Gadzooks! The perfect solution if you can't get spineless politicians to permit "opt in". Good luck, we need this in Queensland.

Our public schools are there to educate our children. For those who want their child indoctrinated with religious rubbish they can do so outside school hours. For a quota of religion just get up early on a Sunday morning and trot off down to your nearest indoctrination centre, and the local zealot will be none to happy to brainwash your child. The zealot will fill their head with all the religious clap-trap their little brain can take. Given enough religious indoctrination by the time they reach adulthood they will hate their self so much, life wont be worth living.

Special religious education, i.e. preaching, has no place in our public schools, funded by taxes in our multicultural society, which should be secular.
"Secular" does not mean banning religion: a secular society protects freedom of speech, which is to the advantage of religious organisations and all others which have a point of view to present. It also means that the state should not favour one religion over another, or religionists over people with no religion.

I do not believe in religion but I respect those who do. I would like to know how many readers of this site remember the religion classes they attended while at school. I attended both state and catholic schools. My memories of these classes are that they were a waste of time. The catholic scripture classes consisted of going through the catechism, generally in a boring manner. Other sects appear to be made up of bible stories. Most parents could do this themselves at home in a more worthwhile manner. When I was young, most children except for the Catholics attended Sunday school each week. Does this occur now? Is there anyone that can claim that what they learnt in these classes were important to what they know about their religion. Maybe the Bishops should get off there butts and encourage these children back to their churches were they teach them their selves. How many of the children who attend scripture at school accompany the parents to church on the weekends. How many of the parents go to church. How many parents check what their children are being taught in scripture?

"In a recent development, the NSW Coalition has announced that when it wins next year’s election, it will repeal the government’s reform and reinstate the churches’ preferred position, thus confirming the fear of many NSW voters that it has become a captive of the Liberal Party’s fundamentalist religious right."

If this is the case, it is time to openly fight against the NSW Coalition for it is trying to create a stupid next generation. In this day and age when people with common sense understand the reality of evolution, NSW is going the opposite direction.

Down with NSW Coalition.

Thanks for a timely and well written article, Glen.

Of your three options, I lean towards the third - that SRE be abolished and that all children receive broad-ranging GRE. Ideally though, I'd like to see it taken a step further.

My preference would be for a nationally based and wide-ranging ethics course - with a comparative study of different religions being just one component, rather than comprising the entire course. Such a course would also include the study of other belief systems such as those based on animist or earth-based values for example. Atheism or non-belief would also be explored as a perfectly valid and rational option.

Such a course would allow children to place religious indoctrination into its true perspective. They would learn that we can live a good and decent life without having to resort to belief in a faith-based religion.

The risk for me of having GRE as a national curriculum subject is that it would still confer far too much credibility onto religion. It risks leaving children feeling that the only choice to be made is that of 'Which religion?'. We neeed them to know they have a clear choice in the first place as to whether or not to include religious belief in their lives.

Bronwyn,
The ethics classes in NSW are aimed at developing in each child the capacity to think clearly for themselves on all ethical issues. Fully developed, discussion of open ended questions will lead to improvements in cognitive ability (similar to IQ) and in classroom behaviour. Every learning hour becomes more effective.

In his book "Letters to a Young Contrarian" Christopher Hitchens stated, "The whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the whole concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out ethical principles for ourselves".

Religious leaders do not want young people working out ethical principles for themselves.

Anyone who wishes to know the potential benefits from the types of discussion mentioned should read the report at the following OLO site address.
http://onlineopinion.com.au/documents/articles/Clackmannan.doc

Bravo, great article.
Religion absolutely relies on child indoctrination and general ignorance of truth. Expect a fight.
Turning kids against parents is not the worst of it. They also turn kids against fellow humans who don't follow XXXism, or ones who (shock-horror) use rationality and humility instead of faith and dogma. The anti-science movement driven by religion is particularly dangerous.
I am often amazed how religions are allowed to tell bare-faced lies to kids and get away with it. I guess given the muted reaction to the worldwide child abuse revelations it appears that we protect our tribal leaders no matter how badly behaved they are. I guess that's why they need the indoctrination...it appears to offer life-long protection from rational criticism!

