Soren wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 12:21pm:

To which one can just as easily reply: keep your atheism to yourself and do not try to impose it on society.  The point is that there is no better foundation for atheism than for theism: they both justify themselves from within their own logic

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Isn't this an attempt to publicly persuade people to accept your convictions (viz. preaching). Society is a conversation, an argument, not a chemical reaction. Which point of view, which philosophical conviction is the 'natural' guarian of those 'societal needs'?

Everybody all together now: 'Mine!"

So we have a conversatation.



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That's sort of the problem soren...
Athiests (well Athiests like me anyway) don't really object to religious instruction per se...but we do think it should be kept in churches and religious schools..
Why should 'secular' schools teach 'compulsory' religious instruction??

Why should ALL children, even the children of non-religious, agnostic or athiest parents, have to do 'scripture' or religious studies....even when their parents have 'chosen' to NOT send them to 'Religious Schools' or Churches????

If I choose to send my child to a NON-Religious school, wouldn't that be because I DO NOT want my child to receive religious instruction AT school??

Religious instruction is, or SHOULD be a choice, either by the parent or the child......so there HAS to be an educational system that leaves the religious training up to the parent...at the church or house of worship that the PARENTS choose.....

To be balanced and fair, there must be some educational institutions that don't include religious instruction....as things stands...there aren't ....

THAT is what athiests want.......an educational choice....somewhere to send their children that will NOT try to indoctrinate them into a religion.....

I, for one, will probably never 'understand' the logic behind any organised spiritual organisation that worships and/or fears an ancient doG-figure - not least because the original texts were written in a time when objective science was in its infancy, education was limited and superstition was rife...

Moreover, I reckon that we could (should) do without religion in law and government - and education...

Soren wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 9:08pm:



Fair cop - especially since my post wasn't an accurate statement of what I was thinking...

I was responding to the Xtian aspect of the original post but I tried to comment about the place of religion generally...

For what it's worth, although I am atheist, I was reluctant to impose my concluded 'opinion' onto my own kids...

I have therefore allowed them to choose, whether or not to attend religious instruction at school - with a proviso that they made a decision in the first couple of weeks of school and stuck with their decision for a whole year at a time (easily enforced when parental authority is required)...

They are both in high school now - but, at various stages during primary school, they chose different options, on the bases of the persons delivering religious instruction (and non-scripture) and/or what their closest peers were allowed or not allowed to do...

As it happens, my youngest son has also joined a Xtian youth group recently - with a slightly older female friend. Because the girl's parents have only one car and one is a shift worker, I have volunteered to be the one to drop them off and collect them each week.  They make me look bad because they're always late - they don't want to get there until the obligatory Bible stuff is over but they enjoy the company and atmosphere afterwards...

As you can see, in practice, I am more open to exposing my own kids to religious teachings than my earlier post suggested...

So, I would like to clarify, that I broadly support some form of values-based and spiritual teaching - as long as evolution theory is incorporated...

Moreover, I would prefer that any religious education of minors was broad and objective - so that kids were taught the commonalities and differences between many religions, as well as relevant historical facts (such as religious and human evolution, divergence and convergence)....

LOL...clear as mud, eh!? Still, I trust you will get the gist...

Well no surprise here, the religious have things all arse backwards as usual.

So let us start at the start shall we, and that is just what religions teach to kids.
They teach them that god is real, and he created them, and everything else in the universe, and keeps an eternal vigilant eye on them, and everyone, and everything else.
He needs us to worship him, and we do that by following the rules he has handed down through obscure ancient middle eastern men thousands of years ago.
If we do all that, then we go to heaven when we die, so look upon your life as a test from god, the ultimate entrance exam if you like.

Now the penalty for failing the test is not just not getting into heaven, you are actually given eternal detention in a place more horrible, more painful, more distressing than your worst nightmares, and that is called hell, so follow the rules, and do as you are told, or that is where you are going, forever, and ever, and ever.
This is a one shot test, you are either in or out.

It goes on with a lot of detail about the rules, and so forth, but that is the basic message they push on to kids as soon as they are old enough to sit still long enough, usually 4 or 5 years old.

For those poor sick bastards that actually were so brainwashed as kids as to still actually believe that absolute load of tommy rot, on into their adulthood, then they desperately want their kids to learn the rules as early as possible, so they can go to heaven with them, and so the sick, sad cycle of delusion continues.

Religious education is not education "about" religion/s, it is plain straight out indoctrination from believers, seeking to make their students believers, and that is proselytising, and doing that to little kids in school is totally freakin' sick, and very, very wrong.

The point that Soren makes about learning the historical significance that religion played in our evolution from pagan vilages through to secular societies is a valid point, and one I agree with, but it should be taught from an objective historical perspective, not as an opportunity to proselytise.

So the simple fact is that we can recognise that many parents could hold very extreme and anti-social views, and could seek to indoctrinate their children into accepting and sharing those views, so it only seems fair that in a modern secular society, we could, and should provide a system of education free from any religious indoctrination or prosyletising.

History, ethics, and social responsibility can, and should be, taught, without attaching any bias for supporting individual ideals without objective worth.

Education should primarily concerning itself with providing children the ability to employ individual, critical reasoning, and certainly not just to inculcate the ideas and ideals of their families.

The whole definition of "Freedom" of religion should be looked at in the context of just how free an uneducated, small child could possibly be to actually "choose" a religious faith?
The answer is that of course they cannot freely choose any such thing.

The fact that religions refuse to entertain the idea of allowing children to grow up free from religious indoctrination shows me how little respect that these religions really show for religious freedom, and perversely it is only secularists who truly respect the principle of religious freedom at all.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Jun 28^th, 2010 at 7:58pm:



I have always thought of that sort of imagining of god as a pretty transparent and simplistic projection. I don't think anyone who sticks with religion beyond age 6 stays with that sort of idea.
One of the worst mistakes a lot of people make is thinking religious imagination simplistic.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Jun 28^th, 2010 at 8:35pm:



... when formulating their ideas about religion.

I would like to recommend to all of you Les Murray's poem, Last Hellos, the final lines of which I have made my signature for the time being.
If you can hear it read by Les himself, that would be best. It is not about religion but was written when his father died. Neither is it not about god, however.   
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=219

Aaaaauuuummmmmm......


Good to see you thinking for yourself, yingy-yangy-can't-make-up-my-mind-the-whole-world-is-spinning-for-some-reason person!