Catholic school but we are devout atheist

You are the Abu Hamza of the anti-theist movement and I claim my five quid

well that explains the typos

🙂

I spelled fascist wrong in an earlier post.. I’m off to flagellate myself with birch twigs

(could I just take a moment to clarify that I’m a big fat athiest, I just don’t have a problem with educating my children in the fairy tales of a variety of cultures)

This seems to be a recurring misunderstanding on this thread… I’m also an atheist (but not the athi-est atheist 😉 ) and very much want my kids to be educated about the fairy tales of various cultures. However, I don’t want them to be instructed in those fairy stories, i.e. taught that they should believe them.
I did R.E. at school, it was an hour a week at mid-secondary school age, teaching us about religion, but not teaching us (i.e. proselytising, for want of a less inflammatory term) religion. One is an integral part of understanding the world and how the human race got to where it is (good and bad), the other is completely inappropriate for kids. I think it’s inappropriate for adults too, to be fair, but at least adults have mostly developed some critical faculties and can make an informed decision. We tell our kids to listen to their teachers, and that they can believe what their teachers say, it doesn’t seem right to me to then have teachers teaching divisive and often unsubstantiated opinions as facts (I am aware of the potential hypocrisy here, e.g. history lessons where we learn from the victor’s point of view etc.)

I’m off to flagellate myself with birch twigs

I trust they’ll be hand-picked, naturally-seasoned twigs from your own artisanally-curated birch coppice?

Like I said, I get the OPs point..

Maybe I’m being a tad optimistic but I don’t imagine primary schools being places where kids are indoctrinated..

Are you sure that you’re thinking of a modern UK primary and not some horrendous thing from your parent’s past, or a movie, or Nigeria, or your imagination or the daily mail?

We tell our kids to listen to their teachers, and that they can believe what their teachers say, it doesn’t seem right to me to then have teachers teaching divisive and often unsubstantiated opinions as facts

Steer clear of how climate change is “taught” (sic) in colouring in Geography at the moment then, or bits of the history (written by the winners) and economics syllabus!!

The GCSE RE paper is structured towards how each of the different religions address contemporary issues that are relevant to modern society. In contrast at A level you can choose to focus more on one religion of your choice albeit it with the address emphasis on applied ethics and philosophy. At the end of it, pupils have highly developed analytic skills that they can apply to everyday situations – mini THM surprised his headmaster by quoting Kant at him to prove why the HMs decision to suspend some but not all of a group was unethical!!

All from studying so-called fairy tales. 😉

Womb, so apart from having to travel across town, what is the problem? Reject the evil, poorly performing school and go to the morally superior, better performing option across town….job done.

At the risk of engaging someone so obviously willfully missing the point, are you really saying the best place for a child to learn to think critically is a faith school? Nope, no inherant contradiction there is there?

we almost all went to primary schools that had some kind of religious affiliation, and I don’t imagine it’s done any of us any harm (bar a very few isolated cases)..

As someone educated in the sectarian school system that was/is the norm in the west of Scotland, I can attest to a very great deal of harm done. I’m not talking about the very specific harm done to a few individuals but rather the larger more insidious harm that is done to a wider society when things become tribal. Things probably aren’t as bad these days, thanks no doubt in part to an increase in secularisation, but make no mistake a great deal of widespread harm was done.

I guess a key question for me would be what happens if my child were to tell another child that Jesus wasn’t the son of any God, he just stayed dead and his followers made up the supernatural stuff. If the other child becomes upset and goes crying to the teacher would this prompt a discussion on different beliefs and the need to rub along without deliberately upsetting each other (whilst respecting the right to disagree), or would my child be punished for uttering beliefs that aren’t school sanctioned? Or worse, would they end up on the receiving end of a lecture about Jesus being mankind’s saviour and a reminder that Hell is a real place where those who deny the word of God end up in torment for all eternity?

@cyve firstly I’d say that’s a very unlikely scenario (reaction/punishment side) and secondly if that worries you greatly you should send your kid elsewhere

As for critical thinking surely the best situation is for children to be exposed to different things and for them to form their own views

unknown – Member
At the risk of engaging someone so obviously willfully missing the point…

This, but…

teamhurtmore – Member
The GCSE RE paper is structured towards how each of the different religions address contemporary issues that are relevant to modern society. In contrast at A level you can choose to focus more on one religion of your choice albeit it with the address emphasis on applied ethics and philosophy. At the end of it, pupils have highly developed analytic skills that they can apply to everyday situations – mini THM surprised his headmaster by quoting Kant at him to prove why the HMs decision to suspend some but not all of a group was unethical!!

All from studying so-called fairy tales.

