Aniela Bylinski discusses her experience of sending her daughter to a ‘faith’ school
Children aren’t just educated at schools, but socialised there. Isn’t it a parent’s right to know just how that is being done?
After a lot of anxiety and against my wishes, my daughter was assigned a religious school by the county. It was the best school academically, receiving ‘Outstanding’ from Ofsted, but it was not the education that I was concerned about. I had heard differing accounts concerning the religious education from parents whose children already attended the school, other parents were mostly indifferent, but I was becoming more and more uncomfortable with the idea. My daughter was born in a very high birth year and although I appealed to send her to a county primary school, my efforts were disregarded by the authority.
Before my daughter started the school, I met with the headteacher on more than one occasion to express my concerns about what my daughter may be taught. The head assured me that my daughter would be instilled with Christian values such as tolerance, forgiveness, and love for one another. To me, these were simply human values. I was not satisfied with her explanations and was left wondering if she thought only Christians held these values, and if so, where she thought I got my values from?
We disagreed on the definition of indoctrination. For me, it meant to instil a set of values, one’s own set of values, usually a set based in scripture. So by definition, this is what was going to happen to my daughter, as they were teaching only Christian values. I asked the headteacher, ‘If my daughter was to ask you whether god was a male or female what would you say?’ She said she would say that she doesn’t know. I asked her then ‘Why do you have signs around the school referring to god as a he?’ and mentioned that the signs should probably alternate between him and her, otherwise the message would be patriarchal. As half of the school is made up of girls, I was concerned by how girls and women would be represented (or not) in Bible stories and how this would affect my daughter, as well as about the impact of these sort of lessons on wider society.
The teachers assured me that they would always talk to the children by confirming that ‘this is what I believe’. I still had my reservations, but in the end it was out of my control. There was nothing I could do. My daughter started school in September 2013 into what was a moderately religious school, funded by the taxpayer with no financial contribution made by the Church since it was first established in the 1960s. However, the school was still governed by the Church.
Within the first few weeks my daughter came home to tell me that ‘our god is the Christian god’, ‘god lives in the sky’ and that ‘my soul is in my stomach’. She sang songs like ‘Our god is a great big god’ and ‘Love the lord your god’ all with hand actions and great enthusiasm. I realised that she probably didn’t understand half of it, even asking me what a soul was, but my fears had been realised. She was too young to think critically, to ask the Reverend ‘How do you know my soul is in my stomach?’ and ‘How do you know god lives in the sky?’ I was starting to wonder why they would tell children this. How would this information benefit my child? Despite their best intentions there was no evidence for these teachings. I knew I was unlikely to receive a satisfactory answer. However, I felt a duty to at least raise these concerns with the school, though I did not want my daughter to become singled out. Just because I had a lack of religious belief, did that mean they could impress their beliefs on my vulnerable daughter (anyone under the age of 18 in law)?
I wrote to the school stating that the values which they teach could be taught in an inclusive setting, outside of Christianity, so that the Muslims, Jews and non-believers alike could all reflect together. There was no need to separate children based on their parent’s beliefs and surely this is what is creating division in the world. I informed them that I was bringing my daughter up to take responsibility for her own life, that her failures, successes and achievements were her own and that she is good because it makes her andpeople around her feel good. In 2014, schools should be teaching children how to think, not what to think, surely. For me, taking Humanism to school literally means applying logic and reason to school, something which I found very difficult to reconcile here.
I work at a school-governed Church of England school as an atheist and humanist. The pupils are overwhelmingly “other denomination” as we live in a high immigrant-populated area. Before prayer (which happens every single day, completely different to when I went to a CofE school) they are required by the inclusion policy to say “If you want to make this prayer your own then say ‘amen’ at the end”. On the whole, parents don’t seem to mind too much – they view the assemblies as part of the religious education section of the curriculum, and they can ask that their children be withdrawn if there are concerns.
However all the visitors to assemblies are Christian. They all tell Old and New Testament stories. It is always about “Christian values of…” and such. Which make me uncomfortable. I mean, I believe in those things as a human being and as a “good person”.
Fortunately when taking an assembly, we can paraphrase any parts that we find difficult to reconcile with so I can skim over parts I feel would make me a hypocrite or feel would be indoctrination.
I agree with Aniela Bylinski Gelder: indoctrination is to instill a set of values, one’s own set of values, usually a set based in scripture.
The problem is that so long as religion and state have a connection, so will religion and state school education. Even if the majority of people in our country do not identify as practicing Christians.
I’d like to know how the school replied/s to that the last time you wrote to them?
I wrote a detailed letter to the school with all of the above and more, requesting that my daughter be withdrawn from church led assemblies. She could still attend other religious assemblies just not when the rev comes in for 1 hour of pure preaching. The school did not reply to any of the content of the letter just stating that my daughter will in future be withdrawn from assemblies and be sat in the reception area to the school. I told them that this was not acceptable and I would bring her in late on the day the rev attends. They did not like that her attendance would be affected but the local authority did not have problem with it. She has so far, along with the other children missed 10 hours of ‘proper’ education, since Xmas 2013. They could always provide a teacher to do extra work with her, if they are that bothered about her attendance but apparently all the teachers need to be present in the rev assemblies. Laughable, if not so sad.
My understanding is that the school is under a legal responsibility to provide learning activities for your non-religious daughter while she is not in assembly.
You might want to check this out with the BHA and to ask them to intervene with the school and the local education authority to ensure that your daughter’s non-religious education is not being affected negatively.
Some LEA’s make special provision for speech and language deficient pupils, as well as meet transport costs for children to attend religious schools not near to the homes of the pupils.
If they can find money for those purposes, why can they not provide funding for non-religious pupils’ education?
