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Proselytising

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*quickly runs for the dictionary* ... ... ... ... ... oh.


Personnally I think all religion is just a method to divide people and cause chaos.
The better mankind evoles beyond the need the better.

I think that its very important for children to learn about a variety of major religions. I know that when I was at school I really enjoyed the work we did on Hinduism and Buddism and visiting a Mosque was fasinating. RE is a very important part of the curiculum if it is taught with balance.

I disagree completely with 'faith schools' and feel that these only encourage division and religious intolerance and in my opinion 'collactive worship' in non-faith schools is another aspect of this.

I think it's a great idea to teach kids about the many different religions that exist, just as they're taught (hopefully) about different cultures--and it should be done without making value judgments about them. I wish I had been able to take a course like that when I was in school. I also am against praying in school or indoctrination in any particular religion.

What interests me though, is the fact that British state supported schools require daily "collective worship" up to the secondary level. I had no idea that was the case, and it surprises me. So for those of you who've gone through secondary school, what form does that take? Is it just a simple prayer (which I assume is some sort of Christian prayer) that everyone says together, or the reading of some sort of passage? And what if you--as an individual who doesn't believe in God, has a different religion, or just doesn't want to do it--refuse to participate?

It's usually integrated into "Assembly", where school matters are relayed to the pupils, and the religious content is played back through the odd mini lecture and of course all the songs (Sing Hosanna(sp?) etc).
Assembly usually continues through to high school level, but more often that not it just drops the religious content.

I think for most people Assembly just meant 30mins of intense boredom and lots of numb-bum fidgiting..

I spent 10 years working my way through boarding schools (or not as Emma will probably tell you)

At my prep school for the first 5 years we had church on a monday and every sunday. Where we all sat and got bored.

At my secondary school we had chapel every day except mondays (assembly), wednesdays and saturdays (house meetings) and even then christain prayers were said each time.

I think the brittish school system attempts to brain wash the masses into believing that christianity is the only correct and true religion, and I think this is very wrong. I saw this at an early age and proceeded to not take part in these ceremonies as I've never really been one to accept things that are pushed upon me.

I think it's an outdated system, that the government should look at soon. I don't know about you, but only having one religion in schools and making it compulsory smacks of racism to me. Which I believe is something that government wants to stamp out.

Not a big fan of enforced worship to what in my opinion, is a religion created by a drug dealer.

I appologise if I've upset any great upstanding christians on this site, but those are my views, so

I grew up in a small village, where the only primary school we could go to was a C of E state school. It wasn't until I went to secondary school that I began to question religion. Up until then it was just part of everyday life. I was even part of the church choir for years - the only social activities for children in the village, such as Brownies, pathfinders and the choir all had a large religious component. Some choice!

It didn't do me any long term damage, but I'd much prefer to have had some choice from day one, and there certainly weren't any alternatives for people with different beliefs.

My boys go to a C of E school not for religious reasons but because it was the best school in our area (well out of our area really). The school takes them to the church for things like harvest festival, Easter, Christmas etc but they're also taught lots about different religions too.

I found everyone's religious/school experiences interesting to read. Thanks for posting. Public (government supported) school is so different here, in that you can't have prayer or any type of religious instruction whatsoever. At least you're not supposed to, although I'm thinking there must be some rural corner of the country where they secretly get around it.

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by Sandia
Public (government supported) school is so different here, in that you can't have prayer or any type of religious instruction whatsoever.

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What's going on with the court case where the bloke is trying to get anything to do with God ripped out of the pledge of allegience?

Was quite interested in it while we were on holiday in New York, but since then i've not heard anything of it.

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by Maffrew
(quotes)

What's going on with the court case where the bloke is trying to get anything to do with God ripped out of the pledge of allegience?

Was quite interested in it while we were on holiday in New York, but since then i've not heard anything of it.

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I'm really not sure. I haven't heard anything more about it either. I guess the issue is winding its way through the courts.