At the risk of repeating myself… ok, so specifically repeating myself:

Yes. What you have described is exactly what I described as my experience of RE (local comp, early 90’s) i.e. being taught about religion. Not just one religion, all the main ones, what they believe in, main holidays, similarities, differences, key historical events and so on and so forth. Essentially just general knowledge, about the world’s religions. Not – and this is what I am increasingly convinced you are deliberately ignoring -, teaching kids that god loves them, that the baby jesus gets sad if you think naughty things, and that this god is the one true god and anyone who believes in another god is wrong (and will burn in hell for all eternity etc etc). None of that. That last bit, that’s instilling religious belief. Teaching faith. Not Religious Education, a.k.a. the RE of my youth and your kids’ too by the sound of it. Different subjects entirely.

Alternatively you a superb, David Taylforth-esque troll, in which case well played, sir, well played. 😀

Well put Will.

It’s a strange old situation where people who object to their children being taught unprovable myths and legends* as fact get labelled as extremist, yet people who believe said myths and legends have a special, protected against discrimination status, whilst ironically, the myths and legends crew have an almost exclusive deal on ACTUAL extremism.

*I’m hoping ‘myths and legends’ is less insulting/belittling to people’s chosen belief systems than the oft used ‘fairytales and hocus pocus’ etc. I’m trying really hard to be even handed and non inflammatory.

I’m being a tad optimistic but I don’t imagine primary schools being places where kids are indoctrinated.

So you think they have faith schools not to help grow the flock then?
There are people on here mentioning how their kids come home and talk to them about what Jesus did and that god loves them and that god is everywhere and god made everything – you have to be fantastically naive [ willfully?] to think the school run for a faith, taught by the faithful, wont try to “preach” their beliefs.

The problem is they tell tales of what Jesus did as if they were utter truths of the same level as the maths lessons and kids swallow it. YOu really think they then finish ever god utterance with – well that is what i think due to faith and i cannot prove any of it to be even remotely factually correct so hey its up to you to either follow evidence or faith?

Steer clear of how climate change is “taught” (sic) in colouring in Geography at the moment then, or bits of the history (written by the winners) and economics syllabus!

you have deliberately confused a lack of certainty with “faith”. Name another subject with no evidence to support its existence taught by the faithful – Go on name one. We dont because it would not be education.its akin to having homeopathy taught in schools by homeopathists.

The GCSE RE paper is structured towards how each of the different religions address contemporary issues

Its not. Its about understanding what they believe in for Paper 1 Paper 2 covers someish of what you mention
http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/religious-studies/gcse/religious-studies-a-8062/specification-at-a-glance

Please note you only need to study two religions – and they had to ban the study of RC and christianity as two – that is how “diverse” they wanted to teach it. Imagine that eh preference to their own religion had to be legislated against – who could have predicted that eh

Again another one of those THM “points” that is basically like listening to AS describe the aftermath of devolution – there is some truth in there somewhere but the overall conclusion is fanciful in the extreme.

As for critical thinking surely the best situation is for children to be exposed to different things and for them to form their own views

well we’ve just had easter, so now my eldest is of the opinion that jesus dying and coming back to life a couple of days later is a cast iron fact, not “this is what christians believe”, he say’s “it’s actually true”.

He hasn’t been taught about christian beliefs he’s been told a “fact”.

I don’t think many (any?) have issues with RE being taught, they have issues with outright bollocks being stated as facts, as I said it undermines the real stuff they are there to teach.

Yes Junkyard.. I know about the kids coming home with baby Jesus on their minds, and with questions about god..

God is inside you, you are god.. God is that peaceful feeling inside you when you meditate..
God is a feeling.. Some people are in love with that feeling and give it stories and names and allsorts.. I’ll tell you about it one day.. It’s pretty funny..

Jesus was a king about 2000 years ago, who was different from previous kings and wanted to teach people to be kind instead of greedy.. People liked his ideas so much that they wrote stories about him which are still remembered today!! Mental huh?

Now what do you want for tea kids?

It’s not that hard is it?

My kids come home with questions about anything suspicious their teacher has said, if yours don’t you’ve got bigger problems than religion to look forward to!

obviously I’ve been trying to talk about beliefs vs evidence, the liklihood of omniscient beings, I have actually taught him about a couple of dozen or so gods that school haven’t got around to telling him about, all the while trying not trying to undermine the teachers on the other valid points like reading your book and doing your maths homework is a good idea.

He’s just telling you that Donk, so you’ll get distracted with your atheist rantings, then he can nick your easter eggs.

Admit it… you hadn’t even noticed, had you?

Jesus was a king about 2000 years ago, who was different from previous kings and wanted to teach people to be kind instead of greedy.. People liked his ideas so much that they wrote stories about him which are still remembered today!! Mental huh?

I’m not a big fan of lying to kids*, they find an inaccuracy and ignore the whole argument. Also opens it up to teachers/other christians pointing out daddy has been telling porkies and offer to advise them of the truth.