We moved to a large country town in Australia, on a four year contract with hubbys job. where a non denominational co -ed school does not exist. We chose the best academic school and I advised my boys to be respectful of schools ethos and treat it as a cultural experience, they had been at a non denominational international school for five years previous and were teenagers so less likely to be heavily influenced, last month we had an incident where a relief teacher expressed her religious views on gay parents and adoption. My 16 yr old was so outraged by her comments that he went straight to the principle, who agreed her personal religious views had no place in that lesson and took immediate action. In my opinion if a school is open to other denominations and students of no religious belief, it should be respectful of all. and while my kids do have to attend chapel as part of their schooling, they are under no pressure to ‘believe’
I had the same experience, right down to presenting an appeal to the appeals board. We had a very inclusive head teacher who retired and was replaced by and teacher from and a Catholic school. She implemented prayer corners with Bibles in every classroom along with the legally required daily group worship.
I became a school governor, but was told repeatedly that I wasn’t there to represent myself as an individual, just to represent the interests of the parents, and if I caused too much of an fuss I would be considered to have an conflict of interests and would be removed.
The last straw was when the new head teacher went against the law and distributed a home/school agreement to new parents (luckily myself included, as my younger child started school) without consulting the board of governors. The agreement was to be signed by herself and the parents and included things like children being at school on time and having the time and support to get their homework done on time. It also insisted that the children “should be raised within the Christian faith”.
I had a heated debate at the next governors meeting, was turned on by all the governors, including the vicar. The breach of law was ignored, the agreement had been rewritten and the version I held (and gicen to 30 parents) was denied. I corrected them when they insisted that parents had a choice whether or not to send their children to a church school.
My husband and I were disgusted, with the school and with the system that allowed it to happen. We began the process of emigration. A couple of months before we left the country my 5 year old daughter brought home a colouring book for Easter, describing her role in the death of Jesus, including a picture of his crucifixion to colour in, along with the word ‘sorry’. She was encouraged to think about her sins that were the cause of his horrific death, and which were forgiven because of his death.
I now volunteer at our new school in America. Not being allowed to wish the children a ‘Merry Christmas’ is a very small price to pay.
I remember the preachers who used speak at my primary school assemblies, they seemed like mentally unstable people.
It all sounded like nonsense to me, I think by primary school I’d already made my mind up based on the evidence and my experience so far.
I was home educated for the first 3 years though so that might have something to do with me avoiding the brainwashing.
I think religion’s gender bias is the least of your worries Christianity is sexist to its core and even alternating between “he” and “she” when referring to god is not enough to eradicate the anti-female dogma within the Bible.
This blog is a real eye-opener! As A C Grayling says, young children are being indoctrinated into religion, because they take what their teachers say on trust; your blog shows painfully how that works. It is absolutely outrageous that a local authority can allocate a child to a school where such indoctrination takes place, particularly in a modern, enlightened country. The trouble is, we have an image of the C of E as inept but basically benign; but this is not so: gay priests are being treated in an unjust way; it should be disestablished; all state schools should be removed from the control of any kind of religious organisation. This blog has helped me to finally make my mind up about that.
A different perspective – after a lot of deliberation – by me and to a lesser but still significant extent by my wife – we accepted a primary school place at a local Jewish school for our daughter. We are Jewish by background and we might describe ourselves as culturally Jewish. However, we remain members of a reform synagogue mainly due to my wife’s family membership there and I am a member if the security committee. I am aware of the hypocrisy which some might level at me for this mixed up situation and I have to say I have difficulty reconciling the whole thing.
So back to our daughter – why the Jewish school? Private is not an option (insufficient income) and the local non-denominational schools just don’t cut the mustard academically. Furthermore, most of the kids turn up there without English as a first language and all the various communities remain separate out of school. Meanwhile, our daughter is about to enter Year 4 (rising 9) and she is very haopy and doing well. Regarding the mainstream orthodox Jewish part of the curriculum, I try to explain to her that I don’t believe in the Torah because the stories are at best implausible and I encourage her to think about why that might be so. We also make sure we let her see other religious places of worship and teach her that there are many faiths and nationalities in the world and we are all just people.
So far so good. Hopefully we won’t raise a daughter who marries at 18, wears a sheitl (married woman’s wig) and pushes out babies for 20 years. Hopefully, we will raise a rounded individual who is aware of her cultural and family background but also that of others, who contributes to the world in a positive way.
I got so fed up with the christian skewed RE I received at secondary school that I tried to get myself excused from doing it. I kicked up a right old stink and my Mum came in to talk with the headmaster about it.
In the end I was advised that we’d be learning about other religions and that this would be important for me in learning about other peoples beliefs etc.
The alternative was to go and sit quietly in the library for the duration.
I really wish I’d done that instead.
Similar problem with my kids, when one of them came home and told me that their teacher had said “god is up there watching over us all”.
I said that wasn’t necessarily so, everyone believes something different. Then we had a discussion about what I believed and the reason why none of them were christened. I told them it’s up to them what they believe and to look at the facts then make their own minds up.
Strangely all three of my boys are atheist and hold their own really well when discussing religious bullshit.
In the 1960s my parents were Humanists and so was I, so they were able to request that I not take RE or attend assemblies at the Grammar school I attended. I spent my RE lessons in a book cupboard with a Roman Catholic and a Plymouth Brethren member. We had some really interesting debates, read books on comparative religion and astrology and learned a lot.
In a different school I had to sit very publicly and visibly in the entrance hall during assembly reading a book on comparative religions of the world. Interesting book, and I was happy to debate with passing girls my views on religion, but it felt as though I was being punished in a weird way by the public position of where I had to sit. A shyer person might have felt very uncomfortable and opted back in. Neither were “faith” schools, but the assumption of Christian belief was largely unchallenged, and school staff clearly felt that opting out was anarchic and rebellious in some way.
I am now appalled by the way in which this government has allowed faith schools to predominate and to use public funding to promote their religious views.
Sheila: I share your concerns about the way in which political parties and governments in this country insist upon ramming religion down children’s throats – and then express surprise when they learn about Operation Trojan Horse and the fact that hundreds of young British men and women have volunteered to become jihadists overseas !!!
