Philo,

1) Even though I directly addressed what you wrote, you chose to entirely ignore the substance of what I wrote. What a surprise.

2) My name-calling is irrelevant, but "sanctimonious" describes you perfectly. You act as if God is on your side, and so you write as if you don't have to address anybody's arguments, or make any arguments whatsoever. You don't argue, you preach.

3) Yes, I am hostile. I don't like sanctimony, and I am appalled that you present your God to me as my moral judge. I am a moral person, I value my dignity (?) quite fine, and I have no need of your God's blessing.

4) I should provide "relavant historical facts" about what?? All I did was take your example, and try to explain to you the difference between indoctrination and education. You now choose to ignore your own example.

5) Stop pretending Atheism is a competing system of moral belief. Atheism is simply the disbelief in God. That's it. It is not a foundation of laws. It says nothing about the sacredness of life, or the lack of it. It is not a moral code, and it is not the lack of a moral code. It is not this amoral bogey man that you claim.

To pretend that one needs a Christian God to be moral is silly and offensive. And it's the prevalence of that kind of sanctimonious silliness which is why religous indoctrination has no place in secular education.

Can I say that I agree that there should be a proper program for those wishing not to attend RI. However, this is not the main aim of the Humanist Society. I am even sympathetic to Atheists having an opportunity to present their views, however it should be noted that this is not the aim of the humanist society. The aim of the humanist society is quite openly the complete abolishment of RI. It is this aim I oppose as intolerant and unfair to the majority of people who do believe in God.

Bugsy: It should be noted that RI in state schools is not the equivelant of Atheist instruction in Religious schools. Last time I checked state schools were not meant to push an Atheist agenda - they were not meant to exclusively push any religious agenda.

DavidJS: there was a certain irony in my use of adjectives - I don't think I'm as against being politically correct as you might assume.

To everyone who is comparing christianity to ludicrous beliefs such as teddy bears, Santa Claus, and especially the idea that the Roosters are going to win the next 10 NRL premierships!

I know this kind of comparison has been made popular by Mr Dawkins, but it's just not accurate. I know of NO evidence that any of these things exist. I know of NO adults who believe any of them. I know of NO adults who have carefully examined the evidence and started accepting they are true. However whether you accept it or not, there is clearly substantial evidence for the Christian faith because many, many adults, including well educated adults with no Christian upbringing, examine the evidence for the Christian faith and come to accept it as true.

Children deserve to have the opportunity to learn about this evidence, that has such a profound and positive impact on our society, and half an hour of voluntary RI is not unreasonable!

APR, if you removed the word "exclusively" and all that it implies in that sentence, then I would agree with you. In fact many atheists would.

Your argument that many adults believe that after examining the "evidence", therefore it may be true and should be taught, is not valid. If it were then teaching atheism would be at the top of the list, atheism is not taught in schools, it is usually only arrived at after "examining the evidence". The fact that no adults believe in Santa etc, is just because it is a much simpler hoax, that everyone is in on, only perpetrated on children and very easy to disbelieve once ones mental faculties achieve a certain level. The fact that many children DO believe such myths highlights the fact that children are so credulous, so should we teach them myths that may motivate them to be afraid of people that do not believe the same? The argument that the idea of God is less easy to disbelieve than the idea of Santa does not make it true.

At its core religion , religious beliefs are based on paranoid superstition. I find it offensive that any child is indoctrinated into believing in superstitious phantasmagoria. Indeed instructing children into believing in deities is a form of child abuse. What is occuring is the parent holds superstitious delusions and exploits their child to reinforce the parents belief.

Such horrors are worstened as the same parent calls for all children / other peoples children to be brainwashed into believing in the gods those individuals belief.

To teach children religion (meaning brainwash children into superstition) and expecting schools to support it is exactly the same thing as alchoholic parents forcing their children to drink alchohol and then requiring schools to distribute alchohol or drug addicted parents getting their kids addicted to drugs and then requiring schools to push drugs.

Religion is biased by nature, religion is a dedication to ones own fantasies to the point where ones own fantasies take supremecy over the treatment of other people. This is evident in the untrue claim that Christian or Moslem values are good values. They are not they are values of Judgement, exclusion , abuse and control.

This society has failed in protecting children from so many threats , violence , sexual abuse , poverty and religion. This society has at least tried to battle violence , sexual abuse and poverty that threatens its children but we do nothing to address a great monster as wicked as the other three threats , the threat of religion.

Religion has no place outside of the game playing mind of the religious. We must address religion as a problem not as a cutsie B grade sitcom character. If we dont we will end up like Iran , Afghanistan, great swathes of middle U.S.A. and darkage Europe.

It is the child that suffers , condemed to a life focused on death and marching to the beat of misogynist ignoramuses who manipulate by speaking for god , interpreting for god and judging for god. Where every insidious crime is inspired by god.

I have come to the conclusion by watching this over the years, yes religion is threatened by secularism , by science , by rationality but the reason for the intense hatred the religious have for the secular world is because of feminism. Feminism has liberated women. All the major religions especially monotheist religions by fault of Genisis regard women as subhuman and therefore property of her patriach.

We have fallen decades behind in womens rights and equality. One of the reasons is superstitious values are still taught in schools.

it didn't take long for my grandson to declare that that his RI class is "silly" after he realised that what he was learning in real science and history classes was contradicting what he was being told in the RI class! Thankfully he's he has chosen facts over fiction.