The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > An end to Special Religious Education in public schools > Comments

An end to Special Religious Education in public schools : Comments

By Glen Coulton, published 15/12/2010

Only in Special Religious Education classes are teachers allowed to exhort students to believe baseless 'truths'.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. ...
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. All
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
Posted by Foyle, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 12:39:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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!
Posted by Ozandy, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 2:37:31 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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.
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 3:49:57 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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.
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 3:51:44 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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".
Posted by Squeers, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 5:46:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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."
Posted by Chrys Stevenson, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 6:14:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. ...
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy