Religion in School

capo4th

Fake religious families.......

littlegreenman

capo4th said:

Fake religious families.......

Or families using fake religions? comme ci, comme ça?

capo4th

Just fakes fuckin fakes the lot of em 

Rocker

@littlegreenman I did not state that religion was discussed by children in school but it might well be.  Children learn a lot from each other.  They pick up nuances and ideas from everyone all the time, it is difficult for a parent, who wants no religious [of any type] education for their child, to guarantee that would be the case.

But my main point is that the child when he/she is old enough to decide and with the parents consent, to choose to believe or not.  In the meantime such parents might well be unhappy that their child is not as convinced about God or otherwise as they themselves are.

*Edit* you were brought up very well as I have outlined in my posts on this subject.  Your mother did a great job. You have made a conscious decision on religion based on knowing both sides of the debate.  Not everyone is as fortunate as you my friend.

BigMonka

Myranda said:

The little girl I've been known to babysit once asked while I was making sure she went to bed "If I die when I'm sleeping will Jesus meet me in heaven"

... 

Um. What the f*** do you say to that? 

We had one of my daughter's 5 year old friends over for tea last year. Half way through the meal this girl turned to my wife and said in a slightly sinister way "when you die worms are going to eat your skin". Although really funny afterwards it was very much a "what do you say to that?" moment too!

menamestom

I think with many of these arguments the issue for me is that they are given equal weighting, where really one side are holding onto the very small probability, despite overwhelming evidence that weighs against their argument. Probability is the key word here and it's completely incorrect to assume that scientific viewpoints are always absolute. All good scientists know proving something 100% is impossible, because for that you would need infinite data. But as data is collected, the probability that the conclusion is correct goes up, subject to the data confirming the original premise.
This is why statements such as 'X has been proven true beyond all reasonable doubt', or 'as far as practically possible' are used in science. Or the results are 'statistically overwhelming'.  The fact that scientists are so careful to express any residual doubt, is in stark contrast to faith based claims, where no quantifiable evidence and a tiny gap in an opposing argument is enough to base the argument on.  

 So take evolution for example. It is called 'The Theory of Evolution'. Some people take solace in the fact that it is only a theory, but in fact it was 'only' a theory in 1859. 157 years of data have bolstered the conclusion very close to 100%. It was named a theory originally and It can't really be renamed, but in 157 years nobody has disproven it, so to base your argument in the last few percent of missing data does not carry the same logical weight as the vastly higher probability that the theory is correct.  You could say it requires faith to believe that evolution is definitely true, for example, but I think it's sometimes a petty argument that because you can't prove  it 100%, we could have come from 2 people placed on earth by god, whilst in the presence of a talking snake. In this instance the argument for a devine power exists within the 0.1% of data missing from the opposing argument.

So basically I believe schools should teach only things that have overwhelming evidence to support them.  I am very uncomfortable with the notion that anything taken as true by the scientific method needs to be an unattainable 100% provable where anything of a religious nature gets a free pass, or lives in the 1% science can't reach.  Can we absolutely prove there is no god?  Of course not, but there's the 1%.  We cant prove that there is no god 100%, but with a complete lack of quantifiable evidence we don't, or shouldn't need to.

musteatbrain

“if you’re religious I’m sure you might be very nice, but you are slowing us down…”

littlegreenman

Rocker said:

@littlegreenman I did not state that religion was discussed by children in school but it might well be. 

Err, yep you did.

Rocker said:

@littlegreenman what does a parent do if their child is learning from the other schoolchildren in the class? As often happens in practice.

As I stated earlier, it probably depends on what it is they are learning/ discussing. A parent can discount it with discussions at home about religion, differences of opinion and how diversity can bring communities together or divide them dependent on shared values, etc..

But we are probably at cross purposes talking about the same thing, and semantics is such a bore. I get what you're saying and I guess you get where I'm coming from also.

I still maintain that religious education should remain the sole pejorative of the family and not the state or education system. Anything else takes us back in time to a Dark Age that we really don't need.

p.s. Thank you for the comment about my Mum though. Yeah, she was quite unconventional for her time. Hence my unconventional viewpoint at this time. Intellectual evolution?

capo4th

Religion causes terrorism and war it should be banned.

I am still baffled by the five loaves and two fishes story it never works in our house...

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages[a]to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up,9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there).11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

fields5069

capo4th said:

What about the people who attend church for a year to get their little boy or girl into the good religious school and then run a mile from the vicar once little Johnny is sat at his school desk learning his times tables whilst singing all things bright and beautiful.....

I have to hold my hands up here, although I am regretting it hugely. The fact remains that we don't think our daughter would have survived in the catchment school. My terminally ill MIL wanted to see our daughter baptised and do her first communion, and it all sort of snowballed from there. All I can hope is that no lasting harm comes to her.

Edit: although we do still actually attend church. I use it as a nice quiet time to think, daughter is an altar server. I'm starting to believe I shouldn't even be there though.

fields5069

Rocker said:

lloyd said:

No, the point I'm making is that teaching your children to question everything and to put faith in the scientific method is not foisting your belief system on it. It's not even a belief system.

Children need to know about both sides of the argument - those for God and those who disbelieve in the existence of God.  How else can they come to a conclusion about religion, one that fits their understanding of things.  The crucial part is 'to question everything'.  Even the child's parents beliefs or ideas need questioning.  By the child.  Otherwise the parent is denying their child the right to do what the parent or his/her parents conditioned them into believing.  Or not believing if that is the case.

