There's a BBC story today, linked below, about Christian education in school. A selective quote:
"Some 57% of 1,832 adults polled agreed that learning about Christianity was essential for children to understand English culture and way of life and 44% said more attention should be given to its teaching.
More than half (58%) said it was important for children to know about the history of Christianity, major Christian festivals (56%) and how it distinguishes right from wrong (51%)"
You could of course read this happily the other way - nearly half of the survey did not think that learning about Christianity was essential, and so on.
When I was at school, we did the infamous "RE" lessons, and I have to say I don't remember one single word, not even the teacher, so it didn't make much impression on me. But one of my degree subjects was "comparative religion" so I must have had some interest somewhere at some point.
Did you do RE or something similar at school? Was it worthwhile? Do your kids/grandkids do such lessons? Should they?
I realise religious topics can get heated and vitriolic easily, so let's not do that, eh? I'm interested in how relevant people think it all is today.
Link:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20468439
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>> There's a BBC story today, linked below, about Christian education in school. A selective quote:
>>
>> "Some 57% of 1,832 adults polled agreed that learning about Christianity was essential for children
>> to understand English culture and way of life and 44% said more attention should be
>> given to its teaching.
The report is written by christians, complaining about lack of focus on christianity. Schools today teach RE in a much more unbiased multicultural way, with far more focus on religion as a historical tool and source of reference.
And so it should be, it cant be good to push the views of an organisation that promotes the fact that women are second class?
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>> And so it should be, it cant be good to push the views of an
>> organisation that promotes the fact that women are second class?
Expect an edited version is served up.
Cristianity in its various forms are the only religions that can be criticised or ridiculed or spoken candidly about.
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"Some 57% of 1,832 adults polled agreed that learning about Christianity was essential for children to understand English culture and way of life"
Seems self evident to me. (Please note it says learning about Christianity not learning to become a Christian. ) Christianity has been an integral and pervasive part of the culture, art, political and legal system of this country for around one and a half millennia. You cannot understand the history and culture of the UK or indeed Europe and the Americas without understanding Christian thought and views over the centuries, be those views right or wrong.
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I agree with you CG, but it seems to me that many don't actually think or care much about history. Indeed, I've seen it expressed here that history is bunk and we can learn nothing from it. I find that an extraordinary viewpoint myself.
Of course, history is written by the victors, so almost by definition our own history will show a Christian bias. It would have been interesting to see our own events through the eyes of other cultures, but I'm not sure many Arab scholars were writing about Edward the Confessor in a form that has come down to us.
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I went to a CofE Primary School until I was 9. We learned the basics about the bible, Old and New Testament, and the story of Christ and the disciples. The Vicar took assembly on a Thursday and on Ascension Day the whole school walked in a croc to the church service.
My final two years of primary were in a standard LEA school. We must have done some religion but I cannot remember anything other than assemblies. Neither can I recall much of the weekly lessons from first three years at Grammar school other than teacher's names, Mr Archbold and Mrs Hudson.
Not sure how much of it I'd absorb elsewhere.
A freind of ours is the author of a set of school textbooks on RE. If I want to know anything now I'd ask her.
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My friends who went to secondary modern school in the early 1960s had to do RE as a formal subject and take exams including, eventually, the CSE.
At the grammar school I reluctantly attended we had 'RE' classes but there was no formal syllabus and the teacher, a retired Major in the British Army in India, talked to us every week about what might now be seen as ethical and/or moral issues, including how to try to understand other people and behave well towards them.
I remember with gratitude many things that he said and consider myself lucky to have had his guidance, rather than having my head crammed with a lot of fairy stories.
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Mon 26 Nov 12 at 10:51
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The Major had the right idea Mike.If the church wants to survive it has to move with the times which it isn't.Religion is one of those subjects which can be debated forever.You either believe in a spiritual being or you don't.Organised religion is a different matter.It is a mens club.
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CG is right that you need to understand religion to understand history - to know that 500 years ago in England your opinion on whether a communion wafer was a symbolic bit of food or a piece of actual sacred flesh was a matter of life or horrible death. Know that and you can be both glad at how far from there we've come and frustrated at how much superstitious baggage we still lug about.