It should be noted that those who object to the pledge of allegiance have the right not to participate. Which is a different issue to wanting to participate but objecting to the wording, but it does give Atheists another option.

That's how I dealt with the pledge when I was in school. I stood like everyone else, but I didn't say anything. It had nothing to do with convictions about religion or my country. I just didn't like being coerced into saying it. Saying an oath doesn't make you more patriotic or less so, or more religious or non-religious. I just thought it was ridiculous. I stil think it is.

Well i went to a church school (the art deptartment was the best around....)and i was quiet the little christian..but two years into it and boom im an Aethiest!I decided to look into all faiths and beliefs..ive read the Koran, Torrah and books on shintoism, Taoism. buddhism and the like...
by the 6th form im a pagan!
So religeous schools ca have the opposite effect on pupils, i know a few of the pupils at the school went that way too!

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by nemesis
Well i went to a church school (the art deptartment was the best around....)and i was quiet the little christian..but two years into it and boom im an Aethiest!I decided to look into all faiths and beliefs..ive read the Koran, Torrah and books on shintoism, Taoism. buddhism and the like...
by the 6th form im a pagan!
So religeous schools ca have the opposite effect on pupils, i know a few of the pupils at the school went that way too!

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A combined diet of Christianity-by-numbers and raving evangalism through primary- and early secondary-school definitely played its part in driving me to Atheism. I did look at all the major theistic religions, mainly through RE, but they seemed much of a muchness, and most of the others seemed downright bonkers.

Since then I've become equally disillusioned with Atheism. At times it seems a little too sure of itself for my liking: dismissing everything supernatural out of hand can be just as blinkered as blind faith. But whatever's out there, darned if I'm worshipping it, so guess you could call me an Atheist in principal.

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by Byron
(quotes)
But whatever's out there, darned if I'm worshipping it, so guess you could call me an Atheist in principal.

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Isn't that an Agnostic view then?

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by Sydney
(quotes)

Isn't that an Agnostic view then?

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Agnostic: an Atheist in denial.

Agnosticsm is either the belief that it's impossible to know about God, or skepticism about his existence. There's nothing there that objects to the concept of God.

So it's fair to say I deny the existence of God because I reject the notion of divinity.

Though I might recant on my deathbed, just covering my bets like.

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by Byron
(quotes)
Since then I've become equally disillusioned with Atheism. At times it seems a little too sure of itself for my liking: dismissing everything supernatural out of hand can be just as blinkered as blind faith.

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Atheism isnt dismissing anything supernatural its just someone disbelieves the existence of god or gods you can still believe there are supernatural events just dont think its anything to do with god.

Thats my arguement anyway.

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by JtB
(quotes)
Atheism isnt dismissing anything supernatural its just someone disbelieves the existence of god or gods you can still believe there are supernatural events just dont think its anything to do with god.

Thats my arguement anyway.

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Very good point. The Atheism I've been involved in always comes with a heavy anti-supernatural bent (sure there's a word for that, but for the life of me ... ), and it's easy to see why the two views became symbiotic, but there doesn't seem to be anything stopping them existing independently.

Yay, I can be an Atheist and believe in weird crap.

So what do you do when you're involved in atheism?

All the schools i went to were Church of England schools, and i have to say that at the time it wasn't really an issue. I went through a religous phase and became quite involved in everything, even got myself confirmed. This didn't last forever though, I soon realised that I didn't actually believe it and going to chapel three times a week became annoying.

One of the schools I went to didn't do compulsory RE for GCSE but we had RE lessons, but they weren't religous at all for some reason. The other scools I know both did RE for GCSE and I was reliably informed they were basically Christian bible courses.

I used to sing hymns quite happily at school right the way through, even when I didn't believe in what was being sung, just cos I like singing I think it's very backwards that schools don't all teach about different religions and they make you go to chapel or church or whatever and sing and say the prayers (if we were caught not singing the hymns we got a warning, a fine, and then if we were boarders, gated).