I wasn’t really aware of this. Clearly I wasn’t paying attention.
The Scottish government’s decision not to allow older pupils to opt themselves out of religious observance is facing a legal challenge.
The Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) is seeking a judicial review of the policy.
Earlier this year a United Nations committee called for a change to the guidelines in Scotland.
The government said schools were encouraged to discuss options with parents and children.
It added that religious observance should be sensitive to individual beliefs – including those who have none.
When I was at school, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were excused the tedious claptrap that passed for religious observance. The rest of us had to endure it. It didn’t reinforce my belief, though, for I had none. You either do or you don’t and no amount of religious observance will change that.
I am, broadly, in agreement with the Humanist Society here, but I would go further; there should be no religious observance in schools whatsoever. Children attend school to receive an education, not to be indoctrinated in mumbo-jumbo and belief in sky fairies, prophets, flying magical creatures or immaculate conception and all the other myths and fairy stories the religious choose to believe. School is for education, not fantasy. If you want religious observance, go to a church, temple or mosque, not a school.
For once I don’t agree, I am for religious education in schools. As an ex-Catholic schoolboy there is nothing to better put someone off religion for life than a Catholic education.
Neither I nor the linked article mention religious education. I think it should be covered as a subject to help with critical thinking, but no one should ever be forced to take part in an act of worship.
What is it with the Jocks and their constant emulations of Mad Mel Gibson with their continual cries of “Freedom”? Yet put ’em in any position of power in their own government, and they’re instantly rabid authoritarians of the sort that make Stalin seem positively gentle and benign.
Odd, isn’t?
You do understand that the time for indoctrination is when they are young.
The 3Rs can come later.
Think of all the stuff you must pack into the first eleven years or so. Hitler knew this, Stalin knew this , Mao knew this.
Is that not enough.
I’m slightly torn on this one. On the one hand, I regard religion as nothing but superstition and, as such, I think it has no place in school. I think that if parents want their childrens’ heads filled with such rubbish, they should have to do it in their own time and at their own expense. On the other hand, I realise that the practical result of religious indoctrination in schools is to produce a nation of atheists and indifferents. This I see as being a good thing.
My daughter attended a secondary school that had non religious assemblies, despite the fact that this is against the law. I recall that one CofE bishop raised the issue of schools flouting the law that said that they should hold daily assemblies involving worship of a broadly Christian character. He suggested that this law should be enforced. He was very quickly shouted down by the more pragmatic sections of the CofE who realised that any attempt to enforce this anachronistic law would probably result in it being abolished.