'Moving with the times' is neither here nor there: burning heretics was 'God's law' in Tudor times; women as bishops (or not) is apparently 'God's law' today. Man created God in his own image, and it's that image that moves with the times. I share Dawkins's amused incredulity at the idea of 'theology' as a serious academic discipline.
I still think children need to understand how all this came about, but we should be removing any form of religious participation from schools and public life; it's just silly now we know better.
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I enjoy learning about the historical side of religion when it connects to places, old buildings etc but everything else regards actual belief is just whitewash to me.
I agree it should be taught so that kids get a balanced view point especially when you consider religion is interwoven into so many aspects of everyday life from the laws we have to the schools our kids attend plus religious festivals and holidays such as Christmas and Easter.
I did RE lessons at school and myself and my friends took great delight in getting into deep religious debates with the teacher (who reminded me of a dark haired verson of David Icke).
I once told him I didnt believe in God and he nearly berated me in the lesson with barely held in fervour and spittle for saying such a thing. His reply was 'but you believe in that chair you're sitting on?', to which I said 'Yes, but I can see it!'.
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I was brought up in quite a strict Catholic household, and attended Catholic schools, I had Religion rammed down my throat (often with punishment) by Teachers from an early age.
That is why as soon as I could make my own decisions I opted to Ex-communicate myself from Christianity and become (for want of a better term) an Eclectic Pagan. I take what I want to believe, from wherever I find It, and use it as I deem necessary, I make my own "Gods" and my own "Devils", and because it`s my own personal religion,and follows no written and ordained rules, no-one can tell me its wrong!
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As an atheist, I think it's important to teach about Christianity in schools.
However, it should be done with adequate balance against other religions (especially those with significant representations in Britain), and *shock horror* the fact that many people chose to do away with religion in their lives altogether. That fact is completely ignored.
As it is, in my son's First School, they mostly teach about Christianity, whilst sometimes paying lip service to other religions, with the point of view that they believe the children to be mostly CofE.
Teachers have told my son that God and Christ are a fact and the bible is all true. This isn't what I call a balanced education, whether it is accurate or not. But all the same, religion is such a huge part of our culture it's essential for everyone to know and (hopefully) understand it better.
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Thinking more about the original question.
Clearly there is a religious context to both British and wider world history. The reformation, schism from Rome and the Civil War had religious causes or angles. So did the founding fathers in the USA. But then again the religious cannot be divorced from the social context in which it was being used abused by the ruling elite.
I don't beleive that attaining the level of knowledge to understand our history, constitution or law is fulfilled or indeed greatly advanced at all by Christian RE lessons. Knowing the bible, the order and broad progression of characters in it is good general knowledge stuff. It's not essential.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 26 Nov 12 at 15:15
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>> As an atheist, I think it's important to teach about Christianity in schools.
Yes. Because it's so interwoven with our history, and because without a rough (but not too rough!) idea of that history we don't know where we are or why our society is as it is. Alas, those in this position may well be a majority.
It is certainly true of quite a lot of teachers who confuse having been 'trained' with actually knowing a thing or two and with rational thought.
Religion is quite difficult to teach at the best of times. Piece in the comic today says many teachers are 'afraid' of teaching about christianity. I can well believe it, and I would imagine this applies across the board, to believers and unbelievers alike.
Thinking about this, comparative religion is going to be well beyond children under 12 or so as well as a majority of schoolteachers. Seems to me that primary children should be given the standard basic Christian sky-pixie stuff and told it's all true. Later, at secondary school, the mythology should be progressively deconstructed to enable believers to carry on believing and sceptics to develop their freethinking ways. That more or less is what happened to me, and I would guess some others here.
Multicultural schools would seem to present a certain problem. But the problem really is teachers who are 'trained' but often grossly undereducated.
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>> it cant be good to push the views of an organisation that promotes the fact that women are second class?
I agree. But does the Church of England (to which presumably you refer) - or even an appreciable proportion of its members - think this to be the case?
Those who want women bishops think that those who don't want women bishops think women are second class.
Those who don't want women bishops think that women are different, rather than second class.
(And yes, I am sure that just as in any group of people, some members of the Church of England do regard women as second class, just as I am sure that some members of C4P regard them in similar fashion. But nobody is suggesting C4P be pulled...)
