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

School chaplains, btw...I have more of an issue with. Theyre tied in with Religious Education, and the seriousness with which RE is treated varies between Local Authorities.

My children's primary school was infiltrated by The Scripture Union - not an organisation I like. For a while my daughter went to a lunchtime crafts club, and it was only after a while that I discovered it was one of their SURF clubs. Its really not on to evangelise covertly to children.

Their High School has been a breath of fresh air! Due to pupil action, RME (Religious and Moral Education) has been rebranded as RMPE (where P = Philosophical). Yes, there's religion - but of the comparative kind. Most of the teachers come from a Christian background (who else goes for a career in RE?) with one Muslim. Most are well respected by the pupils...except for the recalcitrant one who keeps answering questions with ~Jesus said....~ (and changes the subject when hes asked how he knows what Jesus said)

This Easter, my wife asked our youngest (still at primary) if hed like her to come to the schools Easter church service.

~Its OK, Mum,~ he said, ~You wouldnt like it. Its religious.~

This story seems relevant to the title of this thread: A non-muslim
teaching who taught Islam to muslim girls was beaten to near death
by four muslims believing themselves to be acting under the guidance
of Allah:

Judge John Hand QC ... Addressing the defendants one by one, he
said: "Your belief is that you carried out a duty to your God and
you did so with no mercy .... Hussein was also recorded as saying he
did not care if he had to go to prison over the attack as he was
doing it for the sake of Allah.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13566526

teaching --> teacher

I feel I should mention that at no point does the article say that they believed themselves to be acting under the guidance of Allah, that is an assumption you have made.

>> ...at no point does the article say that they believed themselves
to be acting under the guidance of Allah, that is an assumption you
have made.>>

As quoted from article:
Judge John Hand QC ... Addressing the defendants one by one, he
said: "Your belief is that you carried out a duty to your God and
you did so with no mercy .... Hussein was also recorded as saying he
did not care if he had to go to prison over the attack as he was
doing it for the sake of Allah.

Hence you do not associate "carried out a duty to your God"
or "doing it for the sake of Allah" to "under the guidance of Allah"
- how interesting. How should it have been reported in your opinion?

No I don't, I associate "for the sake of Allah" as "we made a decision to protect what in our opinion is Allah's interest." Under the guidance of Allah implies that they either heard voices or that there's a specific bit of the Quran which states non-Islamic teachers who teach about Islam (which is different from teaching Islam) must be beaten to death. There was nothing wrong with how it was reported.

So they didn't "believe themselves to be under the guidance of Allah"
as I reported it?

They never said that Allah *told* them to do it, which is how I interpret being under the guidance of Allah. Really, this is people being and using Allah as the excuse...

What I'm getting at here is that as long as we, as non-religious people, keep assuming religion - be it "for the sake of" or "under the guidance of", however you interpret those things - is the "reason" for acts of violence and hate we are empowering the violent and the hateful to keep using it as their "reason".

People do not need religion to perform violent and hateful acts, and the people who use religion as their excuse for doing so would probably just find another excuse for doing it to someone else if there were no religion (stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Lennon).