Tag Archives: Church-of-England

An R.E. lesson

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I’ve found a page on teacher net where the faith schools have got together to issue a statement about how necessary they are, including a proud claim that they promote community cohesion.

This is my main objection to faith schools. I don’t really care that much – except because of an obscure moral objection to lying to kids – that they teach nonsense. If school students actually paid attention to anything they were told in school it would be a novelty. I assume most of the tosh gets ignored, when it’s not required for a test, and regurgitated verbatim, without passing through the brain, when it is.

I do object to kids getting separated out into religious camps, so they grow up to see other kids as the enemy. Kids are really good at fitting into a peer group and defining non-peers as the enemy. Generally, a lot better than they are at listening to what the teachers say.

(In fact, if anything, faith schools, particularly Catholic schools, seem really good at turning out atheists. Ask any non-believer who’s been taught by priests and nuns about their schools. You will usually feel you’ve been floored as collateral damage, as a result of the tsunami of anger that splashes out.)

What do the temporarily-unified faith schools present as arguments then? Continue reading →

Dawkins links to anti-faith schools e-petition

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Well this is two of our favourite blog topics in one, so I couldn’t let it pass.

On Richard Dawkins’ own website, there is a link to an e-petition against faith schools of any kind in the UK.

I know it will get a patronising refusal to pay any attention but I still think it’s worth adding your name to it, if you are a UK resident and you have a problem with paying tax to segregate kids by religion….

Although, it’ s probably fair to warn you. Google your name when the petition’s closed and you’ll probably find it with the topic of the petition and a few names of people who signed before or after you.

If you live in a notably faith-obsessed or evn fundamentalist community, you might find that your local priest or imam starts to take an unhealthy interest in your opinions. OK. It’s not exactly going to be on a par with the sort of comebacks that Kareem experienced in Egypt. But education can become a real battle-ground. “Give me a child before the age of seven”, and so on.

(Dawkins’ own blog seems self-evidently worth looking at, and I’ll probably come back to discussing it soon.)

Say NO to Church Funding!

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A good spot by Nullifdian has pointed out that the Church of England is trying to get Government funding to pay for it’s repairs and renovations.

The Church of England (CofE) is using the popular 10 Downing Street e-petitions web site to try and get the government to get tax payers to pay for repairs to church buildings. I say “piss off, godboy”. [[read original post]]

And to be honest, I couldn’t have said it better myself. The buildings are owned by the cult, the cult is far from poor, so why should repairs be at public expense? My house could do with a bit of a repair, do you think if I ask nicely enough the government will pay for it?

Anyway, if you are a UK citizen, you have three choices: Ignore all this, sign the petition to support the church or sign the counter petition which aims to stop it.

The choice is yours.