the best part about banning chaplains and sre would be that the totally flawed secular system will further decline as people observe the rotten fruit of the system. They will then blame lack of funding for many secular parents sending kids to Christian based schools. You have to find some excuse. The secular schools can then sprout their climate astrology, evolution myths and moral relativism without challenge to their dogmas. This is what they call open minded learning. Just keep the truth away and let every other philosophy have its voice except those 'evil' Christians. Just be careful the kids are not infected by the salvos or street workers. Quite hilarious really.

Problem 1.

//When I was a young public school teacher, still in thrall to my Catholic education, I overheard a visiting clergyman inciting his Scripture class to hatred by telling them lurid lies about the behaviour of popes......
Much later I learned that his accounts, while lurid, might not have been lies at all.//

To which I must say *BINGO*.... no..they were not lies, some Popes were more scandalous and evil than can be imagined. "Pornocracy" is a term given meaning by one Pope.

BUT.... there is no excuse for just slamming another religion in RE classes, THIS is the place for that :)

RE is controlled. The system does not permit blatant proselytising, nor 'alter calls'... but is information based.

No doubt, some adventurous 'RE' teachers will give the leash a tug and try to get away with more than they are allowed... gee..shock horror.. secular teachers do that every day....

But to rid schools of well controlled RE would be sad if nothing else.
Children are not forced into such classes.. so why worry?

That they are taught about Jesus Christ...you know..that personality from who's life, death and resurrection we DATE OUR VERY HISTORY! just a minor thing.

We open our Parliament with the Lords Prayer. We have a strong Christian heritage..and it is fitting and proper for children of this country to be informed about where this came from.

A great article, Glen. I'm for purging religion in schools--no more than the armature of the state, ethics being the paunch---and replacing it with ethics. Enough of this pandering to the pseudo-established snake of the state. Our society is over-burdened with religion and destitute of ethics. Of course the state has good reason to support religion over ethics as the latter is too close to politics for comfort. It's not easy being an ethical atheist in an unethical Christian state. It's about time we washed our hands of dogma and embraced the ancient Greek tradition of "paidea".

Excellent, well argued post, Glen. I agree completely. What our children receive at the moment is religious instruction - not religious education. As Hugh Wilson from the Australian Secular Lobby has said, "If you don't understand the difference between religious instruction and religious education, consider how you'd feel if your child came home from school and said she'd learned a lot in her sex instruction class."

Well said Glen. You could also have mentioned that the Judeo/Christian tradition has it that something called 'sin' entered the world (presumably meaning the human psyche) via the intervention of a talking snake.
If there is any hope for humanity to survive, that hope is via the development of a rationally based naturalistic ethic rather than via a load of baseless and logically inconsistent prescriptive rubbish. Whilst readily acknowledging the part played by religious belief in art, literature,and even early scientific discovery, the time has now come for the development of a workable and universal ethic - an ethic independent of the fairy tales and demonstrably false preudo- scientific nonsense as espoused by the Judeo/Christian apologists who rightly see their hard won privileges and authority on the wane.

""But to rid schools of well controlled RE would be sad if nothing else.
Children are not forced into such classes.. so why worry?

"That they are taught about Jesus Christ...you know..that personality from who's life, death and resurrection we DATE OUR VERY HISTORY! just a minor thing.

"We open our Parliament with the Lords Prayer. We have a strong Christian heritage..and it is fitting and proper for children of this country to be informed about where this came from.""
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 3:51:44 PM

well-controlled RE classes are few and far between, ALGOREisRICH

Children have been frequently forced into them especially by religious Principals not providing supervision for those opting out of SRE

Appeals to tradition do not justify forcing the tradition on everyone in the future. The proposition there was a life and resurrection is still debatable.

I'll just add my hurrah for this excellent article.

Nothing much more needs to be said here,
but I'd like to see the near consensus of this
forum reflected in policy and practice sometime
soon.