We need specifically humanist/secularist schools in this country if we are to avoid becoming embroigled in this sort of religious madness.
The BHA should be working with interested parents to set them up.
My children went to an ordinary non-religious state primary in the late 80s/early 90s, and this held a regular Christian assembly. Two groups of children didn’t attend – Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims. They met in separate rooms with a relevant mother talking to them. What bothered me most was how they were then marched into the assembly when the religious bit had finished with the rest of the school now sitting on the floor watching them come in like 2nd class citizens. Hardly multi-cultural behaviour.
When my daughter was about 10 I was walking home with her and a couple of her friends and they were chatting about god. I asked them if they believed in god and they all said no. I asked then if they believed they should follow the 10 commandments and they all said no, they were for religious people. So I asked, in language they understood, what they based their moral and ethical behaviour on and after consulting each other they said they’d do whatever most of their friends thought they should.
I spoke to their head-teacher and asked if it would not be better to have a non-religious assembly where they could discuss human rights, tolerance, respect for others, etc., etc. and where no child would have to be segregated. She looked at me as if were mad and told me that it was the law to have a Christian assembly and anyway it is a Christian country.
It is all very well for teachers at this school to say “This is what I believe” . I doubt whether it would stop at that even in ways of influence of which these teachers are unaware . Favourites and bias always out.
The only protection that any parent has is to have lots of different messages issued not by one teacher but by lots of different believers of lots of different Faiths – a term which I insist includes Humanism. This is why we must have
1 [in Richard Dawkins terms] Comparative Religious Education.
2. As much Interfaith contact with schools as possible
3. A chance for PUPILS to state their own findings on Faith to other pupils without fear of favour.
Schemes which do that include ‘Philosophy of Religion’ and the school visit scheme by at least 3 different Faiths in one joint presentation by the “THREE FAITHS FORUM”
Please draw the attention of these schemes to your Head teacher and to as many other parents and governors as possible.
My 4 year old son came home from preschool one day singing a song about god. I’d talked to him before about how some people believe in god because a long time ago no one knew how everything was made and they thought that an invisible man in the sky must have done it. On this occasion I asked him what they said about god at school and did they think god was real? He said they did, and I asked him what he thought. He told me that he didn’t think god was real because god was a magic man and magic is only in stories. Whenever he mentions god we always talk about it and I emphasise that some people believe in god, but that all sorts of people believe all sorts of things and lots of people don’t think that there is a god of any sort. I hope this approach helps him to keep an open mind, but I resent having to deprogram him in this way.
I have said for a number of years that there is an obvious need for secular schools to be opened up by humanists and secularists.
The present government has a policy of allowing parents to open up new “free” schools.
The BHA should set up a programme to support humanist and secularist parents who wish to have schools opened up for their children.
Relying upon and waiting upon religious schools to “play fair” and moderate their major promotional practices is a waste of time. You might as well wait for Tesco to start running promotional campaigns on behalf of Sainsbury in-house.
Religious is business.
No religious brand will lose an opportunity to mind-wash potential future consumers; their very survival rests upon the mind-washing of young children.
How else – other than on their own irrational basis – could they ever persuade adults to become unquestioning consumers?
Fortunately my children came out of the education system as either atheists or agnostics. I think there’s a strong chance my grandchildren will survive similarly unscathed.
John
“an obvious need for secular schools ”
Missed the Bus?
This may have been a good suggestion thirty years ago and if they had been adopted then would be showing all the way by now.
But currently? The suggestion would just add to the mess of pet theories by consecutive ministers of education.
Logically, we can only ask for a place at a comaprative religious education table. I think this move would pay dividends above the input costs maybe in ten further years.
If not now – when?
If not us – who?
It is not sufficient to have the right motives and intentions.
That constitutes just one per cent of what is required.
The other 99 per cent is setting up institutions of our own which will benefit younger generations to come.
Not to do so is to betray those younger generations.
Reply To John
OK lets have a Humanist school . Campaign , fundraise, shout and market . The BIll for this??? The Payback period??
The real question becomes whether it is better to invest that money in the faith schools campaigns and join the growing crowd of NON Humanists who are fed up with Faith schools and want a new system within the schools altogether.
Comparative Religious Education, and thoughtful assemblies ONLY – and done properly with a National Curriculum, proper teacher training and pre-agreed permissable help from us and the Religions.
We would have the biggest amount of work to do as the BHA is NOT yet prepared to take on a National Curriculum or the MASSIVE teacher training required.
Whatever happpened to the BHA members Education Committee??
You are getting worked up about a myth that is perpetuated by many atheists about indoctrination. I am a fairly typical example of an adult christian. I was brought up an atheist but came to know God at a later age (33 years old). Many many other christians I know also came to God at a late age. On the contrary many children born into christian homes and brought up in a christian environment (indoctrinated as you would probably offensively say) do not continue in the faith as they make their own decisions when they are older.
I think you should trust your children to make their own decisions based on as many points of view as they come across. You are parents teach them (indoctrinate them) with your view. It’s that simple. Live and let live.. If your children adopt your ways in later life, fine. If they become religious, also fine..
Indoctrinate is simply a word used to describe what is going on in the school, I have even included the definition. Using and defining a word correctly should not be thought of as offensive. Please could you provide a more appropriate less offensive word for the same definition?
If you think I should trust my children to make their own decisions then why is the government so interested in having Christianity in schools?
Everything I have said is completely reasonable, schools for all.
You stated the school did not agree with your definition of indoctrination and neither do I. A better definition in my opinion is “teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.” Which I don’t think anyone should do (including humanists), you have come up with your own definition.
The government doesn’t seem that interested in teaching christianity to from where I stand and to be quite hones, I am not that interested in schools teaching just christianity, I think they should still have religious education to teach what other believe, but done with respect.
