The tolerant Catholic Church

RomanNose said:
We shouldn't remove RE, my problem with faith schools is that they sometimes have religious assemblies and sometimes don't teach them other faiths other what they follow.
This is also what that link says

She seems to disagree that about a difference in ethos.
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So do you think parents who choose to send their children to a faith school of their own faith should be told they must also have religious assemblies in accordance with other faiths?
 
|Thomas| said:
I truly love my boyfriend, I would do anything for him. One day, I hope to marry the guy I love, be it him or someone else. Marriage to me implies that this is the person who I want to spend the rest of my life with, it's something special. A civil partnership does not.

If you find this abhorrent, by all means campaign against gay marriage.
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I hope you don't find this condescending, but I for one do not think that you having the right to do so will destroy the fabric of our society. As a white, middle-class male, I have never really felt that I have been left wanting, when it comes to rights, in this country... So I can't really relate. But I hope that you are able to show the commitment that you want to.
 
spudbynight said:
So do you think parents who choose to send their children to a faith school of their own faith should be told they must also have religious assemblies in accordance with other faiths?
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Yes since public schools are publicly funded :confused: They're there to learn facts, not to be fed religious mumbo jumbo as if it were true.
 
steve-h said:
Yes since public schools are publicly funded :confused: They're there to learn facts, not to be fed religious mumbo jumbo as if it were true.
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There is more to a well rounded education than simply learning 'facts'.......

And who are the public?

Are not religious taxpayers entitled to be represented in the publicly funded education system?
 
Castiel said:
There is more to a well rounded education than simply learning 'facts'.......
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No question, but that wasn't the reason behind my post. I think children should be taught to be sceptical and to think about everything for themselves more so than anything. So I'm sure you'll see how I find it hard to see a place where mindlessly praying to a God you're way too young to even understand about fits in at all.

Castiel said:
Are not religious taxpayers entitled to be represented in the publicly funded education system?
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Let us vote on it. Specifically: "teaching a religion as if it were true in schools", yes or no.

It's probably a good time to state that I have nothing against teaching kids about religion at all.
 
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steve-h said:
But you just agreed... 'not specifically because they have religious studies'. Kids should be taught to think and to be sceptical more than anything else in my opinion.
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You appear to be trying to pin it down to one specific point when there may be many reasons both related and unrelated as to why some religious schools are good. Your initial point was that we should have no public religious schools and I´m suggesting that probably isn´t necessary in that the response is disproportionate to the actual issue - there are a lot of good religious schools that provide a good education for their students, I´ve got no doubt there are some bad ones but the proportionate response is to tackle them rather than attacking all of them.

RomanNose said:
How do you know the reason religious schools are good is due to religion?
Have you ever considered the possibility that religious schools attract more middle class students, who have parents who are very insistent on their children doing well?
We have a culture where many parents take their kids to Church, just so they can get into a decent secondary. I think this has something to do with why they do better than non religious schools.
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In the absence of a direct quote I´m guessing this is directed to my point. There´s nothing to say that non-religious schools can´t be great and equally effective for their students but that isn´t, in and of itself, a reason to disallow religious schools wholesale as was suggested. I´m sure that selection criteria plays a part as does increased funding and quite possibly dozens of other things but again there may not be any real reason to change a system if it is working well.
 
RomanNose said:
So you haven't even given me any examples, great. I would imagine that Ofsted who have much more experience with schools, even considering their mistakes are much more knowledgeable than you about the subject.
If we wanted to increase school results, we could just simply increase school budgets and stop decreasing them. I know schools and colleges that have had to reduce lessons due to lack of funds.
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Take a look at the Cardinal Vaughan school in London.
 
|Thomas| said:
And what if it is not in the child's well being to be taught only one viewpoint?

Consider a subtly different example to the one you described. What if in PSHE lessons (I believe they call it this nowadays?) taught at catholic schools, they teach that homosexuality is wrong. You could argue that parents have a right to send their children wherever they want, and should be taught whatever they want them to learn. However, it is a very unhealthy attitude to take with LGBT youth, as can be seen to an extreme in America.

Of course this is different from teaching about gay marriage, but I don't think it's as black and white as you suggest. Sometimes the right for a religious institution to teach what they want cannot be given precedence over the well being of a child.
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To be honest with you I believe that homosexuality is wrong. I don't have anything against gay people. I also believe that divorce is wrong along with all sorts of other things. Their is a phrase used to describe the Catholic approach to things "hate the sin, love the sinner"

I have no idea what PSHE is though. I don't know what you are referring to in America either - but if you want to share a link I am happy to share my thoughts.

I do however strongly disagree with the idea that a parent raising a child with their beliefs is in some way harmful to the child.
 
steve-h said:
No question, but that wasn't the reason behind my post. I think children should be taught to be sceptical and to think about everything for themselves more so than anything. So I'm sure you'll see how I find it hard to see a place where mindlessly praying to a God you're way too young to even understand about fits in at all.
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I think teaching 5-8 year olds critical thinking and scepticism is a bit far fetched as well......

