Article on Stuff opens a can of religious and secular worms!

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846 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1009055 19-Mar-2014 15:36

jonathan18:
sdav: Nah - I see it the other way - teaching kids nothing of other religions leaves them nowhere (ignorant) and in a position where they can't question. It's like saying, we can't teach all languages at school so lets not teach any. Of course we are are not going to explore or expect kids to be taught in the belief system of the Nkumbe tribe in West Africa but teaching the main religions, esp the ones that dominate the nightly news might serve to open peoples minds and change some of the ridiculous comments made (who am I kidding!).

This seems to be a different argument to the one you made above; there you expressed satisfaction with what you were delivered at school (a solely Christian viewpoint "taught" by practioners of that religion), but now you're acknowledging the value of teaching children about "main religions" (plural).

And this is exactly the point I've been making all along! It's only through acknowledging faith comes in many forms - demonstrated by teaching about the "main religions" as you say, but also even that "no religion" is a valid "belief" system - that our education system can play a valuable role in expanding children's understanding and (hopefully) tolerance. What ever way you look at it, the current arrangements will just never deliver this diversity of viewpoints - for the reasons I've outlined earlier.

Haha I guess I was getting my wires crossed. At primary school we had a religious session (30 mins, once a week from memory) and it was by someone from outside the school. I wanted to acknowledge that I found this very useful, but I feel it could be improved on if it encompassed more of the mainstream religions. Perhaps just a mandated religious subject incorporated into social studies (if its still called that) touching on the major religions. If it only achieves to teach tolerance for one another then I'm happy!

Sidestep

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#1009073 19-Mar-2014 15:52

Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ:

After all the Lord said .... let there be light and there was and you could see for bloody miles.

If he said, let there be light. Does that not mean darkness existed first?

What is darkness, is it something of its own, black? Or is it simply the absence of light? Did light therefore create darkness?

Yes it's a conundrum. Similar to the question “what was before the big bang”

MikeB4

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#1009078 19-Mar-2014 16:03

Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ:

After all the Lord said .... let there be light and there was and you could see for bloody miles.

If he said, let there be light. Does that not mean darkness existed first?

What is darkness, is it something of its own, black? Or is it simply the absence of light? Did light therefore create darkness?

Holy crap on a cracker, you have given me a headache now :P

MikeB4

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#1009079 19-Mar-2014 16:04

Sidestep:
Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ:

After all the Lord said .... let there be light and there was and you could see for bloody miles.

If he said, let there be light. Does that not mean darkness existed first?

What is darkness, is it something of its own, black? Or is it simply the absence of light? Did light therefore create darkness?

Yes it's a conundrum. Similar to the question “what was before the big bang”

Thats easy.... The Big silence :P

HowickDota

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Ultimate Geek

#1009105 19-Mar-2014 16:30

Every Wednesday at my primary school (public) we would have "Bible class" in the morning and to be honest it was quite fun even though I wasn't Christian because we sang lots of songs, listened to stories, did colouring and stuff. It also would have been awkward to be one of the odd ones to refuse the class as well, I only remember a couple of kids that didn't partake because of their parent's wishes and apparently they went to the library instead and did quiet work which seemed less fun.

ubergeeknz

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#1009117 19-Mar-2014 16:47

HowickDota: Every Wednesday at my primary school (public) we would have "Bible class" in the morning and to be honest it was quite fun even though I wasn't Christian because we sang lots of songs, listened to stories, did colouring and stuff. It also would have been awkward to be one of the odd ones to refuse the class as well, I only remember a couple of kids that didn't partake because of their parent's wishes and apparently they went to the library instead and did quiet work which seemed less fun.

You just summed up exactly why it is so insidious and why we want it to stop.

HowickDota

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Ultimate Geek

#1009141 19-Mar-2014 17:05

ubergeeknz:
HowickDota: Every Wednesday at my primary school (public) we would have "Bible class" in the morning and to be honest it was quite fun even though I wasn't Christian because we sang lots of songs, listened to stories, did colouring and stuff. It also would have been awkward to be one of the odd ones to refuse the class as well, I only remember a couple of kids that didn't partake because of their parent's wishes and apparently they went to the library instead and did quiet work which seemed less fun.

You just summed up exactly why it is so insidious and why we want it to stop.

That's right. I guess I was just recounting my point of view as a child, it seemed innocent enough at the time but in hindsight the class wasn't really optional for us.