I repeat that you should teach your children what you believe, but be prepared to defend your beliefs when they start to question in later life. Trust them to make up their own minds, you should have much more influence on them than the school and probably the biggest influence will be their peers and the internet/media which is most certainly not christian. Storm in a teacup.. I’ve gone through raising all of my children and it is full of surprises how they turn out despite whatever you do or don’t do as parents. Just live them for whatever they become and chill.
Whatever you believe, I wish you well with bringing your children up, enjoy.
What you say is true – up to a point – but what you fail to understand is that education is derived from the Latin word educare, which means that it should be an activity which helps the pupil or student to achieve their full potential.
Governments and individuals insisting children be mind-washed with religious beliefs effectively denies them the opportunity of achieving their real and full potential, which is considerably to the detriment of them and our society.
Ever since the Education Act 1944, the insistence on promoting religion as a cheap form of social control by all governments has clearly undermined the potential of all children ever since to contribute to our societies and futures.
It is a tragic and unnecessary waste of an enormous amount of human potential which could have seen our humankind advance on so many fronts which has resulted from this ludicrous insistence on mind washing and mind control.
Why there are so many apologists for this tragic loss in human potential only dogmatic individuals like you can possibly attempt – unsuccessfully – to justify.
I don’t normally post and get into debates like this as they have no end, but I find it interesting how people make judgments without knowing me and make emphatic statements that are supposed to be just accepted as true with no justification. You make many strong statements above with no justification:
“Governments and individuals insisting children be mind-washed with religious beliefs effectively denies them the opportunity of achieving their real and full potential”
“Ever since the Education Act 1944, the insistence on promoting religion as a cheap form of social control by all governments has clearly undermined the potential of all children ever since to contribute to our societies and futures.”
??? What planet are you on? On this planet only 14% think there is no God. You are dismissing most of the humans that humanists are supposed to represent. Something very wrong here.
“Dogmatic individuals like me”. You have no idea about me, but your prejudice does. I don’t ned to justify anything to you after all aren’t we just “matter that will one day scatter” (love Noah and the Whale) what’s it all matter, where is truth, where is meaning. Chill..
Do you think science is the only answer to every question in life and is not also responsible for atrocities. After all most wars are fought using weapons invented by scientists. If you look objectively, you will see that the teachings of Christ are love and peace. However if you look at evolutionary teachings it is survival of the fittest with a cruel message of hopeless struggle. Give us a chance to believe in something with hope. It is man that twists things and makes science evil (nuclear weapons rather than nuclear energy) and religion evil (war instead of peace)
Critics so often focus on the failings of individuals who claim to be christians. I could counter with many non-believers who did terrible things, but this is my point, humans will be humans.
What critics ignore is the massive good done by the faith affiliated organisations every day all over the world. Open your eyes and see the charities, the help for homeless, addicts, the down and outs. Why because that is the message of the most faiths “Love your neighbour”. What is wrong with that?
If what you believe is true, then it will out and should convince us all eventually. You will just have to try harder to justify your argument unfortunately. I don’t really mind if you believe something different, but others on this post seem to mind that I do (or at least should have a voice to express my belief equally with yours.)
I repeat live and let live.
You say ‘You have no idea about me’ – but that is where you are wrong.
I have met – in debates and blogs like this one – numerous people just like you.
People who are dogmatically certain they know what is true, based upon outdated texts which are not even original. I have seen you and come across you over and over again.
You are all the same. You cling to your ludicrous beliefs like drunks cling to a lamp post or like shipwrecked people cling to life rafts adrift on the open sea.
To paraphrase – slightly – Mark Twain, there are lies, damn lies and religious statistics.
When you claim ‘On this planet only 14% think there is no God.’ you are clearly incorrect. Out of a world population of around 7 billion, something like 1 billion are Chinese – and most of them do not think there is a god. Most Indians – a further 1 billion plus – also do not believe in a single god but are polytheistic in their beliefs, except for the growing numbers of rationalists, humanists and secularists in that country.
Across the Western world, growing numbers of people are expressing disbelief in gods, angels, devils and all other forms of supernatural existence. So where does your 14 per cent figure come from?
Scientific discoveries can be applied towards uses that the scientists often did not consider might be an end use for them. Often, it is religiously motivated individuals who decide upon how the results of their discoveries will be applied.
The recent mass murder of more than 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza – of whom at least 550 were innocent young children – was carried out by apparently religiously motivated National Judaist Zionists, with the support of other religionists in America and Europe.
Humanists do not wage wars against innocent people; when you find out who does, you inevitably find that religious ideology has a major role to play. Mao Zedong did not hold religious beliefs but Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and many other mass murderers did – at the very least during their formative years.
It is these inhumane individuals and not scientists who you have to blame for mass murder and mass misery in human history. There were some scientists who may have understood just how their discoveries would be applied but they were probably those scientists you claim as believers in religion. That is what causes the real problems.
You say ‘the teachings of Christ are love and peace’. Assuming any such person ever existed – which I do not – such an assumption on your part is highly challengeable.
Jesus – if he ever existed – was a jew and he fully supported all their religious beliefs, including smiting the amalekites, resulting in the wholesale deaths of every last man, woman, child and animal. All the other old testament atrocities he supported too.
Admittedly, the bible is completely unreliable, having been re-written over and over again over the centuries since Constantine decided to adopt christianism as the official imperial roman religion but if we use this highly disreputable work of fiction as a basis for understanding the basis of organised western christian religion then it must also be understood that Jesus also supported all the harsher aspects of the jewish religion too. Not much there about love and peace, I can tell you.
You talk about ‘evolutionary teachings’. A typically distorted and misleading statement. Neither we – nor Darwin – advocated the evolutionary process as having any prescriptive value attached to it. He simply described the process of evolution. He did not advocate it as a social policy. Others did that under the misleading description of social darwinism. It is ridiculous to blame Darwin for the fact that others misappropriated his works and then applied them to areas he had no connections with at all.
You say ‘What critics ignore is the massive good done by the faith affiliated organisations every day all over the world. Open your eyes and see the charities, the help for homeless, addicts, the down and outs. Why because that is the message of the most faiths “Love your neighbour”. What is wrong with that?’