*on pain of divorce I’m not allowed to disabuse the kids of the whole santa thing

I’m not a big fan of lying to kids*, they find an inaccuracy and ignore the whole argument.

this translates as ‘I leave their mum to take care of all the tricky parenting tasks’

Also opens it up to teachers/other christians pointing out daddy has been telling porkies and offer to advise them of the truth. to endure a whole world of pain as they wriggle about squirming

FTFY

Get them watching ‘The Book Of Life’ so they can see how creative and confused the Mexicans get about dealing with death 🙂

My 8 year old has in the past few months been on visits to a synagogue and spent the day with the Jewish kids, then went to one of them there mosques and spent the day with the muslamics

I’m not quite sure where this fits with the whole catholic indoctrination/brainwashing thing.

Its obviously part of some evil papal agenda or other though, as JY has made such a convincing and impassioned argument, how could it not be? 😉

Personally I thought it sounded more like some bloody 80’s Bennetton advert

this translates as ‘I leave their mum to take care of all the tricky parenting tasks’

no but it does lead to long winded explanations of stuff at bedtime when they start asking spurious questions. The eldest can get bored midway through the answer, possibly not the best tactic but I go for long winded honest answers over brief inaccurate (or outright lies) ones

fair enough DONK…

If my kids think for one second that a long conversation at bedtime is acceptable they get shot down pretty quick

As for honesty.. the world is full of stories and esoteric and abstract concepts, if I broke everything down to dry academic principles they would grow up to be cyborgs who’s only pleasures in life would be whisky and coffee and bikes and laughing at other’s logical failings…
or worse than that… scientists!! 😯

Yes. What you have described is exactly what I described as my experience of RE (local comp, early 90’s) i.e. being taught about religion. Not just one religion, all the main ones, what they believe in, main holidays, similarities, differences, key historical events and so on and so forth.

Phew, got that bit out of the way then

None of that.

Correct

Different subjects entirely.

On a roll now…

Perhaps my kids were lucky (to be v well taught) as they have a deep understanding and critical knowledge of religions, philosophy and ethics taken into higher education. Their level of critical analysis of any bIblical text is WAY beyond anything I was every taught or indeed heard in a church service. Both find the subject very interesting but neither is particularly religious. So neither have been indoctrinated but they have been educated.

Mini THM is doing theology as an extra course at Uni for fun. He has quite a lot of US students which he would suggest fit into the concerns raised above ^ . He recently said, “Dad it’s really embarrassing when debating with these guys as they really believe in creationism. And it’s hard to tell them that it’s bllx when it’s such an important part of their faith and they get upset.” So knowledge and compassion – the fees were worth it! 😉

“Dad it’s really embarrassing when debating with these guys as they really believe in creationism. And it’s hard to tell them that it’s bllx when it’s such an important part of their faith and they get upset.”

He must be pretty disciplined not to just point at them, and piss himself laughing.

Surely believing in creationism would exempt you from studying theology? Thats a bit like studying geography while believing the earth is flat, and getting uppity when people say it isn’t.

The university must be desperate for those foreign student fees 😆

He finds it more frustrating than anything else. He would rather have a deep and critical debate – that’s what HIS education taught him.

[Talking about shaky wizards and fairies wouldnt achieve much, other than upsetting them.]

So neither have been indoctrinated but they have been educated.

I hope my kids get the same, trouble is I was indoctrinated, was also dragged to church and various other religious activities by my family and it took a long while to shrug all that off so its a path I don’t particularly wish my kids to head down. I’d have been happy to not mention religion until they were a bit older and thinking more critically but school has forced the issue (the they started it defense 😉 )

And it’s hard to tell them that it’s bllx when it’s such an important part of their faith and they get upset

there’s people on the internet who have strange but deeply held beliefs about government conspiracies and lizard overlords, etc, do they get compassion from all or do people rip the piss? Special rules for religious beliefs?

Good point DONK – they/ he gets the piss ripped out of him, and look who the main perpetrators are.

But special rules? – no such thing as STW shows – its one of the few things that you are perfectly able to rip the piss out of in a regular basis.

Yunki +1 on the concept of being inside you. Odd that so much time and effort is spent looking the wrong way.

It does amuse me that the repeated assertions on here that “it didn’t happen to me therefore everyone else is wrong, it doesn’t happen as all religious schools are clearly identical” is exactly the sort of wooly thinking that that the atheists are trying to keep their kids away from.

Anyway.

I don’t think many (any?) have issues with RE being taught, they have issues with outright bollocks being stated as facts, as I said it undermines the real stuff they are there to teach.

Pretty much where I’m at TBH. I’ve nothing against RE being taught in an impartial manner. The problem comes in teaching it as fact alongside things like maths, and it’s particularly insidious when it’s aimed at kids who are too young to tell the difference.

