Would you/have you started going to church to get child into a good church school?!

[Bomper]

My ds should pass his 11+, but I am not 100% confident he will. The comprehensive schools in my area are pretty awful, except one, which is a C of E school. Lots of parents have now started to go to church in order to be able to apply, and I am being urged to do the same. Most of me thinks - 'this is my childs future, I will do whatever it takes', but a small part feels guilty. WWYD?

I have to agree with DC (we will be setting up our own religion soon) I dontl see why rteligious things should be closed to debate for fear of causing offence. As Richard Dawkins points out why should the most important things such as who/ what is responsible for the existence of our universe and even ourselves be closed for talking.

I ahve to admit that I am someone who tries to talk resepectfully about religion as I have a faith that means the world to me ad can understand how it can be such a sensitive topic. I would not use some of the words used here to describe religious people, tbh I was more offended that DC implied, actually he did more than imply he said that I was thick and lazy than when he had a pop at my faith. Perhaps my ego can handle one but not the other!

sorry awful typing again, two kittens on the keyboard trying to get my attention.

I don't think religion should be veiled from criticism, far from it I have many criticisms of my own faith before I get onto the others. But i can do this in a respectful manner which will allow the debate to be more meaningful and both of us will get more out of it.

But I think you can critique without being offensive and the fact thatyou need to offend and rely on cheap shots as all priests are potentially kiddy fiddlers ( not use DC I think thatwas mademez) implies that there are flaws in the atheist or anti religion argument.

Reincarnation is a "smarter" idea than eternal, yet rather dull sounding life.
Doesn't make it right of course.

People "like" cycles, we look for them, and often assume they exist, even when they don't.

There's a parallel with the Big Bang.
For decades scientists assumed and seemed to want it to be part of a cycle that led back to somke form of Big Crunch.
The evidence is now compelling that the universe will simply expand and decay until there is a huge number of tiny mindless fundamental particles each of which cannot in any way be affected or affect any other.
Such is the prevalance of arty types in the media that this fact has been ignored utterly to the point that most people (if they think of it at all, believe the universe with recompress.

I too am perplexed about overthehill's accusations of "offensiveness". All I have done is to suggest that religions are based on mythology and that it is inappropriate for faith schools to exist, and people have argued with me on this basis. It's sadly common for "faiths" to play the "offended" card. Do I get offended if you claim I'm wrong or misguided for being a sceptic? I'd suggest you engage with the argument on its own terms and provide evidence for your side, rather than acting all miffed.

I don't understand this "sure he's right" and "extreme arrogance" thing either. I'm with Richard Dawkins (no surprise there, then) when he says there is simply no evidence for the myths of faith, and that if he were ever to be presented with any, he'd look at it with a view to changing his mind. This is what marks him apart from a fundamentalist.

It's impossible to prove the NON-existence of something, so people of faith think they have atheists over a barrel by asking them to do this. All one can do is to take a sensible, adult, informed decision about the "probability" of God's existence. I can't prove he is impossible - any more than I can prove the Invisible Pink Unicorn is impossible - but I can find him "extremely improbable", and base my life decisions on that.

One of the interesting things I learned from "The God Delusion", obvious in retrospect, is that you can be an agnostic without being 50/50 about it. You might be 70/30, or 80/20, depending on how convincing you find the evidence on each side.

(And do we have moderators? If we do, none of them has contacted me about anything inappropriate I've posted. Ever.)

Indeed, which is why I'm not surprised that overthehill has been silient since I asked her to explain without the threat of violence.

Of course overthehill isn't threatening to break my legs, but the religious response to "offence" is very much like people running a protection racket.

"nice society you got here guv. Wouldn't it be sad if some nasty person broke it ?. Not me you understand, but there's people out there, who aren't a nice as me. I personally deplore violence, they just get a bit carried away, you know how young people are... Look at Northern Island. Nice priests, wouldn't hurt a fly, but get them agry, and they put nail bombs on your kids school bus..."

UQD, yes being a monarchy does matter with regard to the state. Our state is not secular, it has a religion ie C of E.

But given that it's one which two-thirds of people actively don't want taught in schools
(source )
and only 1m-2m people actively go to church, can it truly be called the state religion any more?

It does seem very odd to have a State religion in a country that is made up of people of many diffrent faiths or lack of faith.

There is the solution offered by the queen's idiot son. Charles wants to be called "defender of faiths"
He wants to promote superstitions of all kinds.