What you and other religionists fail utterly to grasp is that this world we all live in has more than enough to provide for everyone but the systems of distribution fail us all. Most humanists are aware of this and are usually to be found supporting social welfare systems, designed to reduce and remove the need for “charitable” support for unfortunate people.
I would say that the role of most religious groups is to increase the levels of social deprivation in the world in order to provide a rationale for their own existence and to disguise their tacit support for the systems which cause the misery in the first place.
Most religions and charities are parasitic upon the sick, the homeless and the down and outs, as you describe them. There are, of course, deluded individuals who work within and contribute towards the work of such charities and religions but it could also be seen as a form of guilt-reduction on their part too.
I don’t need to argue harder – as you put it – as census results and opinion polls one after another indicate declining levels of religiosity in the developed world.
This still, of course, leaves room for mischief for religionists in the undeveloped world but it is only a matter of time before most parts of the world wake up from the nightmare that is religion and are freed from their former irrationalities to go on to create the vastly better world we can all look forward to once the appalling burden of religion has been lifted from all of humankind.
You say you have come to know God. Can I ask what it is you know and how you came by this knowledge? Did your conversion come after having a conversation with your deity, and if so, what exactly did he/she/it/they say to you?
I would love to, but unless you are seeking to know God yourself, there is actually no point and I have not go the time or the space to write all of my experiences and rationale.
However, I will say that the supernatural is involved which has probably switched your mind off right at the work “supernatural”. Pity, but a rational mind should countenance the existence of God at least because the majority of the world’s population believe in a God of some kind. Humanists are very much the minority and the onus should be on you to prove we simply came from nothing like a rabbit from a non-existent hat.
How I came to believe in God maybe supernatural (divine revelation if you like), but the evidence I see all around me totally my belief and I have a consistent and harmonised world view.
Do I understand everything, no… Do you understand everything that scientists are telling you, I doubt it as only a handful of people do. So we both have to trust some source of authority at the end of the day based on trust (faith). I trust God to tell me how things came into being, how they work and what the future holds. You trust in science (I am guessing).
Because you don’t know God or can’t see Him and some scientists say he isn’t required to make this all happen, does not mean He does not exist or science is correct. I think the scientific community needs to try a bit harder at going where the evidence is leading them and they will one day prove God exists. Till then, we are all trusting our own beliefs based on limited knowledge. Good luck
What an utterly absurd response you have posted.
At one time the majority of people believed the Earth was flat.
It was scientific knowledge that eventually proved Earth approximates to an oblate spheroid, not any out-of-date antiquated texts written by stoneagers.
Your deliberately imposed ignorance and stupidity – which you call (blind) “faith” – would be laughable, except when we see the kind of damage it can cause.
The cases of Nkosiyapha and Virginia Kunene, UK members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church who let their baby boy die of acute rickets in 2012, as well as US “faith-healers” Herbert and Catherine Schaible who were told by their trial judge “You’ve killed two of your children,” he said “Not God. Not your church. Not religious devotion. You.” provide a rational response to your silly statements.
Let the deaths of those innocent children weigh upon your conscience.
It is fools like you who encourage these deluded parents – not us.
You seem to be suggesting that religion holds back science and that because a few individuals who claim to believe in God have done bad things, then religion must be wiped out.
Many great scientists believed and do believe in a God (52% in 2009 survey). Science is a search for truth, so is religion where they clash a choice has to be made which one you are going to believe. As I mentioned earlier I doubt you can prove the theories of the big bang and early expansion of the universe and even if you could you couldn’t explain it to me. They are theories that cannot be demonstrated and repeated scientifically. You are ultimately trusting in someone and something you do not understand (I call that faith).
I love science and where I see evidence I believe it, where I don’t, I don’t. After all science is continually “wrong” is it not as many scientists also believed in a flat earth until the evidence was enough to convince otherwise.
To try and weigh me down with the deaths of deluded people I don’t even know is a bit too much. Does science want to take responsibility for Dr Mengele and should we stop all science because some bad eggs took it down thee wrong route?
You don’t know me, but have called me or my statements “foolish”, “silly” and “absurd”. I think real absurdity lies in a speculation (apparently scientifically based) that there is a multiverse with an infinite number of universes and that this one could even be a simulation invented by inhabitants of another universe.
Somewhere out there in another universe there is a humanist me arguing against a christian you. And in another there is a god just like the one I know exists. Makes you think how small and pointless this whole argument is. Now can we get back to living. CUBye
I principally deal with your claim that ‘Many great scientists believed and do believe in a God (52% in 2009 survey).’
This clearly is a selective survey and has to include most of the great scientists of the past. We know, for example, that scientists like Hobbes and Newton held quite peculiar ideas, some of which they went public with but other ideas were held in secret until after their deaths.
If you replicated the same survey based on actual living scientists, I believe your figure for those with a belief in gods would plummet dramatically.
As a computer scientist, you of all people should be aware that the technology in your own field has evolved massively. I am old enough to remember the days when massive main frame computers took up numerous rooms in factories and other buildings, usually for the purposes of payroll calculations.
Today, the computing power of those former main frame computers can be easily housed and exceeded in a hand-held device. That’s evolution for you.
You run programs. Run one backwards if you want to understand how the world began with a big bang and how red shift analysis of the expanding universe fits into all of that.
The “experiment” can be replicated and accommodated on a computer.
You do not need to carry the experiment under real-term conditions.
The only way you could do that would be to destroy the existing universe and then re-create the original conditions for the universe and watch out for what happens. That is crazy!
Dave
You just don’t get it. Do you? Humanists try very hard NOT to ‘indoctrinate’ with anything. Of course there are bigots and enforcers within every belief but only Humanists know what is possible outside of an historic belief. They use methods of knowing that do not depend upon any assumptions or beliefs of forefathers.