This is what we’re talking about when we say things like “indoctrination” I think; by the time kids are old enough not to believe everything that adults tell them, they’ve already accepted on naive trust that they’re going to heaven if they love Jesus (and potentially what will happen if they don’t).

If anyone seriously believes that a driving force behind faith schools isn’t “get ’em whilst they’re young” then they’re deluded. Why do you think “every sperm is sacred” and condoms and masturbation are verboten? Far and away the best way of getting new believers is to grow them rather than convert adults; how many kids grow up to have a different faith from their parents? There’s not many Muslims with Catholic children, I’ll wager.

It does amuse me that the repeated assertions on here that “it didn’t happen to me therefore everyone else is wrong, it doesn’t happen as all religious schools are clearly identical” is exactly the sort of wooly thinking that that the atheists are trying to keep their kids away from.

That would be amusing if that were the case. But Coug’s, read the posts, the definite/absolute comments are largely if not exclusively, in the opposite direction

The lack of critical thinking is what educationalists are trying to keep THEIR kids away from.

no such thing as STW shows – its one of the few things that you are perfectly able to rip the piss out of in a regular basis.

Horseshit, I’m not having that. Name one thing you cannot rip the piss out of? If STW were censored in such a manner I’d resign on principle.

Hell, if anything it’s exactly the opposite; people are free to criticise and debate religion just as they can discuss anything else (so long as it’s not going to get us arrested) precisely because we don’t give it special protection. Is that what you’re arguing for?

read the posts, the definite/absolute comments are largely if not exclusively, in the opposite direction

It’s both ways from what I remember reading (confirmation bias aside). And it’s flawed in both cases, of course.

No, it’s clear where you stand and we can take it or leave it. fair enough.

People regularly call people with faith stupid (that’s the polite version) and fair enough, but you have banned others for calli people stupid in a different context. So there we are.

Anyway, this will go in the wrong direction now, so I will exit stage left ( 😉 Julian that’s for you) and leave you to it.

Good point DONK – they/ he gets the piss ripped out of him, and look who the main perpetrators are

Dunno are they the same ones who ask for compassion and respect of others beliefs on the religion threads? If you come out with something that others consider to be nonsense you’re probably going to get some criticism/pisstaking of a level appropriate to the environment. I don’t see why religion should expect any less/more.

Pics or I don’t believe it 😉

Tempted to post one of my usual pictures here – does that actually happen?

FWIW I went to a fairly full on RC secondary school, and whilst I wish I’d gone to a different school I certainly don’t recall the religious stuff having the same status as maths etc. in terms of being taught as “fact”. Though I suppose at the time I did still believe.

People regularly call people with faith stupid (that’s the polite version) and fair enough, but you have banned others for calli people stupid in a different context. So there we are.

Abusing others is against the forum rules and will be moderated; if it isn’t moderated, it’s not that we’re not making special exceptions but rather it’s either a mild infraction or we’ve simply not seen it. (Well, by “we” I mean “I” at any rate, I can’t speak for the others who may have a different opinion / approach.)

Attacking an idea or opinion on the other hand, I see no reason why that should be censored. If we blocked criticism of religion, we’d also have to ban criticism of Manchester United, David Cameron and Singlespeeders.

TL;DR – religion is not being victimised just because it’s not getting the special treatment it might be used to expecting elsewhere.

(And if I actually banned someone every time they called someone else stupid like you claim, the forum would be empty.)

(From the wings) not calling for censorship tbc but we can view the evidence differently.

It’s not that hard is it?

Neither is them NOT having it taught to them in school. Why can I not pick this option instead?
It also undermines the teacher as you have to explain to your child why they believe in something that has not evidential base to it. If they are wrong on that what else are they wrong [ or lying] about?

its one of the few things that you are perfectly able to rip the piss out of in a regular basis.

Its really not, as you show in many of your posts on any thread, its just the one issue where you get upset about it.Footballers pay for example- you are happy to rip the piss there. No amount of a mod explaining the reason to you, each religious thread, seems to help you get this. Its really not special just because it is special to you

Have you seen a vegan thread? DO you think they are any different?Nothing but unbridled respect for alternative choices. All threads are like this and quite often you are contributing – as indeed am I.

I did theology at school the depths of contradiction that bright folk [often very bright folk] would go to was almost endless

Your offspring has learnt a valuable lesson about what its like to try and use facts when dealing with the devout and what happens when folk take that book as [gospel] truth.

Have you seen a vegan thread? DO you think they are any different?

I ventured into the rugby thread once. I still wake up screaming sometimes.

Your offspring has learnt a valuable lesson about what its like to try and use facts when dealing with the devout and what happens when folk take that book as [gospel] truth.

Creationism has nothing to do with the Gospel.

I think THM’s point is that of the areas protected by law: race, sex, sexuality, religion etc, mods seem more comfortable allowing comments about religion that people find offensive to stand.