"First, children’s ethnicity is determined by their parents’ genes. End of question."
Only if you narrowly define ethnicity solely in terms of race.
Ethnicity is more accurately defined in terms of race, religion, language and other cultural traits.
Of all these aspects of ethnicity, only race is genetically determined.
You can't even get that right and you want to determine what should be taught to other people's children?

"The belief to be imposed should be verifiable."
I thought relativism had consigned verities to the waste basket of history?
Except the ones you would want to impose, presumably.

"The belief to be imposed should have no capacity to harm the child."
Here's one:.
Religious belief - Homosexuality is abnormal and unnatural.
21st century secular liberal belief - Homosexuality is normal and natural.
Fact: Homosexual males have 40+ times the HIV/AIDS prevalence than do heterosexual males.
By effectively encouraging homosexual experimentation, the 21st century secular liberal belief has the statistically demonstrable capacity to harm the child.

"There are people in the world who place great faith in their religious beliefs."
Would you ban tautological repetition?
I'd give my backing to supporting that.

"There are areas in which parents have neither the responsibility nor the right to make decisions for their children."
Yes, these decisions should be made by state bureaucrats.
Seig heil!

"To instruct someone in some particular teaching or doctrine" this is the Macquaire dictionary definition. To me this covers all teaching at a primary and high school level where challenge of what is taught is discouraged. How some have come up with these definitions of what is and isn't ok to teach your children is amazing. Have and do you still challenge your own belief system. It is not important in the end what you think just don't force it on your children. They will learn more from how you behave and treat other people especially those different from yourself than they will from what you tell them. If you demonstrate a patient, kind and caring attitude toward others then there is a good chance so will your child. Don't tell them to be good just be good. So come on, stop fighting about what you believe and live and let live. We only need concern ourselves with those who wish to hurt others not those who are different. OH and for the record, i would like to see all recorders burned. But that would be a personal opinion and not one to push on to others.

Runner
I can’t be sure whether you mean to be taken seriously but in case you do, I have to confess to never having watched Underbelly and to never having laid eye or ear on Lady Gaga. And worse, not only my children, but my grandchildren do not seem to have turned out as you predicted. If the grandchildren continue as they are going, they will continue the performance of their mothers who, between them, did not manage even once to make their mother or me think “difficult teenager”. They are all incredibly splendid, pride instilling people, except possibly for the five year old whose violin is still a bit excruciating. But she dances beautifully, reads heaps and writes reams. And I take some encouragement from that. Sorry to have to disappoint you.
As a skeptic, I don’t dismiss claims outright as rubbish but I do sometimes ask for the supporting evidence. Please explain how state schools could have made me happy for my children to get their value systems from popular culture, especially as I never attended one. Where is the evidence that supports your claim that “most parents love their kids enough to see the stupidity of his dogma”; and please also explain what “dogma” means for I cannot work it out from context. Please also note that while some people claim to be adept at miracles, I have to remain a Glen from start to finish. I assume that Greg and I are one and the same because you have fixed us both up with a “dogma”. OK, that’s only a correlation, and doesn’t prove that everyone with a dogma is a Glen/Greg. Or would you say that it does? But back to evidence. Where, please, can I study the evidence for your claim that “most people think that Glen/Greg's dogma is simply crap”? And may I ask if “crap” has always been your noun of preference or if you are merely expressing solidarity with the latest alternative prime minister?

GlenC, you need to revisit the books--more likely consult them for the first time!
"children’s ethnicity is determined by their parents’ genes. End of question".
Would you like to site some evidence, cobber? That's the last place they get their ethnicity!
"Second, if parents have an opportunity to determine their children’s nationality, they should. Everyone needs a nationality and children are unlikely to be able to appraise any options available to them. Here, parents have a responsibility, not just a right".
Well this is just is just pig fu#%&ing ignorance! Nationalitly has got far less substance to it than religion!
I can't believe I responded to your article the least bit thoughtfully, you ignorant oaf!
Go and heill Hitler somewhere else!

Crasby, keep teaching the recorder.

Nairbe
You got me. I should have said “race” as you realized. I wonder why did not respond to what you knew I meant rather than what I said?

Look, I’m just a simpleton who can’t get his head around relativism. By truths, I mean things like: It’s true that every time I’ve dropped an egg on a tile floor, it broke. I reckon the next one I drop will too. I’m even prepared to wager a dollar that it will break absolutely. Wanna bet? Relatively speaking?

If the incidence of homosexuality in humans (and in other species as well) is over ten percent as I’ve heard, it is hardly abnormal or unnatural. You (and I) might think it’s unattractive but it would not be available to you or me to curl our lips and spout “abnormal and unnatural”. Unless, of course, we were prepared to say the same thing about left-handers or redheads. I didn’t know that responsible secular bodies encouraged homosexual experimentation. Please tell us their names.

Sorry, but this late in the day I’m not alert enough to understand your comment about “tautological repetition”, which itself seems a bit tautological to me. You wouldn’t be saying that “faith” and “religious belief” are the same thing, would you? That’s actually the problem with a lot of religious belief — it rests on faith rather than evidence. That’s why (in spite of your claims on behalf of relativism) fundamentalists, especially religious fundamentalists, are the only ones who seriously claim to have certain knowledge. Nothing can be allowed to question their faith. Scientists never claim to be certain of anything. They don’t even say that a dropped egg must break; they only say that, based on evidence, there is a very high probability that it will.

As to your final comment, here’s a hint. Proving that an animal isn’t a dog doesn’t prove that it’s a cat. Did you mean to go all Nazi at the end?

Thanks Glen.

I have used some recorder arrangements of rock tunes in the repertoire for my students. But Mayhill Edition is a new source to me, so I’ll look at it with gratitude. Since I teach in country communities the outdoor dunny sounds like a promising option for home practice. If I were to get kids to have regular jams with half a dozen mates in the dunny I wonder what effect it would have on my relationships with parents!:)

Glen, Proxy, Nairbe and others:

If Glen agrees with Proxy that race is genetically determined, you are both wrong. Race does not exist.

<…if parents have an opportunity to determine their children’s nationality, they should.>
If “nationality” here means more than the simple legal classification required for passports etc., I cannot agree.

For an expanded argument on both of the above points, see my article from some years ago on this site: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4108

So now to religion. This is much more complex. I do agree that no religious practice or belief should harm a child – or an adult or the ecosystem, for that matter. Yet even attempting to apply that principle in some individual cases of such alleged harm could give rise to extensive and complex argument.

To say that every religious belief should be “supported by replicable, verifiable evidence” implies that the scientific approach is appropriate in theological matters. This is erroneous. Understanding religious or spiritual experience for the most part must be achieved by non-empirical paths. That’s why theology is more like literary analysis (or perhaps musical criticism Glen?) than like science.

In my experience, to know the reality of God requires some religious practice, largely consisting of participation in liturgies regularly. Hence my example of the student being required to practise music regularly in order to gain an awareness and understanding of it. If a parent insists on taking her child to church regularly to give the child some experience upon which to later base a judgement of the beliefs, I think this is justifiable.

Squeers, don’t worry: the recorder will not die!