To give your children a real chance you should just Shut UP, and I do not mean that offensively. They ARE capable of seeing the good in you and the good in your religion.
Freedom of ‘knowing technique’ is what we are asking for.
Try real science.
I do get it David. I don’t indoctrinate my children (of which I have 5 by the way). I taught them what I believed to be true and I feel strongly I have the right to do that. Once they got old enough to make the choice for themselves I let them go their own way. Only 2 now believe out of 5, so we are not very good at “brain-washing” and if we were science could learn a lot from us as we could change all kinds of peoples behaviour. Alas we have “failed”.
However my atheist parents also “failed” as I became a believer later in life aged 33. I used my human intellect/reason in fact all my faculties and made a decision which has altered my life since then (I am quite older). It has been a wonderful thing for me and transformed my life, why should I not be allowed to tell anyone about this in the hope it could change thier life also for the better.
I think it is a bit patronising to imply humanists are the only ones that seem to use rationality “They use methods of knowing that do not depend upon any assumptions or beliefs of forefathers.” I could claim that christians use a higher form of reasoning (in fact divine) but just like your statements, they are simply that and both of us can dismiss them. I think as logically as the next man (probably more so as I am a computer “scientist”) but if something doesn’t convince me, it doesn’t convince me.
My experience of most committed christians is that they have experienced a personal crisis and ended up looking for some sort of prop or crutch.
Many of them have previously over-consumed sex, drugs, alcohol and / or other forms of highly addictive “products” and need to find a different way of life to preserve their health and / or sanity.
This usually leaves them open to exploitation by religionists who are highly capable when it comes to latching on to addicts of one kind or another.
While I daresay many religionists are motivated to some extent by concern for fellow and sororal human beings, it is also the case that as with any other business – and religion really is hugely big business – they are always on the look out for future consumers, particularly those who may tithe or pay a steady 10 per cent of their income to the religious organisations. Money – as ever – talks.
Humanists instead face reality as it is and they confront the vicissitudes that life may throw at them and by opposing end them. That is the rational way to cope.
Hi John, putting all your replies together, I can only assume you know little about me, religion (should have studied harder at school in RE), the world around you or rationality and reason.
I never presume one person represents a “movement” as you shouldn’t lump me in with others you may have “met” on other blogs and forums. I certainly hope you do not represent the other 6000 humanists (is it more??) as there is very little tolerance and some heavy vitriole, not to mention ignorance. I will need God’s help to survive if you ever become a majority 🙂
I think for both our sakes, I am going to leave this debate now as it’s going nowhere and it is just ramping up to be unhelpful.
John, I wish you well and truly do hope you find God one day, it will open your mind as well as your eyes.
A Pew Research survey found that what they called atheists in the US had an almost equivalent knowledge about religion as fundamentalist evangelicals, with both categories massively out-scoring “ordinary” religionists where religious knowledge was concerned.
This is why we humanists can talk with such authority about religion.
I believe the BHA now has around 10,000 members and supporters; and this does not also include the numbers of members and supporters of the Scottish Humanist Society, the National Secular Society, the Conway Hall Ethical Society, the Rational Society (publishers of Free Thinker) and a number of other groups – let alone individuals who share similar beliefs but are not active members.
Non-religious belief is the fastest growing belief in Britain today and is being replicated elsewhere throughout the developed world in places like Europe and – especially among younger people – even in the US and North America today.
When I searched online just now for entries relating to the Flat Earth Society, my search recorded in excess of 4,000,000 “hits” in 0.22 seconds. They have a very impressive web site at http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/.
I am sure you find their “belief” as irrational as I do but as a humanist I am aware that there are many people who hold peculiar beliefs in this world we all live in.
In essence, their peculiar beliefs do not do very much harm to themselves or others, as far as I am aware.
That being the case, I do not see it as my role to confront and challenge them.
I believe the progressive weight of scientifc evidence will over time persuade these slightly crackpot deluded individuals that the world is round and not flat.
Ultimately, I also perceive religionists in a similar way, except religionists do – and have done – much more harm than good when compared to the flatearthers.
Thus far, we have been very fortunate in this country that our education system has not yet produced a Timothy McVeigh – the Oklahoma City Bomber.
McVeigh’s primary motivation for carrying out the bombing, resulting in 168 dead and injuries to a further 680 others, was the 1993 Waco siege.
McVeigh – like David Koresh and more than 70 of his followers who died in the Waco siege – was a religious crackpot and a highly dangerous one.
In Britain – as the recent Operation Trojan Horse revelations have indicated – we may be catching up the US in this regard, except – for now – religious extremism is apparently restricted to just one religious sect.
However, as McVeigh indicates, as well as Baruch Goldstein (responsible for the 1994 massacre of Palestinians in a mosque in Hebron), religious extremism is not solely restricted to any one of the main organised religions.
A saving factor may be the unavailability of guns and explosives in the UK, though arming Scottish police may bring this situation into question in future.
In more recent times, we have all seen what happens to people who fall into the hands of the Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq.
Their religiously motivated practices of mass beheadings, mass rapes, mass shootings and mass lootings are not part of religious education in our schools.
Why is this religious behaviour not mentioned in the teaching in our schools?
Ought not our pupils and students to be warned about this in their education?
Aberdeen Humanist Group is holding a public discussion event in October on Religion and Schools in Scotland.
Aberdeen has a 50% non-religious demographic but religion has a strangle-hold. Three non-elected ‘Faith’ members with full voting rights on all 32 area education committee BY LAW! Words fail!
As far as “Humanist” schools go, I would be reluctant to introduce these. They would just further segregate our children. I live in Loughborough and am a member of Leicester Secular Society http://www.Lsec.org.uk. Leicester is probably one of the most religiously diverse cities in the world, yet we are in danger of establishing voluntary apartheid with the communities living in particular areas and now setting up “all through” schools so that pupils/students only learn with others from families following the same religion. Segregating the “non religious” into their own schools would simply exacerbate the situation.