I doubt they are being routinely taught complex science or scriptural interpretation either.

I don't think that singing 'morning has broken' or saying a prayer for someone really damages a child.....in fact as regard to praying, in many cases saying to a child 'let us say a prayer for poor kids in Africa' or something like that, which is the normal kind of thing they do is actually giving the child an awareness that their are people less fortunate than themselves....


steve-h said:
Let us vote on it. Specifically: "teaching a religion as if it were true in schools", yes or no.

It's probably a good time to state that I have nothing against teaching kids about religion at all.
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To a Catholic there Religion is real.....to an Anglican their religion is real......reality with regard to worldviews is entirely subjective.

If you are refering to teaching things like Creationism instead of Evolution, then neither CofE or Catholic Schools, which make up the vast majority of Faith Schools (and pretty all publicly funded faith schools) teach such things......their respective religions accept evolution and do not follow an interpretation of Literal Genesis Interpretation anyway.
 
spudbynight said:
I do however strongly disagree with the idea that a parent raising a child with their beliefs is in some way harmful to the child.
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So you believe the concept of hell, retribution and sin is a healthy burden to put on a teenager/child who is coming to terms with the world? Because in my book if that was done by for any other reason the child would rightfully be placed on the child protection register for emotional abuse.

I can not say as I was never raised in a religious household but I can imagine the thought of guilt for a young lad about going to hell and being sinner just cause he tugged one off in his bedroom is not exactly healthy. :p
 
Xordium said:
Yes I presumed as much. The problem though is such things, like most complex things simply defined, become prone to clash with equally worthwhile notions. For example you are ignoring Article 1:

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood".

Lets move it further. If the law were changed and Catholic schools taught to teach the truth of that law - it does not exclude them from applying context. For example, "the law of this country says that marriage is a contract between two consenting adults of any gender. However, traditionally and for certain religious groups there is a belief that such a contract is only valid between and man and a woman." Moreover, to say that the human rights were being broken you are making the assumption that all the children going to those schools would hold Catholic beliefs. It is not the school that is having the human rights pushed around a little is it? It is the children who could easily be shown to not have the cognitive level to put forward a consistent argument for their beliefs. It is their parents beliefs at this age not the childs which means you are more looking at Article 26 being broken but we could demonstrate that the non-Catholic children would have Article 26 infringed by not being taught the truth of the law of the land.

Therefore, to actively stop a group from being equal in rights and dignity to prevent a theoretical breach of the human rights in a group who may not actually exist in the first place and that is equally circumnavigated with context to actually not impinge on anything seems rather cackhanded. And just reaching for anything to clutch on.

See the problem is if you want to start using the Human Rights Articles etc to prevent this from occurring then don't expect to get away with it because then other people may then turn them around on the Catholic Church and say that all Catholic doctrine is banned from being taught to anyone under the age of 16. Because telling a child they will burn forever for a small misdemeanor sounds remarkably like emotional abuse and would clash quite heavily with Article 5 - "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
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I most certainly was not ignoring Article 1. What gave you that impression?

As for the rest of your post I disagree with it completely. Unfortunately at 10:46 I don't have the time to go into it now. I will try and come back to it tomorrow.
 
spudbynight said:
I most certainly was not ignoring Article 1. What gave you that impression?

As for the rest of your post I disagree with it completely. Unfortunately at 10:46 I don't have the time to go into it now. I will try and come back to it tomorrow.
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Because you are not maybe really advocating ... you know ... giving the same rights? And I suspected you'd disagree with it ...
 
Xordium said:
Not if they wish their dogma to be placed above fact (what this countries laws say) or established theory (eg evolution).
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Do the vast majority of publicly funded faith schools do that?

This is not the United States.....with the exception of some well publicised examples (were they State Faith Schools?) Faith Schools in the UK do not teach Creationism instead of Evolution...in fact the religions responsible for the majority of Faith Schools, the CofE and the Catholic Church do not ascribe to Creationism or Creation Science anyway.

What do people think Faith Schools are teaching exactly?
 
Xordium said:
So you believe the concept of hell, retribution and sin is a healthy burden to put on a teenager/child who is coming to terms with the world? Because in my book if that was done by for any other reason the child would rightfully be placed on the child protection register for emotional abuse.

I can not say as I was never raised in a religious household but I can imagine the thought of guilt for a young lad about going to hell and being sinner just cause he tugged one off in his bedroom is not exactly healthy. :p
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Do you disagree with a child being taught the concepts of morality and consequence? I would consider them to be vital.

Anyway - I must retire.
 
Xordium said:
Because you are not maybe really advocating ... you know ... giving the same rights? And I suspected you'd disagree with it ...
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They have exactly the same rights. All men are free to marry the woman of their choice and vice versa. Who exactly is bring denied that right?

Seriously - I do need to go to bed now.

:D
 
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