Teach kids about religion/s by all means,
but keep the evangelists, missionaries,
proselytisers and other charlatans away from
them.

For Gawd's sake.

Let the holy rollers brainwash their own unfortunate
kids, but I really object to them being allowed
into my kids' schools for the express purpose of
recruiting them to their cults.

Dear ALGOREisRICH
“Children are not forced into such classes.. so why worry?”
But they are. The forces are often subtle rather than direct, covert rather than overt, but they operate in many schools. Frequently, declining to take Scripture attracts a form of ostracizing from other students who, doubtless, are coached by their religious parents in how to put those non-believers in their place. I have relatives who are atheists but who regretfully sentence their children to Scripture in order to protect them from the institutional and peer religious bullying they believe is the fate of most children who eschew it. No doubt, the likelihood of such treatment varies greatly across schools.

“That they are taught about Jesus Christ...you know..that personality from who's life, death and resurrection we DATE OUR VERY HISTORY! just a minor thing.”
You are right. In the big scheme of things, it is a very minor thing. It’s also probably not true. Contemporary scholarship favours the view that Jesus, if he existed (and it is thought he probably did) was born sometime in 5-3 BC; or BCE, if you want to be politically correct, the prevailing view now being that crediting the birth of Jesus with having determined the position of the zero on the scale of years is both too dubious to accept, and too insulting to non-Christians to be tolerated. BTW, it’s ‘whose’, not ‘who’s’.

“We open our Parliament with the Lords Prayer. We have a strong Christian heritage..and it is fitting and proper for children of this country to be informed about where this came from.”
I agree. It is proper and fitting for children of this country to know about the things that Christians believe and the customs which the former majority acceptance of those beliefs gave rise to. That’s all part of the education about religion that I was calling for. But Special Religious ‘Education’ does more than inform children about Christian beliefs; it requires subservience to them. And it teaches children nothing about the many alternative belief systems that Bronwyn reminded us of. Thank you Bronwyn.

Glen Coulton's article is excellent and timely. At last a breath of fresh air is wafting though the NSW public education system, with the government undertaking to continue the ethics classes. Many parents, disillusioned with church teachings and examples (such as paedophile priests), seek to have their kids discuss ethical issues in a non-religious context. The kids are invited to put forward their views on lying, graffiti, etc with their classmates free to either agree or disagree. No one is telling the kids what to believe. Simply by discussing these issues in the best Socratic manner, the kids arrive at their own views, with no one telling them they are either "right" or "wrong". If other parents want their kids to be indoctrinated by visiting clergy or well-meaning lay-teacher "believers", then they should send their kids to the SRE classes. Indeed, if they want their kids to have a religious education, then send them to one of the many so-called Christian schools (all subsidised by the Australian taxpayer incidentally). The public education system should be secular. There should be a complete separation of church and state. In our present, hopefully enlightened, educated society, many people are weary of "the church" telling them what to do and how to behave. Most religions are out of touch with present-day thinking on issues such as voluntary euthanasia, abortion, homosexuality and same-sex marriage. As a result, many people in today's Australian society are either indifferent to religion, or understandably hostile to its out-of-touch teachings and archaic practices.

@Bronwyn The extent of our 'Christian heritage' has been massively overstated. Anti-clericalism was rife amongst the lower classes of 18th century Britain, and those who came here on the transport ships were generally not, in any real sense, Christians. When Bibles were distributed on the ships, the men tore them up to make playing cards, and the women convicts used the pages to curl their hair.

According to historian, Manning Clark, our first Governor, Arthur Philip 'worshipped at the shrine of cool reason' as did most of his fellow officers.

The First Fleet chaplain, Richard Johnson, was denied permission to say a blessing at the Foundation ceremonies on 26 January 1788. He pleaded for six years with successive governors for a church to be built and finally gave up and built one at his own expense. When convicts were forced to attend, they burned it down.

The nationalist movement of the late 19th century was decisively anti-clerical also. The Bulletin magazine was scathing about the clergy and one of our finest poets, Henry Lawson, was an atheist.

