Hard News: Testify!
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Take your point, Stephen, you're absolutely right. One of the thing that cheeses me off about my children's school's idea of diversity is that it has an unusually high Muslim population for Christchurch. After surviving the Tampa, making 'fitting in' dependent on your kids singing 'Mary's Boy Child' followed by 'O le Pepe' is just rude.
Just asking what was going to be taught when our school decided that the topic for the term was going to be Easter got us such a pasting we backed off, and we have good English.
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There is always a vocal and pushy minority who stack the school board in order to get it set up and maintained, and then residual guilt from the former Christians and inertia ensure it's hard to get rid of.
Isn't that a nutshell description of most democratic institutions?
Not that I'm saying you're wrong, when I was on my kids' school's board we fended off requests from several groups to provide religious ed. We found plenty more reasons not to provide it then to let them in, not least because if we let one lot in, we could reasonably be expected to give equal time to any other faith/denomination/sect/cult that felt the urge to pass on their good word. We also felt that there was plenty of religious activity available in the community for any parents who felt the lack of it in their childrens' lives. -
At primary school, a lady came along every few weeks and read us boring Bible stories and sang boring songs on an autoharp. She used to thump her foot for the rhythm, but got angry with us if we thumped too.
At intermediate, a guy from Youth For Christ would come along and do that über enthusiastic rhetoric about how great Jesus is. Life, you see, is like a lawnmower. Just as you need an instruction manual to use a lawnmower properly, so do you with life. And that instruction manual is called the Bible.
At high school there was no organised religious instruction, but once a friend took me along to the CIA (Christians In Action - oh, why do they always have such naff names?) group. The hot tech drawing teacher spoke of how he waited until he got married to have sex. We snickered.
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My comment in the Fundy Post about religious groups falling out concerned the panel that drew up the diversity statement, not any incident at the forum.
I agree with Anjum about Bible in Schools. Mark Easterbrook's assumption is in part right: many of the teachers of the Bible in Schools programme are members of 'evangelical' churches. The Elim church in particular seems eager to use the programme to find new adherents.
Bible in Schools is indefensible. The orginal Education Act of 1877 ensured that education would be secular but churchmen later invented the fiction of closing the school for religious instruction; it is called the Nelson System and it was a deliberate subversion of the Act.
It has to go but need it be replaced by education about all religions as Anjum Rahman proposes? Religion is a private matter and there are far more important matters that could be taught, such as participating in democracy and understanding the media.
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Thanks Anjum for the report on the interfaith forum.
But theres a problem with "i would have like atheists to be much more involved in the discussions - "
Heres the problem... people who belong to one faith or other can perceive of themselves as a group, and can attend such a forum as representatives of that group (even if not officially sanctioned by the group) and they can meet with members of other such groups, and they can swap opinions, and say those opinions are informed by their group membership....
But most athiests dont perceive of themselves as a group in that way. The only thing that links them is a lack of belief in what you believe in.
You can get some athiests to attend your forum, but you can't get "the athiests" to attend.... there is no such group.
One athiest does not represent any others, and their views are theirs alone, they cannot present "what athiests believe" to other groups with any authority. There are no shared views or beliefs amoungst them, except that they dissagree with your belief.
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oh, why do they always have such naff names?
Presumably there's a demographic that all that stuff works on, and we ain't it.
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Reading the Anglican vicars article did draw me to think about the merits of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Having a broad and liberal church as your state religion, as England does, provides certain advantages. Individuals and the state are able to observe traditional rituals (like church weddings, christenings, coronations) without thinking too hard about the religious background. CofE vicars are in many ways obliged to minister to everyone in their parish, even those with very limited religious faith, after the manner of Dawn French.
Of course this was truer 50 years ago than today - the CofE doesn't really *include* non-christians and the exodus of normal people from the church has caused it to move to a more fundamentalist outlook. (Ironically the most liberal Anglicans are now those in the United States).
(I write as an agnostic Pom, BTW)
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And how long have you been waiting patiently for a chance to use the word antidisestablishmentarianism in a post?
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A friend told me that Tamaki is now selling his own line of suits from the church store so congregation members can dress just like him..."as seen on TV" might be interested in his line...
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It has to go but need it be replaced by education about all religions as Anjum Rahman proposes? Religion is a private matter and there are far more important matters that could be taught, such as participating in democracy and understanding the media.
