Philo the point is children are human beings and not play things so as Christians may indulge in their dungeons and dragons role playing games.

All religions are based on ignorance and the rejection of facts which is in essence the truth. It is up to the individual to decide wether they want to believe in ridiculous myths and wildly superstitious concepts. No religious person has a right to allow their beliefs to affect others. In the case of monotheist cults religion is directly harmful to the community as we see with Islamic terrorism and Christian gay bashing and looney activists preventing the progress of medicine. If churches want new recruits then they should advertise in the classifieds and leave the innocent alone.

Nobody here has been talking about teaching children the truth about religion , that religion is immorral , exclusionary and almost everything asserted by the religious and the religion about their morals and gods are fiction. That religion is harmful, produces violence , is devisive and dishonest. Yes religion should be taught as a health topic.

But to teach something as false and poisonous as the belief in god as something worthy and benevolent is conspiracy to scam innocent people to satisfy the self indulgence of the believer. That is predation which is more than just immoral it is evil.

I regret not having seen this article sooner but still want to say that I agree mostly with the author and enjoy posters such as West, RObert, Yvonne, Yabby, and Bugsy.
I used to think that RI stood for Religious Indoctrination; learnt something new.

I am all for teachers teaching children ABOUT religions, to give them an overview of world religions because I think it’s a necessary foundation not only if we want to teach our children respect and tolerance and understanding, but also if we want to teach them where to draw the line when it comes to tolerance and respect.
During their lifetime, our children are all going to be exposed to people belonging to a wide range of religions. We need to teach them “how-to” things, like how to analyse a religion so they are equipped with a tool for the rest of their lives.

When my two children attended our local Public primary school, as an immigrant I didn’t even realise that they’d receive RI/RE as this was not done where I came from.
Anyway, I received a form with a list of denominations and religions and I was asked to tick a box. There was no non-scripture box on the form at all. So I drew and ticked my own, writing next to it: “humanism, atheism, or non-scripture”.

The next day, I was asked to come and see the deputy principal, who then told me that the non-scripture classes were not available anymore as there was so little interest, and that it would be very good for my daughter to be introduced to a religion.
Not wanting to go into a debate about religious education being good or bad, I just said that a public school should cater for all children including children of non-religious families, and that if they wouldn’t cater for my daughter, I’d contact the department of education.
Luckily I didn’t have to follow up my threat because she added the option of non-scripture to the form.

Continued below...

Then there came a time that my daughter got very bored in the non-scripture class because she, and a handful of others, were to do extra math, so she wanted to go to scripture with one of her friends, so she attended (not 100 % sure) Anglican scripture for a few weeks until she came home upset and told me that the scripture lady, with a bright red face, (my daughter pays attention to details) had ‘educated’ the class about hell and how people who didn’t believe in God and didn’t attend church would go there. She was, at that time, 7 or 8 and thought that her whole family would burn in hell. It took me weeks to make her see what kind of nonsense she had been told. There are still people who believe in hell at this day and age and indoctrinate children with it? Wow!

Of course, this ended up in taking my daughter out of that class again. From that moment, I took the non-scripture group to do some fun things with such as craft, drama and singing.
I really think that some schools are so desperate to get enough scripture teachers that they don’t even bother to check what they will be teaching. It’s like they swipe any religious nutter off the street to put in front of a class. Anything goes; there is no control of what they are actually telling the children as far as I know. Pretty dangerous, if you ask me.

"There was no non-scripture box on the form at all. So I drew and ticked my own, writing next to it: “humanism, atheism, or non-scripture”."

Sheesh Cevilia, if they ever land up cloning an innovative,
intelligent female like you, then please let me know :)