The Fathers of Federation fought a long and hard battle against the churches in providing a secular constitution for our nation. The eight word invocation to 'Almighty God' was only added reluctantly.

The ANZACS were not much interested in religion either. Chaplains were called 'Cooks tourists' and the ANZACs delighted in parodying hymns. After WWI many people turned away from traditional religions to spiritualism.

A recent investigation into the religiosity of our 27 Prime Ministers by respected political historian, John Warhurst, shows that less than half of them were in any way serious about religion - nine were only nominal Christians and six were atheists or agnostics.

Some of our greatest prime ministers are among the atheists/agnostics, including Billy Hughes, John Curtin, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke.

So while Christians have, undoubtedly, made contributions towards our nation, the irreligious and non-religious have made an equal, if not superior, contribution. To talk about Australia's 'Christian heritage' is quite misleading from an historical point of view.

""Contemporary scholarship favours the view that Jesus, if he existed (and it is thought he probably did) was born sometime in 5-3 BC; ""
Posted by GlenC, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 8:21:36 PM

Jesus was a common name at the time, and self-appointed messiahs were too. It is likely there has been a condensation of more than one character into the one that was eventually portrayed in the Bible.

There is virtually no evidence for Jesus of the Bible outside the Bible narrative -

Virtually all references in contemporary historians (Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Tacticus, Suetonius) were

(i) to "Chrestus", "Christus", "Christos" (or other such names meaning at the time 'anointed one', or 'useful' as was often applied to servants or slaves)*, or

(ii) to his followers - often called "Christianos" (Tacticus).

A lot of Josephus's references to Christ are considered later additions, and Origen later wrote Josephus did not believe Jesus was *the* Christ.

Considering Jesus is supposed to have lived amongst 500 people for 40 days after his resurrection, it is very surprising nothing of that was recorded by the contemporary historians then or in ensuing decades.

----

* There have been difficulties with translation and transcription -

xpnotoc/s (Latin transliteration chrestus) means useful.

xpiotoc/s (christus) means anointed.

I bet you didn't learn that in SRE classes, McReal.

Did you know there is a group of Catholics in South America who believe Christ ate a meal of guinea pig at the last supper. This belief is based on a study of Leonardo De Vinci's famous painting 'The Last Supper' where it can clearly be seen guinea pig on the table. It may just be a coincidence that these devout catholics favourite dish is, you guessed it, guinea pig. Personally I believe Christ and the disciples sent out for pizza and a couple of slabs of VB for a last piss up! My favourite dish, you guessed it, pizza and beer! I'm sure there is worse rubbish taught in RE classes than this sort of clap trap!

Quote: In no other subject in the curriculum would teachers be allowed to exhort students to believe such baseless “truths”.

Surely you jest. Teachers trot out baseless "truths" portrayed as fact all the time, about the environment, history, nuclear bombs and power, wind power, David Hicks or whatever takes their fancy.

Sometimes the indoctrination is covert, sometimes blatant.

The latest pet of many teachers is their ill-considered and ill-researched opinions on Global warming, presented to so many students as fact, with narely a mention of authorative opinions such as that of Emeritus Professor Philip Stott of the University of London, who is on the Academic Advisory Council of The Global Warming Policy Foundation who wrote:

"Global warming is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and cost-raising farce that ever infected the world."

Nice use of Tu quoque, LB Loveday.

What has Global warming got to do with this post. Maybe the answer lies in the parents hands by removing their children from scripture. I am sure most parents do not give the matter any thought, it is something that just happens.

Dear Flo,

As McReal said, it's a tu quoque argument. Also, many have called GW "The New Religion", and certainly many adherents are as zealous as any Christian I've encountered, and with even less valid reason.

Or do you think that it's ok to present contentious opinions as fact, as long as you hold the same opinion, just not in RE?

