Pelican,
You are right people convert at different ages but "critical thinking" does not have to enter the game. It is more a matter of psychological disposition (or indisposition), I think psychologists call it "limit life situations". People abandon religion ("loose their faith") usually because of a too rigid and formalistic family environment, an incompetent priest, RE teacher etc. that did not allow their childish, naive faith to develop into an emotionally and intellectually more satisfying form, level with their other formal education, intelligence and life experience.

I think something similar can happen also the other way around, although one does not speak of an atheist "loosing his/her faith". I know a Catholic priest, the son of a former high-ranking party functionary in Communist Czechoslovakia, who was baptised at the age of 17, taught physics and biology, was secretly ordained priest, revealed after 1989. I consider him a more valuable priest - including the ability to think critically, if you like - than many others I have met, who grew up in Catholic families.

As I said before, the world-view background of a maths or science teacher does not matter (not even in a religious school). However, there are other subjects, like history, where the teaching must go beyond a listing of dry facts into evaluating and interpreting them, and there the teacher's (or syllabus author‘s) world-view background will necessarily show.

There is this problem in Europe, that is not directly related to religion, namely how to develop a unified, or at least not self-contradictory, teaching of European history. An event (e.g. a battle) that one nation sees in a positive light, another might view negatively, etc. The same with different world-view orientations (in society as well as education). The more tolerant towards others is the prevailing orientation - irrespective of which (it might be the secular humanist that seems to be in ascendancy) - the better, but I cannot see an ideal solution asking a priori for the one or the other to prevail.

Fractelle,
thanks for explaining to me your “ability to understand another's point of view“.

'This is the ridiculous - now some poor goat has to endure death and pain (possibly) for some warped human view of the world.'

Only surpassed by the murder of unborn children in the name of women's rights (another dogma of secularism).

Squeers, please make up your mind, which do you want, reasoned argument or name calling?

Danny,
In responding to Tim Mander, you claim that some of his arguments don’t fly. However, scratch beneath the surface and, by and large, your piece pretty much resembles and agrees with his.

You both pull out the dictionary and have a go at defining the word secular. It must be a very plastic word as everyone is coming out with something a little different.

Yet you come to the nub of the issue with this phrase, “Our concern is that our children are being indoctrinated into somebody else's idea of the nature of reality and the moral codes that flow from it.” In saying this, I think you’ve summed up succinctly what most want, both those pursuant of faith and those not.

Many Christians and other believers are very welcoming of true secular principles and practices, as they ensure that the government system is not foisting unwanted doctrines upon us.

Squeers asks us to use some colourful adjectives. How about the word arrogant, the opposite of which is tolerance. Tolerance is truly at the heart of secularism. Tim Mander spoke about that in his piece. The real enemy is not a faith or creed, but the arrogance of a view, whatever view, which must dominate and can’t co-exist alongside others.

In this sense, Christians might be sometimes be appealing to true secular ideals to protect them from the aggression of the hard lined atheist who has no tolerance for anything religious.

david f,

You make reasonable distinction between religion and culture for, while often intertwined, they are not the same "institution." As to the nature of torture not being symbiotic to the nature of man - this is merely a reflective optimism. Man has, afterall, in his tendency toward the formation of religion, given hell the place of nothing other than religion's torture chamber.

George,
I completely agree in that, “We both can learn from the historians whose interpretation we like, as well as from those whose interpretation we do not like.” Critical thought allows an examination of both perspectives and I find much of what you say to be certainly more affirmative rather than pejorative in meaning.

It has been stated (Madeleine Bunting), and I believe correctly so, that like any kind of fundamentalism, Western fundamentalism “Is tolerant towards other cultures only to the extent that they reflect its own values - so it is frequently fiercely intolerant of religious belief and has no qualms about expressing its contempt and prejudice.” This fundamentalism, inter alia, lacks the will to understand what is profoundly different from itself.

Cultural values indeed form a reference point, for example, who is it that decides why exposing certain private parts completely is a criminal offence, yet covering them only slightly is a sign of liberation for women – a secularist contradiction surely. Here’s another: Colombia’s Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest legal entity, “may legalize incest as it considers a request to eliminate the criminal penalty for sexual intercourse between brothers and sisters or parents and children.” Referring to the distinction of making moral and legal matters two separate entities, Alberto Franco, a lawyer pushing for this new legislation, said that incest “is a moral problem and not a legal one, because it is related to freedom and personal autonomy.”

I need mention also that Democracy holds the view that millions of people are wiser than one, which caused one Western thinker to state that Democracy is “a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”

Dear Relda,

Some people get pleasure from torture. However, I don't think those usually are the torturers. People who get pleasure from torture, show mercy or object to the activity are not reliable as they tend not to stay within religious or state specified boundaries. People who torture without religious or state sanction are subject to criminal proceedings. Religion and the state want reliable servants.

In calling hell religion's torture chamber you neglect the fact that all religions do not have the concept of hell. Some people whose religion may have the concept of hell may reject that particular part of their religion.

I do not know what the nature of man is. I think some things are fixed. The sex drive must be sufficiently wide spread for the species to continue. Sufficient numbers of us must want to stay alive long enough to satisfy that urge and produce more humans. Beyond that I think most things are up for grabs. I know of no investigation into the factors that incline a person to enjoy torturing or reject torturing.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

The Milgram experiment was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.

The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the question: "Was it that Eichmann and his accomplices in the Holocaust had mutual intent, in at least with regard to the goals of the Holocaust?" In other words, "Was there a mutual sense of morality among those involved?"

Milgram's testing revealed that it could have been that the millions of accomplices were merely following orders, despite violating their deepest moral beliefs.

david f,
Initially, to address your second observation from the Milgram experiment,i.e.- “.. accomplices were merely following orders, despite violating their deepest moral beliefs” , I will center on a tenet within your own tradition. Judaism is much more focused on actions rather than beliefs, its prophets and sages have not spent much time on speculations about the world to come, but rather the elaborations on the mitzvot to be performed in this life – perhaps a practical aspect of your tradition. Moral belief, in the Milgram experiment,is quite irrelevant as it lacks the important or affirming action. Without the courage to enact it, belief has no end result. It would seem, purely from the Nazi experiment, man is generally unable to realise his deepest moral belief. The courage to enact, in the face of opposition, appears to be something unnatural – rather,it is an extraordinary and surprising trait.

You probably have an understanding of the yetzer tov, where a moral conscience is able to give ‘authority’ to a specific action or choice – as an atheist, you may not ascribe this outside ‘entity’ or ‘authority’ to ‘g-d’. Nevertheless, a tension is likely to exist within the yetzer ra - i.e. the natural impulse to satisfy one's own needs and desires (eating, drinking, procreation, and making a living). The state has an understanding of these desires and, depending on it authority, sets its boundaries accordingly. A reliable servant is one thing but faith in the state requires subservience to an ideology - whether it is Communistic, purely Marxist or socially Capitalistic.

Your first point: I agree, not all religions have a concept of hell. Christianity certainly has one – or used to at least. The theological trend of the last few centuries has certainly strayed dramatically from a central feature of historical Christianity. The pull of atheism and agnosticism in our culture gives this trend some reinforcement. But for those who truly suffer, can we absolutely say their particular ‘hell’ is merely the paradigm of a truly pointless, gratuitous suffering.? Through its neutrality, mere secularism tends to agree.