If any parent can honestly say they did that, then they have done well.  [This is not proving the existence of God or the reverse, that belief is the prerogative of every individual] 

This is the problem. Religion as a subject, the question of the existence of a god, is given far too much importance. Many people believe it's a worthwhile subject. It should be a sub-chapter in a Humanities lesson.

BigLicks67

english_bob said:

BigLicks67 said:

As far as I'm aware the brainwashing of children by various sects is a bad thing, so from that point of view there should be no religious 'education' in school. Teachers should stick to what they know, not what they think they know.

Calling anything teachers do "brainwashing" is insulting, and frankly fucking ridiculous. It's just an inflammatory way of saying "teaching things I don't agree with".

No, what is nonsense is believing something is true without any shred of evidence to back up your theory. If you take your statement "teaching things I don't agree with" then you could say that every church/denomination teaches something that someone else does not agree with, a cursory examination of history shows that. What is inflammatory (to me) is the knob heads who come to my door asking me believe in a load of old nonsense so they can take pound notes out of my wallet.

DLM

CabbageCat said:

The biggest one, for me, is the Mandlebrot set. Why would something so simple create something so amazing? 

Reverend said: yes but...


what about toast? http://www.dr-hollensteiner.de/forenbilder/forumimages/2011/2011/2011111505_mandelbrot.jpgI'm a believer!

Reverend

littlegreenman said:

Rocker said:

@littlegreenman what does a parent do if their child is learning from the other schoolchildren in the class? As often happens in practice.

I don't recall religious practises and belief systems being discussed with my peers at school when I was 5, do you? Or at 10. I appreciate there may be some differences in the demographic between the mainland and Ireland. There was some religious education once I was at what was then called "junior school" (year 4, 5?, I dunno).

By then I'd already been attending church 3 times weekly as part of my local church choir for many years (High Anglican, lots of bells and smells). 2 weekly rehearsals and singing at mass on Sunday. My Mum enrolled me in as I liked singing from an early age apparently, and it was known as a good choir. I started aged about 6 and continued until my voice broke at about 12 and could no longer sing soprano and left, having gained the lofty title of head chorister. I liked it because I liked the music and the pomp. I was surrounded by the whole religious aspect of what was going on and yet even at the age of 6 when I started I was unconvinced by what I heard, and remained that way. It just didn't make sense to the young me and the choir master and vicar never shye'd away from questions about evolution or dinosaurs. Perhaps I was lucky?

Worked out OK in the long run as I was proficient in reading dots long before I knew electric guitars even existed! It was a few years later that I figured out why the very young me liked Bohemian Rhapsody and Mr. Blue Sky as much as Handel's Messiah!

I'd put all of that down to the attitude at home, no coercion towards any faith or lack of, and an encouragement to use every part of our local library as my own personal version of a '70's internet. Left to my own devices, I discovered the scientific method, evolution, dinosaurs, philosophy and psychology, etc, etc.

In fact it was only really at my dear old Mum's funeral and at the reading of her will that I found out that she'd been a semi-secretly practising Anglican her whole life. Keeping her faith to herself to avoid influencing her sons one way or the other. Her choice of careers was obvious once that was out, Nurse, Health Visitor (in some very dodgy Liverpool neighbourhoods), HIV Outreach Health advisor to local street working prostitutes at risk. Even in the hospice at the end she was volunteering to help out!

Kept her faith to herself, but demonstrated it daily and never once tried to indoctrinate us, but encouraged us to explore all that is out there. That's a true Christian in my book.

I suspect that your mum would have been a great person, with or without her faith. 

What is interesting is that she sounds like the sort of person that concentrated on the parts of the bible that many American Christians seem to have missed. 

Bidley

DLM said:
http://www.dr-hollensteiner.de/forenbilder/forumimages/2011/2011/2011111505_mandelbrot.jpgI'm a believer!

@DLM Tell me more.

DLM

@Bidley

http://brotbackforum.iphpbb3.com/forum/77934371nx46130/roggensauerteig-f19/mandelbrot-t1194.html

It's an almond loaf. Yummy!

I'm sure it could handle toasting.

But I doubt the image of a bearded dude will form as a result.

http://cdn.laboitenoiredumusicien.com/pub/news/home/interview_lag_FR-tommy-vetterli-hellfest-2011.jpg

Bidley

@DLM ;

Good choice of bearded dude. Tommy T. Baron is one of my favourite guitarists!

professorben

DLM said:

@Bidley

http://brotbackforum.iphpbb3.com/forum/77934371nx46130/roggensauerteig-f19/mandelbrot-t1194.html

It's an almond loaf. Yummy!

I'm sure it could handle toasting.

But I doubt the image of a bearded dude will form as a result.

http://cdn.laboitenoiredumusicien.com/pub/news/home/interview_lag_FR-tommy-vetterli-hellfest-2011.jpg

Science bitch!!!! 

https://imgur.com/a/3drup

DLM

Woah, awesome sauce!

And so cheap!

https://www.amazon.com/Burnt-Impressions-SELFI-Selfie-Toaster/dp/B00OZ4TDC8

BigMonka

DLM said:

CabbageCat said:

The biggest one, for me, is the Mandlebrot set. Why would something so simple create something so amazing? 

Reverend said: yes but...


what about toast?
http://www.dr-hollensteiner.de/forenbilder/forumimages/2011/2011/2011111505_mandelbrot.jpg I'm a believer!

Evidence of bread clearly does not equal proof of toast ;-)