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Mon 26 Nov 12 at 15:21
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>> But nobody is suggesting
>> C4P be pulled...)
>>
But then C4P isn't on the National Curriculum!! ;)
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Neither is it the Established Church of the nation.
Time for it to no longer be so.
Odd that they're happy with a woman at the head of it all currently.
I was raised CofE by a Catholic mother, was given the sky pixie stuff all through my education. At secondary school I got the highest mark in the school in our 3rd Year RE exams. A couple of years later I "achieved" an E grade O Level in the subject, by ignoring the exam questions on the whole and describing to the examiners why I thought it was all load of old nonsense. I'm amazed I got an E, to be honest. Lower marks were available. Perhaps they did it to annoy me. Would have annoyed me even more if they'd awarded me a pass.
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''Those who don't want women bishops think that women are different, rather than second class.''
What the hell does that mean?
Newsflash: 'women are different' : from what? Men?
However I read this, or the fact that the C of E doesn't want women bishops, it tends to point to men believing women are second class, less capable, less deserving, unable to teach the religion, provide guidance, or whatever else it is that women can't do. Hogwash.
I'm a committed atheist and don't really care what the C of E thinks/does, but it's out of step with modern society on this one.
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They prayed for God's guidance in their deliberations, and the resulting vote was not to accept women bishops.
Does this mean that God is not a woman after all?
Or simply that She is out of touch with Her sisterhood and only wants male assistants on earth?
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>> However I read this, or the fact that the C of E doesn't want women
>> bishops, it tends to point to men believing women are second class, less capable, less
>> deserving, unable to teach the religion, provide guidance, or whatever else it is that women
>> can't do. Hogwash.
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
Genesis 3:16.
To me, that suggests women are second class and should do as their men folk tell them.
Try telling Mrs OB that!! :D
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>> Genesis 3:16.
Ah, now you can't go round taking things like that literally; a stance taken by the (sadly fictional, but crikey I'd vote for him) President as he explained to a Christian fundamentalist in this clip from the West Wing. Fine piece of television that.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSXJzybEeJM
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>> >> Genesis 3:16.
>>
>>
>> Ah, now you can't go round taking things like that literally;
lol! That's what always made me chuckle, which bits exactly are you meant to take literally and which can you safely ignore? For the sake of prudence and no better authority to select on my behalf, I ignore the lot. But I digress... :)
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>> For the sake of prudence and no better authority to select on my behalf, I ignore the lot.
What? Including the bits you no doubt agree with .. "Don't steal .. don't murder ..?"
Our whole society has grown up on a Judeo-Christian tradition, which has become very much the way we think even if we don't credit it with as much.
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>> >> For the sake of prudence and no better authority to select on my behalf,
>> I ignore the lot.
>>
>> What? Including the bits you no doubt agree with .. "Don't steal .. don't murder
>> ..?"
Yep, ignore the lot and start off with a blank slate. I don't need the bible to tell me that stealing and murder are not good things! Such things fall largely to common sense and the golden rule.
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>>and the golden rule.
Which is?
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Treat others as you would like to be treated. And yes, I'm aware that a fella called Jesus promoted that idea too.
But I doubt he was the first, nor does the Christian world get to own that sentiment all to itself. Any thoughtful individual can see the potential benefit of a society where the majority behave in such a way. Again, no need for a musty old bible to push it for us.
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Humanity has been a patriarchal society for all of recorded history and still is in most parts of the world so its not surprising that religions reflect that view.
You could try Corinthians 11 11 12
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As an ardent Atheist, no religion should be even mentioned in schools, each person no matter how young or old should be allowed to make their decisions about how they feel, and although we would be told that each cult would be given an equal share within the classroom there will always be some kind of bias whether it's intentional or not.
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>> there will always be some kind of bias whether it's intentional or not.
Yes, there always will be 'some kind of bias' under any system of education including a rigorously secular one.
It will all come out in the wash, or not as the case may be. So don't worry about it. The essential thing is that children be taught the three rs and 'how to think', how to seek information and then assess and use it, and so on. Quite a lot of teachers can't even manage the three rs.
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Without understanding the past you can't judge how today's (in)actions will influence the future.
Without a knowledge of religion and spirituality you can't understand how it influences humanity.