Dear LB Loveday
You wrote, “Surely you jest. Teachers trot out baseless "truths" portrayed as fact all the time.” I doubt that very much because teachers — public school teachers anyway — are constrained by approved syllabuses. Syllabuses may endorse only those truths for which there is convincing evidence on the basis of the best contemporary knowledge. If teachers “teach” truths in conflict with their syllabus, they ought not and, for the most part I’m sure, do not. But my point was not so much about what teachers do as what syllabuses prescribe. Except in Special Religious Education, syllabuses do not allow highly dubious beliefs to be taught as facts. SRI is the only subject in which it is “proper” for teachers — usually unqualified volunteers from the local parish — to tell the children what they like. The only assurance they need before they proselytise is faith in the rightness of what they think. That is the situation that I suggest is unacceptable in any school, but particularly in a secular public school. And Flo is right: you’ve climbed into the wrong boxing ring.
Glen Coulton

Why not show the movie 'The Life of Brian' in RE class then the kiddies can get all the facts about Christianity they will ever need to know. "Blessed are the cheese makers.." Forget Mathew, Mark, Luke and John just read the Gospel According to Cyril.

'You wrote, “Surely you jest. Teachers trot out baseless "truths" portrayed as fact all the time.”'

I clearly remember my Geography/Science teacher warning of the coming ice age and the 'fact' that their would be no oil by 2000. Keep dreaming GlenC

L.B.Loveday, Thursday, 16 December 2010 9:57:44 AM
runner, Thursday, 16 December 2010 10:41:26 AM

It is fallacy to argue for or against a proposition on the basis of proposing another proposition in another subject/argument might be wrong, or someone said something somewhere that suggests inconsistency somewhere else - the tu quoque fallacy.

runner, so what? Climate science was much more speculative back then, and is only in its infancy now. In the 1970s everyone thought oil would have run by now.

Quote: I clearly remember my Geography/Science teacher warning of the coming ice age and the 'fact' that their would be no oil by 2000

My wife's Year 11 (Adult Entry) English Teacher rejected her essay on the usage of nuclear bombs with the words "that's not what I wanted".

The wife wrote accurately that she would have been unlikely to have been in the class had not the bomb been used in WW2 as her father was a POW and would have been unlikey to have lived much longer if not for the timely end to the Pacific WW2 occasioned by the bombings and hence she'd have not been conceived.

Apart from that, she should be marked on English grammar, spelling, sentence and paragraph construction, logic to a certain extent; certainly she should not have to agree with the teacher's stated opinion that it was unconditionally wrong for her father's life to have been saved in such a manner.

Quote: Syllabuses may endorse only those truths for which there is convincing evidence on the basis of the best contemporary knowledge.

I suggest you read Gillard's proposed 2011 (or 2013, or) curricula. Or talk to my daughter.

Year 11 2011 daughter that is.

"@Bronwyn The extent of our 'Christian heritage' has been massively overstated ..."

Your post made for delightfully reassurring reading, but I'm afraid you've linked it to the wrong person. :)

Just for the record, you won't find me defending our so-called 'Christian heritage'.

Oops - sorry Bronwyn. Posting too late at night!

Mc(un)Real..... mate....you say:

"There is virtually no evidence for Jesus of the Bible outside the Bible narrative"

Hmmm.. I guess the Church just APPEARED out of nowhere :)

Kris Angel can do that..I saw it today.. amazing...but methinks a body as big and widespread as the Church diaspora with so many langauges and cultures... was a tad more than just morons following some self opinionated 'messiah' figure.