He also has stated in print that the largest building in a town should be...
The town hall where we keep local councillors.
Yes, really.
He also believes that nanotech will reduce the Earth to a grey goo, and that's before we get onto the subject of what his plants tell him.

What better advert for religion in the 21st century.

I'm not fond of Prince Charles but I think you are being unfair to him. I really respect his views on sustainable and organic farming. His views on town and village planning are also excellent.

I do agree the Nanotechnology comment was pretty stupid.

I also think he is a very tolerant person and I respect that. You could learn a little from him Domini

I don't see his position as "tolerance", merely trying to get more support in a country who is mostly indifferent to the religion he is going to "defend".
It's also dangerous in the extreme.

England was the first country to achieve any clear separation of church and state, which is the reason that we have the form but not the substance of a state religion.
Starting with Elizabeth I, the state drew back from saying "X is truth, believe or die". took a while of course, but the Christians realised it was actually for their own good, since for cneturies, every time one gang of christians had got power, they had tortured, burned and generally maltreated the other sort. Islamic nations haven't managed this with the result that more moslems are murdered by government moslems than are murdered by Israel.

Note that it is bishops who are appointed by the Queen, not vice versa.

We have a state that in almost all important aspects simply doesn't give a toss about what religion you are, or if you have none.

It's a bodge of course.
We have no written right to relgious freedom, indeed Blair recently came very close to abolishing it altogether.

Although it works, the system has vulnerabilities. Without a constitution, we are pathetically vulnerable to laws and abuses based upon religion.
If we look at the radicalisation of moslems, an interesting change is that Pakistanis, Indians or Arabs would typically have labelled themselves according to ethnicity. Now a large % pick their religion as a group label.
Partly that's because they perceive that if they gang together in this way they will be treated better by the government. They may be right or wrong, but by pandering to religions, it increases that tendancy.
It is more than a little interesting that Ruth Kelly, former minister of education and a promninent member of the hardline Catholic organisation Opus Dei, didn't want her kid to go to aq school in an area where there are so many moslems.
We're going to see more of that, and it will get bloody.

Blimey, the arrogance of some people! Just because you happen to believe in mythical beings we are all supposed to bow down to that.

"I don't see his position as "tolerance", merely trying to get more support in a country who is mostly indifferent to the religion he is going to "defend".
It's also dangerous in the extreme."

I don't believe that there is anything wrong with a society that is inclusive. We are all diffrent people and have diffrent was of worshiping or not worshiping. Why can't we just respect eachother for that instead of trying to tear eachother down. It would never occur to me to treat an atheist or a person of a diffrent faith with the contempt that some of you show people with faith. You behave in the manner which you claim to despise.

I don't "treat people" with faith any different to anyone else who talks crap. A strong society is one that doesn't care, not one that respects.
Where I differ from Dawkins is not that I am an atheist, but I find the bigotry of Christianity intolerable. Who else would get way with state funded discrimination ?

To put it in more neutral terms. If someone said they though Apples were good computers, I might agree or come up with reasons why they were not.

That's the problem isn't it ?
You don't want to be treated like anyone else. You want more rights than others people.

Time and again we see religious types coming up with the "my rights, not yours".
They want "tolerance", oh except when they discriminate against gays in adoption, when "faith" is used as an excuse for bigotry.

It is "offensive" to attack religious views. Except of course Scientologists or Mormons who are mad, and American. Not that this is racism, either, no.
Search this forum for remarks about these religions, and in your "mind" swap swap Scientologist for "Jew" or Christian, see how "tolerant" people are for religions that don't back their views with force or media muscle.

Freedom of speech is OK, I can be called a sinner, lost, etc, but that's fine. Say equivalent things about religious people and that's "offensive".

Religious people want the state to treat everyone equally. Except of course when they have grips on schools, when their "right" not to have their kids mix with needier kids or worse still black ass Moslems, comes to the fore. But that's not racism. No. The Moslems "just happen" not to be white.

When Blair tried to get criticism of any religion made a crime recently, the law was to include clauses that specifically said that truth would not be a defence, if it caused offence to religious people.

The British Christians are usually fairly happy with criticism because the faith is robust and we're not over sensitive about it. You can go off and draw some cartoons depicting Christ if you like and I won't come out and kill you.

This was tested in the courts when Oz magazine in the 1970's depicted Jesus and his disciples as homosexuals. A certain faction took the comic to court under an obscenity law.

They didn't win and the judge made a landmark speech about what constituted obsecenity.