However... what you are learning is not 'History' or 'Religious Education'...
It's Politics.
You can try and avoid it, hide from it, or pretend it's not their but politics affects every facet of life and the sooner children understand it (both big 'P' and little 'p' politics) the sooner I feel they can be influential members of society.
(at least when dealing with groups bigger than 3 individuals)
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>> the sooner children understand it (both big 'P' and little 'p' politics) the sooner I feel they can be influential members of society.
>> (at least when dealing with groups bigger than 3 individuals)
Good point Lygonos. 'Politics', which boils down to the working relations between the decision-making executive and the collective, hasn't evolved much since the primal horde. All progress has been technical and scientific. Politically, we are still total savages.
I owe this insight, which I may have overstated a bit, to the French intellectual Régis Debray.
EDIT: There is a radical distinction between religion and spirituality. My sister, a Catholic doctor, said in an email yesterday that the mainstream religions (but she means the Christian ones) are losing adherents at an accelerating rate, and that she thinks religion in future will become more spiritual and 'mystical'.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 26 Nov 12 at 17:07
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It's already mystical for me. Completely mystified as to why anybody gives any religion any credence whatsoever.
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I think for most people, whatever their religion, it's a crutch to lean on when all else fails them.
Pat
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>> It's already mystical for me. Completely mystified
You mean mysterious Woodster...
It always was to me too, especially in youth when I thought of myself as a believer. Never felt a stirring of religious emotion or flash of insight. Disliked on the whole the iconography of Catholicism. Worried about all that for years. Priests were useless - what they said was either hopelessly ignorant and vulgar or above my head in some way.
Only after years of rather bullying declared atheism and a few brushes with powerful psychedelics did the penny drop and the religious or mystical mind become more or less comprehensible. Some of us just are curmudgeonly sceptics from birth.
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>>Completely mystified as to why anybody gives any religion any credence whatsoever.
And that is why religious education is important.
If one wishes to understand both religion itself and the part it has played in the development and acitvities of civilisations and societies over the years, then you need to understand. You need to understand why it is important to those it is important to.
You do not need to believe or agree, although you may do both, but you should understand.
My children are taught about all major religions, although Christianity in general is the stronger part in the UK whereas the Catholic Church specifically features the most when they're here.
But they are taught about all major religions and in particular how that fits into the events of the past.
None of the above is part of or relevant to your own personal beliefs. Or at least it shouldn't be.
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Read the Bible as a book of personal philosophy and you can't go far wrong. I sit on the fence faith-wise though.
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Unless you're homosexual, a woman, a Philistine, a masturbator, etc etc.
Funnily enough the traits of 'goodness' that we put down as 'Judeo-Christian' are nothing of the sort. They existed before Christianity, they exist in groups who have never heard of Christianity, they fail to exist in some Christian people....
It's called Humanity.
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Yes, Lygonos. It stands to reason that religion doesn't hold the higher moral ground - most humans know how to treat each other without being told by a book, written by someone else. We hand down to our children what's right and wrong. Perhaps the bible describes much the same but 'twas only written by a human, I'm sure.
NoFM2R: I see understanding religion as one thing, and the part religion has played, as separate things. I begrudgingly accept that my children are taught Christianity, but I'd rather they understood it's real history and motives, rather than being taught that it's 'right'.
But I like your point, and I take note!
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I can still remember the School Prayer:
We give thee humble and hearty thanks oh most merciful father, for our founders, masters, and all other benefactors. Through whose bounteous care we have derived thy blessings of religious education and most useful learning.
And we beseech thee to give us thy grace, that we may use all these thy blessings to the glory of thy name, and at last become members of thy church and commonwealth and partakers of thy immortal glory .
Through the glory of eternal life and thy son Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen.
I never really understood it, just gabbled it. The reference to the Commonwealth was a puzzle. The role of Britain sans Empire was a big debate then, so I assumed it had something to do with losing India.
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>> It's called Humanity.
As so often Lygonos you make a sound point about human decency. Not identical perhaps, but only a whisker away from 'enlightened self-interest'. A baboon wouldn't even acknowledge the distinction.
