My 2 youngest children go to a school in a predominantly white British area.
In school they give more time to religion than secularism. In-particularly they give more time to the notion of the christian God than any other. One of my children developed a fear of all religious artifacts from a very early age and we had to go to some lengths to absent him from visits to the local churches at various festival times.
I myself attended an award giving at what would be a normal assembly time and was surprised to see references to God, religion and all things in his hands etc.
I must admit to be shocked and disappointed.
Neither in assembly, homework, or course work do I see anything about politics, society, the way the mind works or even basic body facts, but this assumed preeminence of religion and singularly from a judeo-christian perspective is clearly on display and there is an expected observance of it.
Now, is it not true that we look back several hundred years to note that people of science, rationalism and secularism were treated as outcasts and burnt, tortured and ridiculed for presenting an alternative point of view.
yet this attitude is not only in existent in our primary schools , but it is exemplified and anything other is looked on with suspicion.
So, does religion have any place whatsoever in our primary schools where our young children with fragile and programmable minds outside of the direct influence of their parents can be brainwashed into this traditional culture with all its limitations that for some present a real issue going forward.
Shouldnt religion be left altogether outside of our EDUCATION system. Let adults research, and decide when independent of such insidious influence; But, children with no ability to reason and no way of telling/stopping the direct and indirect impact of these ideas on them-possibly for the rest of their experience-shouldnt they be afforded 'protection'?
-- Edited by ian on Tuesday 2nd of December 2014 03:04:41 PM
My 2 youngest children go to a school in a predominantly white British area.
In school they give more time to religion than secularism. In-particularly they give more time to the notion of the christian God than any other. One of my children developed a fear of all religious artifacts from a very early age and we had to go to some lengths to absent him from visits to the local churches at various festival times.
I myself attended an award giving at what would be a normal assembly time and was surprised to see references to God, religion and all things in his hands etc.
I must admit to be shocked and disappointed.
Neither in assembly, homework, or course work do I see anything about politics, society, the way the mind works or even basic body facts, but this assumed preeminence of religion and singularly from a judeo-christian perspective is clearly on display and there is an expected observance of it.
Now, is it not true that we look back several hundred years to note that people of science, rationalism and secularism were treated as outcasts and burnt, tortured and ridiculed for presenting an alternative point of view.
yet this attitude is not only in existent in our primary schools , but it is exemplified and anything other is looked on with suspicion.
So, does religion have any place whatsoever in our primary schools where our young children with fragile and programmable minds outside of the direct influence of their parents can be brainwashed into this traditional culture with all its limitations that for some present a real issue going forward.
Shouldnt religion be left altogether outside of our EDUCATION system. Let adults research, and decide when independent of such insidious influence. But, children with no ability to reason and no way of telling/stopping the direct and indirect impact of these ideas on them-possibly for the rest of their experience?
Seems to me to be more of an issue in the primary schools to be honest Ian, i think once they get up to comprehensive school then things do change and pupils are allowed to form their own views, don't forget combined with that the science lessons they go through at the higher level gives them a more balanced view.
Personally i'm with you about religion and education, it shouldn't be mixed, though i'm a firm believer that if folk want something to believe in then that's their choice.
“Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.”
It has no place in a rational world, the best things the Yanks ever did was separate church from state.
Unfortunately though sickly this is not quite the full picture. Not only does the oath of allegiance carry this doctrine, but state funded religious education is utilised by people of faith to send their children to public school (private in English parlance) or state provided lessons in religious education. Bottom line is that religion still has special status in the USA education system. More to the point this radical christian policy of providing state funding has given rise to Islamic and other faith schools springing up all over the US. What we have now is a situation far worse than even the standard state model because now independent educators can teach whatever they like...and get tax dollars to support it.
Fair point Ian and I am sure 100% correct. I just think that the principle of state and religion being separate is a correct one, though as you say private religious schools probably make the situation worse.
Religion should be part of education, but not teaching the religion, teaching the history of it. Take Christianity for example, it's so easily disproven if you look at it's history. We know that similar stories to Noah's Ark come from all over the world years and years before the Bible and loads of different stories similar to Jesus years before also. We also know that Hell didn't feature to start with, that false doctrine was added in with obvious purpose of scaring folk into believing, Hell is a pagan belief and non of the words in the Bible that got translated to Hell mean Hell and that's fact. If interested a link here. http://30ce.com/developmentofhell.htm
So I think it's an interesting subject that should be taught as many lessons can come from it and because it shows how easily conned folk are, it should be shown for what it is a form of control.
Faith schools should not be allowed full stop, I really can't understand why something so easy to prove wrong is allowed to be taught as fact? The Money maybe? The distraction by the arguments it causes? To not offend? They do get angry when you question them.