Political preference is a private matter that shouldn't be taught in schools.
So in educating the kids about democracy we wouldn't offer contrasting political systems - especially the theocratic ones?
How can you educate people about the global political system without covering at least the influence of Islam, Judaism and Christianity? -
"One athiest does not represent any others, and their views are theirs alone, they cannot present "what athiests believe" to other groups with any authority. There are no shared views or beliefs amoungst them, except that they dissagree with your belief."
hah! but that is the same for most people present. what makes you think that my being there represents muslims? muslims are not one homogenous group that share exactly the same beliefs, even though there are similar themes. ditto for christians, buddhists etc etc. i can't think of any other muslim in this country who would adequately "represent" me.sure there were some ministers and a bishop at one point, but these people were not there to represent anyone but themselves. glyn carpenter saw himself as a representative, as did the destiny delegation, and that's their choice. i don't think anyone else much saw themselves in that light.
my point though, is that i don't want involvement by atheist "representatives". i'm more interested in involvement of individuals with their various points of view, to enrich the debate and to find a better consensus - if we can.
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I was thinking less about compartive politics and more about teaching students about voting and how our political system works. I would group it with media education because citizens need to understand how the political system works and the pressures upon it and them.
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One thing that annoys me in this whole debate is the way secularism seems to get deliberately equated to atheism, especially by folks trying to ensure little Jonny says a prayer every morning.
As someone pointed out, a secular government ensures that cults like the EBs don't get persecuted or dominated by other larger cults, like the Anglicans.
The idea that secular == atheist needs stomping on, it is bad and misleading.
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But you wouldn't mention The Destiny Party, or Christian Heritage, cause they don't put any pressures on anyone?
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I can't help but think that if religious studies was done properly in schools, dimwit MPs and press columnists would get all up in arms about "political correctness" or something (TV current affairs shows would just say what they thought the most people wanted to hear).
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The idea that secular == atheist needs stomping on, it is bad and misleading.
Yup, its right up there with atheist/agnostic/not-my-religion == amoral == immoral.
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Surely the events of the past week finally prove the existence of God, at least in Godzone? Resurrections, miracles, sinners redeemed, faith rewarded, the devil defeated ...
Oh W.G. Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see. -
Jeremy: the pressure comes from the media in the way it represents or ignores political arguments and issues; but that is another story.
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I prefer my sports to be secular, thanks.
To avoid hypocrisy, I even spurn the hail mary pass. :-) -
Media literacy certainly deserves a big chunk of school time devoted to it. But I still say the education system would be failing if it didn't mention that religions exist, that many people are influenced by their beliefs in the various religions, and these beliefs underpin a lot of what goes on in the world - for good & ill.
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Life, you see, is like a lawnmower. Just as you need an instruction manual to use a lawnmower properly, so do you with life. And that instruction manual is called the Bible
i think he meant, "we can't have you growing out of control, so we use a lawnmower to keep you pruned. that lawnmower is the bible"
in regard to teaching religion though, i have a suspicion that the filtering of a diversity statement would likely end up as a 'civics' class. but then that's probably what those producing the diversity statement would prefer. a class that teaches people how democracy lets everyone have and express their own opinions.
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Sorry Simon G, but Craig is not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy :)
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And back to the cricket, although the Gillespie, McCullum and Macca shots were great - the moment for me was Watson's celebrations having got Macca out playing-on; he thought it was in the bag (as did the largish crowd of sweaty gym-nuts surrounding me at the time) but on-no-no-no-no...
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Craig McMillan, obviously.
Not another Craig who frequents these pages.
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I wonder sometimes if there's a secular parent left who doesn't have a horror story about trying to get their kids a state secular education.
When I was at a state high school not a million miles from where Russell and John Key were getting their education, I got sick of getting detentions for refusing to sing hymns in assembly. So I wrote an article in the school newspaper pointing out that as a state school we were supposed to be secular, and the school actually ended up having a referendum and eventually removing hymns from senior assembly! And a long history of busybodying started right there...
Before that, the tactic among my geeky atheist clque was to sing along, but replace the word "God" with "Carl", and "Jesus" with "Sagan". All together now: "Immortal, invincible, Carl only wise..."
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