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Sidestep

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#1009144 19-Mar-2014 17:06

Back to the OP's topic
The breadth and range of responses to the original Stuff article tell me a couple of things

1st - there's nothing like religion to stir up a good debate

2nd – I'm glad I'm in NZ where we can have that free debate

Geektastic

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#1009191 19-Mar-2014 17:54

ubergeeknz:
HowickDota: Every Wednesday at my primary school (public) we would have "Bible class" in the morning and to be honest it was quite fun even though I wasn't Christian because we sang lots of songs, listened to stories, did colouring and stuff. It also would have been awkward to be one of the odd ones to refuse the class as well, I only remember a couple of kids that didn't partake because of their parent's wishes and apparently they went to the library instead and did quiet work which seemed less fun.

You just summed up exactly why it is so insidious and why we want it to stop.

Less fun but almost certainly more useful...

Geektastic

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#1009202 19-Mar-2014 17:55

sdav:
freitasm: I have removed one mention of Godwin's Law. As per my post in another thread, THIS IS A GENERAL WARNING.

Anyone invoking Godwin Law from this point gets banned without warning BECAUSE THIS IS A WARNING.

How on earth did someone make that jump!

Indeed. And what is so bad about Godwins anyway? Never understood that.

Jaxson

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#1009203 19-Mar-2014 17:59

ubergeeknz: I was wondering how long before someone picked holes in the census data.

I don't think anyone is picking holes. The question and results are fine for the area of interest intended.
What we are doing is extrapolating the results out from a different angle.
The question was essentially about "of those who identify with a religion, what is it?".
I'm asking how many people really show little or no sign of identifying with any religion, which is sort of the none's mixed in with the jokes and results that were discarded for having responses that didn't conform to the original intention.

So, not picking holes, just getting the results I'm interested in from that data.

Other issue really seems to be that it's not religious studies at all, it's Christian or Bible studies, which is entirely specific and angled to one particular faith/belief system.
If you want to bring the Census data into here, for every 3 Christian studies classes in state schools their ought to be 2 of another belief and 1 of another etc...

MikeB4

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#1009205 19-Mar-2014 18:01

Geektastic:
sdav:
freitasm: I have removed one mention of Godwin's Law. As per my post in another thread, THIS IS A GENERAL WARNING.

Anyone invoking Godwin Law from this point gets banned without warning BECAUSE THIS IS A WARNING.

How on earth did someone make that jump!

Indeed. And what is so bad about Godwins anyway? Never understood that.

The FUG is clear on this ....

"

Post removal
Posts will be removed and the user may be banned if:
the post promotes illicit material;
the post promotes ways of breaking the law;
the post contains unlock codes;
the post links to unauthorised sources of copyrighted material not property of the author;
the post links to contests, pyramid schemes or affiliate programs, get rich scams;
the post contains instructions for sharing mechanisms that impact revenue streams of content providers;
the post is simply for URL dropping or SEO link building and similar;
the post is one of multiple copies in different forums;
the post contains or links profanity or adult material;
the post contains abuse towards any person, Geekzone user or not;
the post contains confidential information or information subject to NDA or other agreements and the owner requests removal;
Godwin's Law is invoked;
the post can be considered libel or defamation;
the forum is used as a "soapbox" by first time posters; "soapbox" posts usually have inflammatory subjects, bad words and the user does not come back with responses after being contacted by the ISP or other users."

From someone that has Admin'd a very large Forum it is good to stop those posts immediately as it can destroy any discussion instantly.

blakamin

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#1009230 19-Mar-2014 18:49

42

It's a much better book.

jonathan18

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#1009253 19-Mar-2014 19:07

Geektastic:
ubergeeknz:
HowickDota: Every Wednesday at my primary school (public) we would have "Bible class" in the morning and to be honest it was quite fun even though I wasn't Christian because we sang lots of songs, listened to stories, did colouring and stuff. It also would have been awkward to be one of the odd ones to refuse the class as well, I only remember a couple of kids that didn't partake because of their parent's wishes and apparently they went to the library instead and did quiet work which seemed less fun.

You just summed up exactly why it is so insidious and why we want it to stop.

Less fun but almost certainly more useful...

I think what the non-participating children do while the CE sessions are on varies greatly by school. Part of the criticism of the programme is those who don't take part (noting it's an opt-out not an opt-in, which is what I think it should be) is that it may be seen as a punishment. Have to leave the classroom to do something of negligible value - a bit like detention, if you will.

At my son's school they've at least put considerable thought into what these children do - for example, one of the topics last year was digital photography. Know which one I'd rather have him doing...

turnin

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#1009288 19-Mar-2014 19:33

Klipspringer: If we really want to go down this route, ie stop religion completely in schools, we should stop allowing our kids to sing "God defend New Zealand" in Schools. Its a little contradictory I think.

To be accurate it should be Nato, USA or the NZDF but the all have too many syllables

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