h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Pikin did you really mean to state such an obvious double standard as: Religious bods can tell/teach people religion is true, but humanists cant say atheism is true.

Growing up I was presented with a range of views and was able to decide for myself which bits of these varying ideological frameworks I found to be true. I decided that atheism and the surrounding scientific and historical evidence held more truth than christistianity, sikhism, judaism or islam. That is not to say any of them hold no truth but I was glad when I was able to access information that showed some of what they said were clearly untrue.

Do religious schools do this?

At the margins of empiriscal knowledge there are many gaps and anachronisms that we can not presently fill or straighten-out. These are not glossed over or hidden. They are focused on just as much as the discoveries and knowledge we put certainty in.

I would like to see CofE schools putting just as much focus on the glaring and devisive lies in the bible. Its all very well to push the nice bits of the bible but its dishonest not to highlight the problems that the bible leaves us with.

one love

http://www.theonion.com/onion3631/christian_right_lobbies.html

The Onion article is almost believable.

az

"Let us hope it isn't true. And if it is true let us hope it does not become generally known."

comment on The Origin of Species

Noggin

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Humanists have as much right to say atheism is true as religious bodies do, just not within secular schools. The job of RE lessons is surely to teach about religion (including atheism etc) not to teach which is right or wrong.

If your going to go to a normal state secular school you should not be taught what is true one way or another. Surely teaching a Christian in a secular school that atheism is true is just as offensive, and as potentially dangerous for breeding intolerance etc, as teaching an atheist that Christianity is true!

Religious schools are different. If you go to a religious school you go on the understanding that you will be taught from the point of view that that religion is true, because that is the purpose of that school. If there were humanist schools, then people would attend them on the understanding that they would be taught from the point of view that atheism is true.

If you chose to attend a Muslim school, would you then be offended if they taught you about Allah and asked you to read the Koran?

hi Pikin,

I don't think that anyone, either in the article or here, has said that atheism should be taught as being truer than other beliefs.



az

Are there such things as 'humanist' or 'atheist' schools? Would such an institution be allowed to class itself as a 'faith school'?

We seem to accept that certain schools can base their teaching on some particular faith but that state schools must be 'secular' in nature - i.e must base their curriculum and particularly their religious teaching on an unbiased view. Consequently children from any religious background can be taught in a secular state school without the school imposing a particular religious slant on their education. With the catchment area for these schools frequently incorporating a wide variation of cultures this seems a satisfactory approach, leaving the parents free to choose and arrange for whatever religious eduction they wish for their children. Faith schools are a choice parents can make if they want their children to be educated with a particular religious slant. Clearly some religions will not have this option as no such schools exist, either because theirs is a minority religion [sorry, Wiccans and a vision of Hogwart's Academy springs to mind] or because it is not a religion at all.

A problem that arises naturally in secular schools, aside from the difficulty teachers may have in presenting an unbiased view of a very personal subject, is that of teaching what amounts to comparative theology with very limited time. That the name of the subject keeps changing from RE to RMP etc is perhaps an indication of the difficulty of providing a suitable syllabus for this class.

F

Religious schools are different. If you go to a religious school you go on the understanding that you will be taught from the point of view that that religion is true,

Not quite Pikin most kids go because they are sent.

How do you look on the ideas that lead many to atheism, ie. the flaws in religious reasoning being taught in RE classes as the basic tennants of atheism?

They are my deply held views AND they call into question almost everything that is in the Western religions. How can you teach atheism without calling christiamity judaism and Islam *wrong*.

one love

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The same way as you can teach Christinity, Judaism and Islam without calling atheism *wrong*... if religion is going to be taught in secular schools then it cant be taught that any point of view is right or wrong! I personally would have been very offended if I had been in an RE class teaching about atheism and been told that my Christian beliefs were *wrong*! Just as I'm sure atheists would have been offended by being taught in the Christianity lessons that their atheist views were *wrong*.

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Then that is the choice their parents, who have responsibility for a child's moral upbrining until they are old enough to take that responsibility (and decide their own school) for themselves, make for them. Either way, any sensible kid is going to at some point realise they have to decide for themselves. And not everyone at religious schools is religious - my friend was at a Catholic convent for 7 years and she told me once that she'd rather believe in fairies than God!

Are secular schools really that secular?

When I went to school in the sixties / seventies (in the UK) we had religious morning assembly and religious instruction which was quite clearly Christian.

Has this changed now? Do schools really attempt to teach 'about' religion without teaching some form of faith?

F

I'm not entirely sure how it stands for state schools (i went to a private school which had a policy of nominally Christian assemblies etc) but I remember there was a time at my state primary school when all the songs suddenly became far more secular (we still sung he's got the whole world in his hands but all the other songs were about being nice and smiling all the time) and instead of some sort of prayer we had "thinking time".

Parents can still opt to have thier children opt out. Which even as a cocksure atheist I dont think Id ask for my kids to do. When I was at primary school there was a friend of mine who had to sit out because he was Jehovas Witness, well he isnt but his dad is so....

