These ethics classes are only a little less of a joke than the scripture classes.

Christian brainwashing of the young must stop.

The legislation that prevents alternative studies is a perversion.

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@ ALGOREisRICH

NEITHER INFORMATION NOR INDICATION

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It is not the role of publcs schools to persuade students to believe in the supernatural, nor to provide information regarding any such hypothetical entity. That, of course, includes any gods, devils, angels, archangels, spirits, ghosts, elfs, fairies, saints, miracles and so forth.

Public schools are expected to dispense objective knowledge, not subjective knowledge.

They are not even competent to indicate where any such information may be sought, let alone obtained.

There are as many sources in the world as there are beliefs. That is to say, many thousands, if not, tens of thousands. All different and none unbiased.

In the absence of any unbiased source of information on such matters, it is a question for the families to decide, not the public schools.

Some private schools, of course, clearly indicate their bias and many families are happy to have their children educated in those schools. They are perfectly free to do so.

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Compare the posts by AJ Phillips and Richie 10.

Truly revealing what R10 writes after AJ, either R10 is so completely religiously lobotomised that he cannot even consider a different perspective on the Christian god. Or. He lacks the intellectual acuity. Either, everything R10 wrote was completely deconstructed by AJ PRIOR to R10 posting.

Either AJ is omnipotent or R10 is an frightening example of childhood brainwashing - one RE class too many methinks.

All the more reason to rid secular schools of any form of religious instruction (comparative religious study is acceptable and necessary) and implement Critical Thinking as a matter of urgency to save the minds of our children.

May the mindless, unreasoning faith of Richie 10 serve as a warning to all.

A very long bow indeed, Boaz.

>>hmmm..and denial of access to information about faith is not, by default, secular 'proselytizing'<<

No-one has suggested that "access to information about faith" should be denied.

Only that dedicating part of the curriculum to proselytising "faith" - or, religion, as the rest of us call it - is anachronistic, and completely alien to the purpose of educating our children.

If the proposal were to replace RI based on Christianity with (exclusively) that of another religion, you may have cause for concern. After all, that would simply be replacing one misleading exercise with another, but without the vague "justification" that it is part of our history.

But to replace it with nothing cannot possibly be described as "secular proselytising". If you doubt this, try checking the dictionary.

The study of religions in general has a place, as a topic within a wider study. But could not possibly warrant being a stand-alone subject.

Incidentally, I shouldn't fret too much about Ireland's blasphemy laws, if I were you.

>>IRELAND The government there tried to implement with the force of law.. "Blashpemy" to be extended to cover all religions (code for "Islam") which is a direct outcome of the call from the OIC in the UN for nations to ratify and enforce their quaint "Defamation of Religions" resolution.. which would see myself and proxy and others sent off to prison quick smart.<<

Ignoring for a moment your obligatory whack-a-mozzie, knee-jerk snide reference to the United Nations, you have nothing to worry about...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/02/AR2010010201846.html

We atheists will sort it out for you.

Thanks for the link Pericles.

>>> Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.” <<<

It seems reasonable to have students learn about ethics in school. It would make teaching them professional ethics at university much easier. Professions require universities to teach ethics as part of accredited courses. I teach ethics to students of computing and web design at the Australian National University: <http://www.tomw.net.au/2009/wd/social.shtml>.