aqvarivs - Foyle, the arogance etc. and your nihilist upbringing.
I am the son of parents with little education. My father put his age up by five years to join the British Navy early in WW1. I went to a public primary school school in a mining and railway town during the depression and to a selective high school during WW2. I saw plenty of abject poverty. Both my parents were life members of the Red Cross and raised substantial sums that charity. My father was an agnostic ex Mason and my mother a Baptist as was I in my youth.
Both my parents valued education as a way out of poverty and I benefited from their efforts and example. Now at nearly 77 I spend many hours each week on charity work and as a volunteer tutor mainly in high school mathematics. Some nihilist! All I seek for children is an education that encourages intellectual curiosity and development of each child's full potential. I see religious indoctrination as inhibiting this.

I'm glad the initial article noted that there is some high quality liberal education at religious schools, and I would have to reject the notion that intolerance lies below the surface in all religious education. Certainly, there is intolerance of perceived immorality - my Catholic school's sex ed program presented a low view of sleeping around (but did not go so far as to condemn extramarital sex). But those values are the reason my parents sent me there. I learnt that the best way to avoid unwanted pregnancy was abstinence; the program I am required to teach in the state system now teaches 14 and 15 year old boys thejoys of contraception but doesn't even touch on the illegality of sex at their age.

I would also add that my Catholic education taught me more about Buddhism and Islam than any of my students have ever learnt. And if they were trying to turn me against these non-Catholics, they hid it so well that the point escaped me entirely.

I'm not bashing the state system - after all, I am part of it and a proud part of it. But I believe that, just as parents choose to teach their kids to follow their own beliefs, they should (and do) have the right to employ like-minded people to make that education holistic. Would I send my kids to a Communist school? Probably not. But if parents support their beliefs strongly enough to establish and support such an institution, I won't stand in their way.

Foyle,"All I seek for children is an education that encourages intellectual curiosity and development of each child's full potential. I see religious indoctrination as inhibiting this."

And I'd agree with you if you were speaking on the subject of the singular exercise of the study of the Koran in say Pakistani madrassas. However your referring to Australian private schools that offer no indoctrination of any kind and the 'religious' education barely skims the ten commandments. And sir, as admirable as your social efforts are they do not omit your own rebellion from your own personal experiences or attitudes. That's why we have religious haters, women haters, men haters, police haters, mother haters, father haters, and those who wont eat their vegetables. Your heavy handed language identifies you. Tolerance isn't just something we expect from others. It's part of that golden rule one learns say at Catholic school. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

How extraordinary.
Aqvarius golden rule is the same one I learnt at my godless state school and my daughter's are learning at their godless state school too!
Could it be that most public and private schools teach the same core values and liberal pedagogy, and that most of the smears and sneers about brainwashing in either sort of school is exaggerated? As a recently retired godless state school principal said "If I could brain wash kids I'd start with be good to your parents and do your homework."
Isn't the issue here whether we should be funding schools with an authoritarian approach to education? They can exist, and people can fund them themselves, I suppose. But should we be publicly funding them if they teach children (as was apparently said in one prestigious religious school recently) to "avoid athiests, agnostics and public school students because they will lead you to sex drugs and crime." After all, that school happily accepts money from athiests, agnostics and ex-public school students.

Goddamn Xoddam, you beat me to it!

The 7 point scale precisely demolishes your argument Cornflower. If you are going to criticise Dawkins's views, at least know what they are. I believe the 7 is what he classifies as 'radical atheism' which as Xoddam rightly points out is the 'God cannot exist' end of the spectrum. Dawkins says he is a 6 but that he would change his views on the existence of God should sufficient evidence present itself.

Did you actually read the book? Or just a negative review? Or did you read the title and make up your mind? The guts of the book, as it pertains to this thread, is that religious indoctrination of children is a form of child abuse, as children are told what their religion is at an age where their critical faculties are not even close to being well enough developed to make what is an extremely complex choice. As he says in the book, studies indicate that about 1 in 8 people end up with a religion different to that into which they were born. So 87.5% of people follow in their parents footsteps when it comes to religion. Does that seem like an outcome you would expect by chance?

So if religious affiliation is (largely) demonstrably an accident of birth, is there not a valid argument to be made that children be exposed to a variety of views before consigning them to a faith, which seemed to me the gist of the article?

Oh and apologies for the typo on absence Cornflower, I trust you were able to somehow glean some meaning from the sentence regardless. And I tried to find your OED definition of atheism and the website appeared to want me to pay for it.. maybe you could grace us with the definition?

aqvarivs- 'religious' education barely skims the ten commandments. How is it that the Jesuits took the view "Give me the boy for the first seven years and I will give you the man." When I was about ten a younger cousin said in my presence "A lie is not a lie if told for the Church." There is something morally and ethically wrong with both the above concepts. If church leaders were were really following the concepts of Jesus they would striving to dramatically improve the education of every child particularly in the direction of clear thinking.
A retired ordained minister who has known me both in industry and the community since the early seventies recently commented about my attitude and community work "You are the most Christ-like person I have ever met."