I cant remember anyone teasing him but it was a little embarassing for him dealing with the questions about why and he missed a communal experience and some interesting moral guidance. Solomon giving the baby to the woman who would give up her claim rather than see it cut in half, David and Goliath. On the other hand he also missed out on misguided fanciful nonesense. Even if you dont read the bible as fact to them kids can be confused by stories about people being swallowed by whales, living for 900 years and pulling thorns from lions paws.

So we get kids who sing about Jesus giving us the water of life and then going off to learn about the water cycle.
"Manjit how are lakes and seas turned into clouds?
"Jesus, miss"


We get people who say they are spotaneous christians but then tell us that they were christend. Della if you feel certain enough to tell us that you dont regard Mormons as christians I can only say that any parent asked by his daughter who sends his daughter to Sunday school isnt a real atheist.

What we have going on is a situation where religion is not always taught about so much as taught. It is instilled in the fabric of our culture and education system so that people pick it up by osmosis.

Yet we do not recognise how this calls into question science. What religion attests is true often runs directly opposite to scientific evidence. So shouldnt we be teaching atheism just as robustly. Saying religion is *wrong*. That at points A to X religion is wrong and that atheists have no views about points Y and Z. Religion does but they are drawn from the same unreliable source that its flawed assertions about points Ato X are drawn from.

I think there is a lot to learn from scripture that can be good for us. Learning about the wisdom of the prophets is just as important as learning anout Newton's discoveries or Gallileo's observations, but is there anyone on this thread who cant see that the concept of obedience and manifest destiny are harmful.

Tony Benn on start the week said "Im a student of the teachings of Jesus but I dont believe he's my lord, I dont believe in any lords"

one love

In the interest of balance: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=381472&post=4879525#p4879525 Or should that be unbalanced?

I'll check that link when I get home, but you *do* know the Onion is a satirical site, and its stories are jokes, don't you?

Oh dear - "thinking time"... at any school I went to, that would have become gossiping-and-being-shushed-by-the-teacher time. It does sound awfully twee!
My brother's fiance teaches at a Catholic school, and one of the subjects she does is RE. But in state schools, nada. (Except, interestingly, for Maori spirituality. As the education act says free, secular and compulsory, I wonder why they teach the Maori stuff? I'm talking primary school here...)

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We got taught that bit - as a lesson about how being kind to animals will benefit one in the future. It's a Greek legend, not the Bible!

Hi badger,

I've been somewhat silent lately, to some people's delight no doubt, but your posting simply had to be praised and lauded up to the highest heights. It's always nice to read something by someone who agrees with you (one)!

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Yep, I agree entirely.

It is a while since I was taught about religion, though, in school. I remember pre-GCSE RE lessons, and they weren't so much taught as involving a teacher handing out some books and telling us to copy the words into our execrise books while he sat at the front of the class doing nothing. And all I remember is learning about Islam. And this was back in the late 80s, when it wasn't even trendy yet.

So, I can't remember if we were taught about religion in a "this is correct" kind of way. Nowadays there must be more of a broad range of religions being studied (although I have heard that Christianity sometimes finds it hard to get a look in), so in those circumstances it must surely simply work out that no one of them is presented as "the truth", if only because then ludicrous inconsistencies occur.

Perhaps they are just taught "this is what some people think, and this is what other people think"?

I think that maybe there should be an overhaul of religious teaching in schools. Not simply a "this is the list of things that those people believe" but, as badger suggests, "these are the reasons that are put forward by these people as the reasons for their belief". Then I think atheism could be done in the same way, and would benefit from the fact that it is backed up by everyday experience (in my view (argh! have I started to become liberal?! argh! )).

Phew! It's rambling time again!

Oh, and that link to the atheism thread with the "preacher"'s posting: I was quite refreshed by his attempts at consistency!

M.

Hi,

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We got taught that bit - as a lesson about how being kind to animals will benefit one in the future. It's a Greek legend, not the Bible!>>

It's funny how we end up thinking that certain things are in the Bible when they're not! Like all those nativity plays that contain all the usual motifs, a large number of which aren't even in the gospels.

I could've sworn that Daniel pulled the thorn from the lion's paw but, nope, that was Androcles. And I'm sure there's been a biblical film with that scene in... starring Victor Mature? I dunno, they all end up looking like Victor Mature in one's (my?) memory!

M.

Please read the posts and dont reply to what *you think* I said. I did not say *any* of those stories came from the bible.

I ws refering to this story.
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/w/weyden/rogier/17other/5jerome.html

Even the background of the painting shows that it itself was revised to fit what the big wigs in the church at the time wanted to say. I think that the story of Androcles and the lino was, almost as surley as this painting was edited, approriated retrospectively by the church as a story to bolster its version of reality and to glorify its own god.

I remember being taught it as a ten year old as true by a card carrying, beard stroking sandal wearing Jesus freak called Mr Green. Who it also happens was a sadistic and petty tyrant to the children in his care, but that sort of hypocrisy is nothing uncommon amongst people who call themselves chritians is it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3497917.stm

Fair enough if he thought hed hit a rock but he said rock or dog. Did he learn nothing from the stories of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Jerome and the Lion?

one love