I think we need to be putting our weight behind the recent letter intiated by the BHA calling for a review of place of religion in schools see here.
Nicky Morgan is my MP and as direct letter to her are now dealt with by a minion I sent the following to my local paper:
“I think Sandra Harris is incorrect in her assertion that the requirement to promote “British values” implies an insult to other cultures and faiths (“What an insult to other cultures and faiths” – Echo 15/8/14). The requirements apply equally to Christian nursery schools, some of which are just as capable of not challenging negative attitudes as any others.
The Government describes learning about the fundamental human values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs as “British values”. They are, I maintain, both fundamental, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and British.
This issue arose from the findings of highly disturbing reports into a small number of Birmingham community schools which revealed that some were promoting a narrow world view and disparaging people of other religions and cultures.
The problem however is that, had the schools in question been designated as religious, many of the practices criticised in these reports would have been regarded as perfectly acceptable.
I strongly believe that education about religion and belief in schools should be fair, inclusive and promote mutual understanding and respect. The current legislation covering religious education and requiring a compulsory daily act of worship (a contradiction in terms) has not been comprehensively reviewed since the 1944 Education Act and our society has changed profoundly in the interim.
Nicky Morgan, as the new Education Secretary, has the historic opportunity to show leadership and set up an inquiry into the place of religion and belief in all schools. This should be tasked with achieving a consensus to provide proposals for an education system that is plural, inclusive and promotes community cohesion.”
Similar letters to local papers and MPs might encourage the government to initiate such a review.
John, I think you’re very right on all the points you just made. Thank you for taking the time to write such a lucid and informative letter to your local paper!
It is good to know that other people are writing letters and questioning authority, reasonably and rationally. I recently received a SIAMS report from my daughters school and replied directly to the Church of England Synod copying the letter to the BHA the National Secular Society as well as to Nicky Morgan. The number of unsubstantiated claims in this report were unbelievable.
I am sure that John would not object to us writing very simlar but perhaps locally adated letters to our own newspapers. Report your sucesses here?
It is very interesting to see how people introduce their own subjective opinion into an objective subject. We should be drilling down to the fabric of belief here, trying to resolve the truth behind the existence of God instead we appear to be trying to persuade the other of our belief, based on our belief rather than based on evidence or proofs.
I suppose there is no evidence of God existing and the religious amongst us would say there would be no need for faith if there were proof. There may be proof, one way or the other, if the Vatican would release the scriptures held back from publication. Why do they not release them?
There being thousands of variations of Christianity alone leads me to believe that organised religions are perhaps manufactured by the ‘leaders’ for their own benefit! which can be seen to be true especially in the USA. Why do we think perhaps our religion is not the same. Have you inquired to your religious leader in depth: ask, amongst many conflicts in the Bible – why does the Bible say you will identify the wrong religion by it’s banning certain food on a certain day, true of Roman Catholics, Call no man father except your father and God in heaven, true of Roman Catholics.
Do organised religions foster inquiry into their foundations? Not that I know about! I once visited a priest and asked him these questions. He told me he was hungry and must go to have his tea, without answering my questions. We must believe without question.
Whereas science exists because it relies on questioning. It prospers because we question.
Perhaps religion does serve a purpose as we see churches fill with the elderly who obviously receive something. Perhaps comfort from believing it will not be the end when they die. There will be life for them after death.
I have recently come around to thinking that as in life we receive what we work for and aspire to, if we challenge ourselves and work hard for it, we will receive it: promotion, fame, wealth, health etc. Like wise I ‘think I believe’ If we work hard to enter heaven whatever that is to us! if we believe with all our heart, if we live according to what we believe than perhaps we will receive it on death. whether it be eternal nothingness or eternal fire, or eternal heaven. This is my current subjective opinion.
My objective opinion is that religion is man made just as science is man made. The individual must decide for themself which they will follow.
But when we are responsible for others as with our children, we must decide for them. The state must support the ability for the parent – the parent being the most important individual in the state – to allow that parent to raise the children as the parent sees fit.
As a humanist celebrant for many years I have been asked by parents to name and welcome their child into their circle of family and friends. Invariably their reason for choosing a humanist ceremony is ‘because we believe that every child should be allowed to make their own informed decisions about life and faith when they are old enough to do so.
I am also invited into primary schools in Aberdeenshire to talk about humanism and their interest and curiosity are amazing. Philosophy fir infants is now taught to the very young; they are being taught to think for themselves. This is a glimpse of a very desirable future
Excellent work!
I too have visited schools as the speaker on humanism and I invariably find that the pupils and/or students welcome what I have to say.
So too do members of staff, though they usually convey this less openly to me.
It is good to see the better schools offering classes in critical thinking.
Unfortunately, this is not yet as widespread as it should be.
Hopefully, even our dull governments will wake up to what is needed.
They finally realise that basic financial education is needed for all young people.
It has only taken them around 15 years to come to this logical conclusion!
We’ll probably have to campaign for the next 15 years to see critical thinking included in the national curriculum too.
Peter said: “The state must support the ability for the parent – the parent being the most important individual in the state – to allow that parent to raise the children as the parent sees fit.”
Hmm. I’m not sure I can go along with the assertion that parents are the most important individual in the state. What about the child? What about other relations? What about the rest of society? I’d suggest that we should all be equal “in the state”. Parents are certainly entrusted with bringing up their children and have the greatest influence and responsibility, but “no man is a island”. Parents should generally be responsible but the wider family and society still need some involvement.
John,
My remark ‘parents are the most important…. ‘ relates to the topic under discussion. Obviously, doctors are most important in administering drugs and treatments directly to patients, priest most important in forgiving sins, military most important in protecting the population, journalists most important in reporting the news, etc, etc.
Does this clarify my point?
Also you say ‘ wider family and society still need some involvement’ yes for the parent to use as a sounding board, not for decision making. It remains the parent’s role. Therefore most important.
I hope this helps.
Peter, have you any idea how patronising you sound?