Loveday and Runner
I proposed that we should have a comprehensive course about religion with content controlled by an approved published syllabus rather than disjointed sets of lessons in the faith-based dogma of certain religious denominations whose content is unconstrained and a mystery to both the school authorities and the parents. You argue that there shouldn’t be such a course because two teachers once said something biased in subjects having nothing to do with religion. Pardon? If your observations imply anything at all, it would be that there should be no syllabus in any subject because some teacher might misrepresent it to students.
Loveday, you assume that the teacher who wrote “that's not what I wanted” was rejecting your wife’s belief that “nuclear” bombs do good. You cannot conclude that this is what “that’s” meant. Maybe the teacher was noting that your wife had written in a genre different from that required: maybe she argued only for the pros when the assignment called for a comparison of the pros and cons; maybe the assignment was only about contemporary nuclear bombs which are 3000 times more powerful than the one your wife approved of.
But even if you are right, so what? Do you seriously argue that we should not have a syllabus in English because a teacher might intrude a personal bias? Do you seriously argue that we should not have a syllabus in religion because of one English teacher’s bias in English on one occasion?
Runner, I will dream on. I dream that soon we will free little children from the mental and emotional abuse of having strange adults tell them that they must believe dubious religious propositions or go to hell; that they will be taught about all the different and conflicting god-stories that some adults believe; that they will be told honestly about all the good and bad things that religions have been responsible for; and that they will grow up knowing it is up to them to pick their own god-story or reject the lot. Will you share that dream with me?
Glen Coulton

Glenc,
there's one problem with your enlightenment project.
However spurious, religion offers hope, of forgiveness, salvation, God's love, Christian ethics (even if they are only observed in the breech) and eternal life. What does your programme proffer? Once kids and generations accept their lowly place in the scheme of things, what then?
Since we then have to invent our own purpose, what is it?
What purpose do you propose? On what do we base our ethics? What do we tell kids is the goal in life?
Surely a "good life"? But there's some stiff competition out there in terms of hedonism.
Rationalism is just as much a doctrine as religion, you know?
This problem goes back to Coleridge and co., who saw the poverty of positivism and wanted to replace religion with humanism and inspirational literature, a religious compromise: pantheism.
It's all very well dumping religion, but what do we replace it with?

ALGOREisRICH, 6:36:16 PM

Of course the Church was - and is - a tad more than morons following some messiah figure (I doubt the Jesus story is based on a single self-appointed one).

Many emerging religions or cults of the time competed in the religious vervor of the time - such as Mythracism, Zoroastrianism, Docetism(1), Montanism, Arianism, Marcionism, etc.. Many shared stories or versions of stories with early Christianity as we know it or as it is now portrayed. Many share key figures, such as Tertullianus who promoted the concept of Trinity developed in the late 2nd century!, before moving to Montanism.

Early preachers were often at each other's throats, jostling with each for the religiously "correct" high-ground.

Pauls epistles are mystical and gnostic-like, and ironically written before the key stories of Jesus - the synoptic gospels - had appeared. Yet, Paul wrotes ideological epistles to followers in far-flung places mostly with quotes from the Old Testament (2).

Paul is zealously preaching the christian message...but actually says nothing about the message that this Jesus preached? Is this not remarkable? A message without the founder's message? Without a single saying?

We know christianity finally emerged as the primary belief system when supported and promoted by Constantine, Eusebius and the Nicene Council as the State religion for the Roman Empire.

Ironically, the Christianity that emerged was probalby the most heretical of the time yet, as the victor, called all the other sects heretical.

Another irony is there is no evidence for Paul outside the Bible, either.

(1) one of the earliest heresies the early church faced was Docetism, known before 100AD (probably what the writer of 1 John had in mind with "spirit of Antichrist" which denies that Jesus has come in the flesh). The Docetists believed his humanity was only apparent (dokein = to seem or to appear), therefore he not really suffered on the cross.

(2) The Jesus story emerged from earlier stories favoured because they fulfilled the prophecies of the old testament.

Mr McReal,
Zoroastrianism I do like the sounds of that one, can ya sign me's up for a crash course, does yah thinks I could be a High Priest or something by say next Monday, no need to rush, Mondays fine with me's. Is there any vestal virgins, cause I like the idea of vestal virgins, well just a couple for now. Please don't tell me mum, she say those kind a girls are no got for a sweet young boy like me, besides she says at 36 I'm still much to young for girls. .

L.B.Loveday

When the climate change followers start demanding their own scripture classes, there might be some sense in the argument. As for climate change, there are some that choose not to believe, that is their right. I keep an open mind but find when a big majority of the world scientist agree it exists to some extent; I am inclined to believe they may have something.

