

I do live by an ethical code, which probably amounts to "treat others as you'd wish to be treated yourself."

Interestingly - not to make any kind of point, but just because it surprised me - Jonathan Edwards has lost his faith in God .

That's pretty much what most Christians would say, too - love others as you love yourself. If you are a Christian of the type that believes that you need to accept Jesus as the Son of God in order to get to heaven, or if you have had a lot of trouble in your life and have felt better since going to church, then 'loving others as yourself' places a duty on you to try to convert them. Not my POV, as you know, but someone who held that POV would be a hypocrite if they didn't try.

at the Jonathin Edwards thing. Seems to be s nide reference to his marriage being in trouble there too.

It seems to me that some of the Atheists on this thread are falling into the same trap as they accuse Christians of being in: that of being convinced that they're right & disparaging of the other side's point of view - e.g comments like "teachers teaching 'mythology' in science lessons", "the wierdest, geekiest hobby in the world". I personally find these comments offensive & I don't see why it's generally considered OK to poke fun at Christians, with no apparent attempt to listen to those on here who are trying to put forward an alternative to the born-again perspective. I read The Grauniad & this same thing annoys me intensely about it too: no doubt many of the columnists have 'issues' about Christianity because of having been forced to go to church when a child, at boarding school etc, but that's no excuse for the assumption that Christians are all right-wing, hung up on so-called sexual sins, totally out of touch with reality and therefore figures of fun.

Re schools: I know they vary in different areas , but the reason we've decided on a C of E school for dd is that it had a caring and calm atmosphere, NOT because they had a strict uniform policy or better results than other places. In fact, it's some of the non-church schools in our area that have the strictest uniform code (& the best results) that we rejected because we didn't want our dc's feeling as though they'd been enrolled in Hitler Youth; rather we want them to be happy and get as rounded a (state) education as possible in this day & age. So there!!

Please - I used the "geeky hobby" analogy NOT to poke fun at Christians - if you look at the rest of the context of what I've said then you'll see I have tried to be respectful, and if I wanted to take the p1ss I could do it a lot better than that!

I used it to make the point that atheism isn't a belief system that people live with on a day to day basis, in the way that a religious conviction is - it may as well BE a pursuit you have no interest in. It's very hard to find suitable analogies, so I'm sorry if that one didn't quite hit the mark.

Overthehill: regarding schools, it's fair to say that they vary from area to area and school to school, be they faith schools or not in terms of whether the pupils are generally happy and learning stuff or whether they are dodging psychotic teachers or psychotic fellow pupils. As to comments about mythology being taught in science lessons, I was referring to creationism (or, to give it it's posh name, 'intelligent design'). Which is not science under any circumstances, but which some people want to see taught as science. It's about as relevant as Marxist theories on food distribution being taught in cooker y class.

A lot of people who go in for having a faith demand "respect" for their faiths. Now I respect anyone's right to have a faith and to engage in all the necessary faith behaviour up to the point when faith behaviour impinges on other people's human rights (ie a person's belief in imaginary beings doesn't give them the right to dictate how other people dress, cook or have sex) but I don't respect any delusions to the point of not mentioning the absurdity or calling it a pile of crap. Having imaginary friends doesn't automatically get you more rights than people who don't.

the difference is overthehill that aetheists don't generally push their beliefs/lack of on others. I don't doorstep my neighbours asking them if they've let God out of their heart for example, and bar this discussion I can't remember the last time I even bothered to have a discussion about aetheism.

Recently The Monsatery has been screened again on BBC Prime so I've watched a bit of it - but with exactly the same kind of detachment I get from watching something about mountaineers or that programme about the cleaning squads. Its interesting to me, because other people are, but its not relevant. I'm happy people have faith, good on you, get on with it, just don't have the arrogance to think that I am somehow lacking in my life because I don't share your faith and that it is your job to correct me.

My point is that my lack of belief does not define me the way that many people's religious beliefs define them. It actually means that within the context of the moral code I live by I am open to taking on new ideas, examining them and discarding or beliefing as I see fit. What I don't have is the stricture of a mass-agreed belief system.

that would be Monastery... doh.

Well said, Meomix.

And next time the saddos that knock on peoples' doors on Sunday come round I will ask them if they have thought of letting God out of their lives

i wonder if anyone's actually managed to convert an aethist?

Bloss is a convert but she isn't around atm.

The born-again Christians I know mostly talk of having had a defining "moment" in which they "came to God"; some of them were out-and-out atheists before.

I know only one person in real life who was a totally committed Christian, woke up one day and decided it was all balderdash and that he couldn't believe it any more. That was about, I think, six years ago - he's still a happy atheist. He remains happily married to a Christian, interestingly!

And then there's Jonathan Edwards, of course.