I attended a requiem mass today in a nearby Catholic cathedral. Horrible to be up and about at only 11am wearing unfamiliar clothes, but the deceased (a lady of 96, an elder of my wife's family) deserves a bit of respect.
Not a word of Latin to be heard, and a married deacon officiating. I didn't even know the Catholics had deacons. You live and learn.
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"you make a sound point about human decency."
But does such as human decency thing exist? Since there are a significant number of people who don't exhibit such a trait in one or more areas of their life it is hard surely to argue that such a thing exists and is certainly not universal. There are plenty of people out there who would kill you for the content of your wallet if they could get away it. A swift glance at Nazi Germany surely remove any belief in fundamental human decency
And that surely is the difference between "human decency" and enlightened self interest. We are social creatures and breaking the rules of our society turns us into outcasts from that society. We have an inbuilt instinct to require us to be part of a society as it brings us many benefits and we are prepared to accept sanctions to remain in that society.
If there are no sanctions the idea of decency can go out of the window.
That is why' human decency' so often breaks down when people are dealing with others outside their own society.
Relying just on "human goodness" doesn't work. That is why societies need codes of behaviour and laws
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So we might as well be baboons CGN? Almost but not quite. Decency isn't as rare as you imply and sociopathic savagery not as widespread. Of course there are backward traditional societies in out-of-the-way places, and in a few places not so out of the way, which have traditions a western liberal finds nauseating. But my experience of travelling alone in one or two of those places, among people who might practise female circumcision for example, or who are armed to the teeth not for ornament, has been very reassuring: in cultural difference, even quite radical, the human essence distils out.
I did say the difference was only a whisker.
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"Decency isn't as rare as you imply and sociopathic savagery not as widespread. Of course there are backward traditional societies in out-of-the-way places, and in a few places not so out of the way, which have traditions a western liberal finds nauseating"
Yes but they are still societies with codes of behaviour and laws. Sociopathic savagery as you put is no more in their interest than it is in our society. What you have to look at is the human reaction to peoples who they do not consider to be part of society that is where "Human decency" disappears. If it were innate slavery would never have been possible, genocide would be unimaginable and we should simply be unable to bear the pictures of starving children on our TV screens. Sad as it may be most of our behaviour is largely cultural.
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I think I'm with GKN on this one. It's sad, I don't want to go along with that rather bleak view, but I feel that he is probably right.
Of course another unfaceable conclusion, after having conceeded that even primitive societies have their cultural rules and social cohesion, is that the same might have applied to the nazis. They might seem utterly barbaric to us, but if you were a visitor from Mars you might find nazi Germany agreeably civilised if you had previously escaped from Borneo head hunters or facing lions in a Roman amphitheatre.
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>> What you have to look at is the human reaction to peoples who they do not consider to be part of society that is where "Human decency" disappears.
No, it's where it appears. Perhaps not always, but often enough to be reassuring.
>> Sad as it may be most of our behaviour is largely cultural.
Goes without saying. What's sad about it?
'Slavery' historically has taken many forms, many of which seemed absolutely normal at the time and some of which were vastly more comfortable than wage slavery under evolved capitalism. The European triangular trade with Africa and the Caribbean, which was very barbaric, tends to inflame people's view of a very ancient human practice.
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"Sad as it may be most of our behaviour is largely cultural.
Goes without saying. What's sad about it? "
Well if "human decency" was something that was innate and not a culturally learned behaviour which isn't too well learned by some and is often not applied to those we deem to be outside our society we might be a whole lot nicer species.
Almost certainly not as interesting but a whole lot nicer to live with.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 27 Nov 12 at 16:34
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>> if "human decency" was something that was innate and not a culturally learned behaviour
It isn't innate, no. But we are wired for it and take to it easily. It takes more discipline to be 'nasty' although that seems to come more naturally to some than to others.
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I doubt it's truly 'innate', but....
1. We are social animals by and large.
2. We are 'brought up' longer than pretty much any other animals, whether by parents or extended family - the results generally depend on the quality of the bringing-up.
To think that we are entirely self-absorbed autonomous organisms is just as flawed as presuming we have an 'innate goodness'.
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I've never seen myself as a animal but you always learn.I'm a loner always have been.Don't mind mixing if I have to but then go my own way.
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Christian Religious Education - Zero