Mr M. Richardson,
Because I dislike discussions going astray or being hijacked, In my response to John I explained my contribution in the simplest terms I could, that I was talking on topic, using analogies for comparison. Also I agreed with John that all society is involved but has a lesser part to play in the child’s life.
I asked John politely if he understood my point better. Then politely ended my reply.
Perhaps as with email ‘we’ cannot always anticipate what people will infer from ‘our’ style or wording in correspondence, these discussion may suffer the same problems.
I switched off when I read the line about ‘priest most important in forgiving sins’ as that has to have so much nonsense packed into an incredibly short space that it would take an Olympic-sized swimming pool to wash all the detritus away.
I will not bother.
Peter is an immature time-waster, using terms and phrases that are plain stupid.
Why waste time on such a silly person?
Peter said: “Also you say ‘ wider family and society still need some involvement’ yes for the parent to use as a sounding board, not for decision making. It remains the parent’s role. Therefore most important.”
You give the impression that you regard children as the property of their parents. I think it essential that we accept that parents are entrusted with them and if they are not living up to this fiduciary duty then society can legitimately intervene.
I accept that babies are in no position to take any decisions as to how they should be treated and what they can do, but as children grow up the degree of responsibility they should be allowed must be allowed to increase so that parents and guardians only become one party in making such decisions.
My youngest daughter is 15, so still theoretically a child. She will be choosing what A levels to take shortly. My wife and I will make suggestions, but the decision will quite rightly be that or our daughter and the school.
I therefore think society is perfectly entitled to ensure that all children are educated to have a good understanding of all the major world religions and beliefs, even if their parents object to them being exposed to such knowledge.
John. D.
I am discussing with believers as well as non-believers on here therefore I include them in my discussion. To reach people who ‘we’ want to convince of a way of thinking, they must be included in the discussion.
John. C.
I agree with you, I infer this discussion concerns an infant who was assigned a religious infant school against the infant’s parents wishes. Also I do not imply the property argument.
Utterly predictably, you have confirmed what I suspected about you all along.
You are another of the deluded idiots who come on web sites like these as you think your pearls of wisdom will have the effect of saving souls for the lord and bringing people to the good shepherd through your principal conversion tack.
Your approach may work with simple-minded individuals and ones who are experiencing existential angst for one reason or another – but humanists ?
It will never happen.
What happens to the members of a flock?
They get fleeced, not only while they are alive but even after they have died too.
You may not mind being a minor parasite on the back of a lot of bigger parasites.
You will never find us acting in that way.
We have too much respect for humankind.
Of course, not all members of the human species can achieve their full potential.
People like you are living embodiments of that fact.
Perhaps one day you will come to your senses.
If you do, I will be happy to welcome you to the intelligent end of humankind.
Peter said: “I infer this discussion concerns an infant who was assigned a religious infant school against the infant’s parents wishes.”
Absolutely and it works both ways. A Catholic for example can find themselves with only a standard community school available (this by law would still be required to promote Christian worship unless another religion predominated amongst the parents). In the past such a parent would have been able to get a subsidy for their child to take the bus to the nearest Catholic School. Most local authorities have now removed this subsidy. As far as I am aware no parent was ever give a subsidy to allow them to avoid sending their child to a sectarian (“faith”) school.
I believe that all state funded schools should be secular and thus open to all. Secular here does not mean opposed to religion, as some seem to interpret it, but indifferent to but interested in religion. Children should be taught about religion but not inculcated with any religion. This should be acceptable to all as parents can arrange for additional teaching as Sunday Schools, Madrassas etc. as they so wish.
Peter – I would be interested to learn what you object to in the BHA Education policy? You can check it out under the “In Depth” at https://humanism.org.uk/campaigns/schools-and-education/faith-schools/.
What is objective about belief in non-existent entities?
There is no objective reality to gods, demons, angels, fairies or leprechauns.
You argue the Vatican (sh)ould release the scriptures held back from publication.
They’ve been re-writing their fictions for so long they have probably lost track.
Some argue that this life revolves around who you know not what you know.
Maybe it is the same in the alleged after-life? Except that it does not exist either.
Like other true humanists, I do not accept that parents should be allowed to inflict their own ignorance – religious or otherwise – on their children.
If they do so then they are complicit in an act of child abuse.
There is no other way to perceive such action or inaction.
We have already seen what this can lead to: Operation Trojan Horse.
I said release the scriptures not interpret or re write them.
Also, who’s ignorance would you prefer to adminster to your children? other than your own, ( we are all ignorant of whether or not there is a God) who else would you allow to raise your children other than yourself?
Release the scriptures? Which version/s would you like?
Go back and read the original – the Epic of Gilgamesh.
All the religious tracts are derived from that original one.
The more recent torah, bible and koran are just variations.
Humanists prefer not to inculcate any ignorance into children.
We leave that sort of thing to others – like yourself.
It is a pity that such things happen for the children involved.
But, however imperfectly, others have to take on that role.
In an ideal world, children could learn about religious beliefs within an overall historic syllabus and then follow up on these beliefs once they become legal adults, i.e. after they turn 18 years.
After that, they are in a much better position to make choices as to which brand of religion they may choose to consume – or not.
John.
– Which scriptures? – all of them.
– Torah, bible and koran are just variations – Exactly my argument.
– Humanists prefer not to inculcate any ignorance into children. We leave that sort of thing to others – like yourself – You don’t know me, so this sentence is invalid.
– I agree with the rest of your comments.
My 5 year old daughter goes to a local Anglican school at the insistence of my Catholic wife.
She says similar things to your daughter. One day she said to me “Dad, aren’t we lucky that we both have God?”
Another day over dinner, when my wife was out, she started preaching to us quite strongly about God. So I asked how she knew God lives in the sky. She said that her headmistress told her so. So I asked how did her headmistress know? She replied that her headmistress knows such things and that we do not. So I asked her if she would ask the headmistress how she knows such things and she said that she would be scared to ask.