So if you pretend to be Christian to get your child into a christian school, what do you tell your children? Do you pretend to them that you're Christian? Or do you tell them you're not, but that they should lie about it when anyone at school asks? How do you justify it to them? My ds would be shocked and let down, I reckon, as I make quite a big deal about honesty and doing the right thing so you can respect yourself. Not judging anyopne; we've all got different circumstances, but genuinely curious.

But we don't tend now at least to get our knickers in a twist about it, more tolerant, part of the religion really, the tolerance.

CAM Are you thinking of Mary Whitehouse and Gay News ?
The Christians won in that case.
I've met Mary Whitehouse, mad as a mad thing that's taken mad pills and is trying to be extra mad that day. Nasty with it.

Also, later was Life of Brian, which Christians got banned in many places in Britain, and the Pythons got death threats.

Xenia, more recently I have been threatened with violence in Northern Ireland by for being a Catholic. Quite ironic, since a) I'm not, and b) Catholics have made two attempts on my life, once for being where they expected to find Brits, and once where they expected to find Irish kids.

As for being able to cope with dissenting opinion, isn't the whole point of this thread that Christians don't want to hear the voices of non-Christians in schools they control ?

Look at the reaction when it's pointed out that the major churches have colluded in the rape of kids. If that were McDonalds you wouldn't get called offensive, indeed there would not be a McDonalds.

First ly let me say that I don't believe that you can tar all Christians with the same brush as some of the wackos here in NI. Even here they are in a minority, the crazies I mean.

I think you are wrong about Christians not wanting to here secular voices in their school. I think you will find that faith schools are very often full of children whos parents don't practise a faith. All they want is for children of their faith have first dibs.

Most Christians also find the abuse of Children a horrible thing and would do everything to hold people accountable.

"all they (sectarian schools) want is to have children of their faith have first dibs"

ok...

"All they want is to have children of their colour have first dibs when it comes to seats on the bus"

"All they want is children of their political views to have first dibs when it comes to NHS treatment"

Not quite such a small thing, really.

Indeed, why should anyone have "first dibs" at anything over anyone else when it comes to education? Seems a remarkably arrogant idea.

PaulaPlumpbottom, why is it that only non-Christians are doing the "tarring" ?
Where are the protests against the behaviour of the church over persecution of gays, rape of kids, etc. Loads of them can get together to complain about gay bishops or "their rights", or to raise money for the church. Wonder where your money goes ?
Do you know what lawyers cost ?

I might agree the crazies are a minority in NI, but if that's true, it's only just. A hell of a big minority. The thugs would last about 13-14 seconds if they were a tiny minority.
My family are from there (my nickname is my real name). Been to NI. I've seen the riots. I was one of the children some gang of Christians tried to kill in a toy shop. It may have been Catholic thugs, but let's not kid ourselves that there are nay good guys on either side.
NI is unique in the world where someone like Gerry Addams who has tortured children by inserting electric drills into their bodies, actually comes out sounding like a better person than the people who elected him.

A major source of the problems in NI are the schools. Christians on both sides perpertate intolerance and have done so for decades. A friend of mine who is mostly Burmese ended up for a while in a Catholic school. She spoke with an English accent, enough that the teachers apologised for the intensity of the bile thrown "at you people". She was quite bemused. Some of my relatives who are quite republican came to the conclusion inspite of their prejudice that the stuff they were fed was over the top.

"All they want is for children of their faith have first dibs."
Look at how well that's worked for you.
You had a gun shoved in your face by Christian thugs ? Did you enjoy it ?

Bigotry is bigotry, what is it you people don't get about that ?
The racists I know are entirely sincere in their beliefs. Some racists I know have suffered for their beliefs. Why does "belief" count for anything.
You use your power to deprive others of stuff, that's bad. That's as much part of Christian doctrine as mine. You never did the "Good Samaritan"? In between lists of reason you should hate poeple did your education never touch this one ?
Did you listen ?
The bit where Samaritans weren't their friends at all ?

"Most Christians also find the abuse of Children a horrible thing and would do "everything to hold people accountable."
That's bollocks and offensively stupid bollocks at that.
What have you done ?
What has your priest done ?
Where are the mass protests ?
Here's a test. Two bishops...
One prints comments that the social order in Latin America favours the rich too much.
Another, is still refusing to cooperate with any measure to protect kids from priests.

Which one gets excommunicated ?
You know these facts, don't bullshit me,