Squeers

Are you suggesting that we humans have a 'religion' hole that if not filled with a religion means we are somehow incomplete?

I have never been religious, nor were my parents - I have no sense of ennui or existential crisis that your claim of incompleteness without a religious substitute would suggest. My goals in life is to love and be loved (tick), try to live without harming others (mostly a tick) and enjoy this wonderful life for the short amount of time we humans have here, my only regrets are that dogs don't live as long as humans - they deserve to, I have never met a dog who has tried to impose his or her belief system on mine. In fact a big tick to all non-humans - you never bully or proselytise.

Johny Rotten,
I agree with all that 100% and I've never held a belief either.
Nevertheless, human culture's have (I think) to be predicated on something---actually, they could do a lot worse than the values you've laid down. But what they are predicated on is nothing so inspirational. They pay lip service to humanism but practice a form of humanist apartheid; moreover even their humanism is a form of speciesism and is generally destructive. Putting that aside, we still have the problem of what value to put on life besides living in the moment etc.
I'm saying we need a mission statement, a set of ethics to live by that values life above mere sensation.
The trouble with the modern, scientistic push to worship at the shrine of rational empiricism (which is based on its own metaphysics), is it's a form of scepticism for its own sake
So what ethics do we teach our kids and on what do we base them?

Squeers

I was taught "Live and let Live". Works in most situations except when someone is coming at you with a knife.

Whereas I wouldn't advise "treat others how you'd like to be treated yourself" to a sado-masochist - I think that golden rule has an inbuilt escape clause.

Cheers

I do not believe the question is whether we believe in religion or not. The question is should be “Is the present scripture classes worthwhile and is this the best way for the churches to spread their message among children?” I would be surprised if such an adhoc classes held for 30 minutes each week by people who experience and knowledge is unknown really teach the children much. I believe the responsibility to pass on this knowledge belongs with the parents and their church. I ask once again, how many readers on this site can recall their own experiences of the scripture classes they attended. How many of you investigate what your children are being taught at these classes?

GlenC

Runner, I will dream on. I dream that soon we will free little children from the mental and emotional abuse of having strange adults tell them that they must believe dubious religious propositions or go to hell; that they will be taught about all the different and conflicting god-stories that some adults believe; that they will be told honestly about all the good and bad things that religions have been responsible for; and that they will grow up knowing it is up to them to pick their own god-story or reject the lot. Will you share that dream with me?

GlenC I will dream on. I dream that soon we will free little children from the mental and emotional abuse of having strange adults tell them that they are a result of chance and as such really have little purpose. I dream that kids will be taught about the source of love and the consequences that we see daily at a much increased rate since His ways have been ignored. I dream where kids don't accept that they have to dress like whores at 12, don't have to take drugs, don't have to be brainwashed into 'just wear a condom' If you have not seen the increase in mental health directly due to the rejection of godly morality than you are naive and blind. Why do you think some very secular principals are begging to have chaplains. They know the secular system has been and is a total failure. The dream is fantasy because what you want achieved is impossible without God as shown in Russia, China and numerous other godless regimes.

Runner, I am not saying children should not be taught. I am saying that the school is a very poor place to do it. There are too many different religions and sects for this to be of any values. The responsibility is with the parents and church to fulfill this role.

""the mental and emotional abuse of [children] having strange adults tell them that they are a result of chance and as such really have little purpose.

"I dream that kids will be taught about the source of love ""

Posted by runner, Friday, 17 December 2010 10:19:14 AM

The vast majority of kids are the result of planning by loving parents, not chance, and are brought into loving extended families who see their purpose as raising the child to cope with the world outside the family.

To talk about chance the way you do is argument to the absurd
.................

""responsibility is with the parents and church to fulfill this role.""
Posted by Flo, Friday, 17 December 2010 10:26:58 AM

Some parents and some churches should not have that responsibility.

Flo you write
'Runner, I am not saying children should not be taught. I am saying that the school is a very poor place to do it. There are too many different religions and sects for this to be of any values. The responsibility is with the parents and church to fulfill this role.'

Fine well stop teaching kids the adult fairytale of the big bang, sex education without morals and bring back some proper discipline. It is akin to child abuse to allow secularist to impose their lack of morals on children 6 hours a day.

Runner are you saying that only the church is capable of teaching morals and discipline. They must be miracle workers if they achieve this in 30 minutes a week with not all children attending. You insult the great number of people who manage to live a moral and worthwhile lives without religion in their life.

Fine well stop teaching kids the adult fairytale of the big bang, sex education without morals and bring back some proper discipline.
Posted by runner, Friday, 17 December 2010 10:39:52 AM

I agree !! Really!

The Big Bang is just one hypothesis of many including the possibility the Universe is self-replicating.

Sex Education does require ethical and moral teaching of it, as well as morality around sexuality, including self-discipline, of course.

But this was unnecessary - ""It is akin to child abuse to allow secularist to impose their lack of morals on children 6 hours a day.""

After 11 years K to 4th form at catholic schools in the 1950's-60's. That in its self is an experience no child should miss. I remember at catholic school in 3rd class I learned from Sister Mary such facts as "all Protestants will burn in hell, including the Queen of England, so said the Holy Father, and our Holy Father in Rome is never wrong!" Naturally being the good catholic boy I was, as soon as I went to the state high school for 5th and 6th form, when it came to the once a week RE class I went straight to the Congregational, basing my desire for religious education on the fact the best looking chicks in the school were to be found in with the Old Fart in the Congregational class. I recall the Old Fart reading a passage from the Bible where some bloke gave thanks to God by offering a sacrifice of a lamb on the alter. Old Fart wanted to known what we thought, we all suggested we should take a grub from 1st form and sacrifice him in the playground. Old Fart was cold on the idea, anyway the bell went and I had to go to maths class.

I agree there need to be an end to "special religious education in schools" From what I have seen and heard in primary schools is that many of the volunteers that teach are being allowed to put their own interpretation of religion into it. The fact they are volunteers and do not have training in classroom management, let alone the RI teachers are more or less not answerable to anyone. Professionals do not want to be seen as disagreeing with someone who teaches/ instructs in religion.

Learning about religions and learning a particular religion are two different things.What is occurring in many schools is religions instruction and it is very close to religious indoctrination, in some cases it is the same thing.

There are many variations of the Christian faith and even some of the basics of their doctrine is varied. Maybe Special Religious Education in public schools the volunteer could offer before school, lunch time or after school instructions if the parents/ guardians agree to it.

Other than that during the alloted RI time maybe they could have cultural studies and cover different religions and learn about them this way.

Excellent article. If the ethics classes are banned by the new "extreme religious right Liberal party" government, all those justifiably offended will just have to go down to their local church and tell the congregation how offended they are and about what a fraud their religious cult beliefs really are. Hows a hundred protesters at St Mary's next Sunday sound?
If the religious cults want to push religion in our state schools on our kids. We will push ethics on the church congregations, only 9% of Australians are gullible enough to go to church, all denominations (ABS)census.
I am sure the churches will be horrified at the adverse publicity. Add that to the pedophile priest problem the churches are repeatedly refusing to do anything about and it should turn the last few remaining descent people completely away from the cults, except for the really decrepit immoral hard core religionist that don't mind child rape by it's clergy!
Lets face it, if you still belong to a religion that does nothing about child raping pedophiles, you have no ethics?

HFR, there are thousands of Australians who have and do attend Mass regularly, that have had nothing whatsoever to do with some Priests within the catholic church committing crimes of paedophilia.

By not attending masses, or commencing strikes, catholics within Australia would still be unable to place sufficient pressure on the Heirachy to hand over those guilty of paedophilia.

I had given this concept some thought last year myself, however realised that church pew numbers weekly had decreased over the past ten years anyway. Numbers were down when my kids were going through primary school in many churches and the priests were dying out of the system 20 years ago, as were nuns.

It falls back on the police and human rights commissions to gather the evidence and charge all priests [if alive hopefully] for those shocking crimes.