looksee wrote: » Mod: Lawred2 you are around long enough to know not to respond to a mod decision on thread.
Peregrinus wrote: » The right solution here is that the boy would sit in a library/study, and be adequately supervised, and be able to study whatever would yield him most educational advantage, and ideally the school would be resourced to enable it to provide this. But if you’re bargaining with the school over what can be done to accommodate the boy, pick your battles; the right to independent study is of more importance/value to the boy than the right to sit in a different room, and it costs the school nothing to provide it, so I’d look for that first, and worry about the separate room afterwards.
Peregrinus wrote: » ..Recedite suggested that the legal/constitution right was a right to opt out from religious indoctrination; in fact it’s a right to opt out from religious instruction. Arguably, even dispassionate and neutral information about various religions is “religious instruction”, but, even if it isn’t, “instruction” is clearly wider than “indoctrination”. So Irish law may in fact confer wider opt-out rights than the ECHR.
Frowzy wrote: » This goes way beyond discussion or debate, it's like being cross examined in court. Your opinion differs with mine, let's leave it there.
Frowzy wrote: » Mark Hamill wrote: » How does a religion class actually teach of this? This goes way beyond discussion or debate, it's like being cross examined in court.
Mark Hamill wrote: » How does a religion class actually teach of this?
recedite wrote: » Well, no you are still missing the whole point here. Dispassionate and neutral information about various religions is definitely not religious instruction, it is religious education. So there is no opt-out under either EU or Irish law.
Summary of contents Section A - The Search for meaning Section B – Christianity Section C – Religious faiths in Ireland today Section D – Morality in action Section E – God-talk Section F – A living faith – doing justice Section G – Celebrating faith Section H – Story
robindch wrote: » One of the more interesting things which comes up again and again in relation to schools particularly is, broadly, how unsympathetic religious posters are to the needs of non-religious people. If the shoes were on the other feet, one senses that claims of discrimination would be coming thick and fast.
Mark Hamill wrote: » According to Tenigate, this is the curriculum: Even assuming that Sections A, D, E, F, G and H are all somehow non-specific to Christianity, Christianity is given at least the same amount of time as all other religions In Ireland combined (and that's assuming Section C is actually as big as Section . Given that smacl has seen that at least Sections A and D are from a Christian perspective, I thinks its clear that the course is unduly biased towards Christianity and goes beyond simple religious education.
lazybones32 wrote: » The boy himself opted out of the class, not his parents. Might help to read op again?
lazybones32 wrote: » It is not a free class, so the teacher is within limits to prevent him from doing regular coursework. I think as the year moves on, your son will be able to read other subjects but writing or doing homework will reasonably not be allowed.
recedite wrote: » We should recognise that Christianity is the main religion, by far, in this country, therefore it has a special relevance to the Irish curriculum.
Also it should be noted that a lot of the "jesus stuff" in the doc relates to the historicity (or otherwise) of Jesus, which is a subject worthy of study
Mark Hamill wrote: » Is it not entirely reasonable to expect someone to support their claims? You have explained that you believe religion class is important because it teaches patience and tolerance but you haven't explained how it does so or why they should be inextricably linked to religion classes. Until you do, all you have is a double non-sequitor.
robindch wrote: » As Mark points out, when a poster makes some claim here in A+A, it's quite normal for another poster to ask you to expand on the claim or to back it up with evidence. If the poster don't, can't or won't do that, then it's quite reasonable to assume that the claim or comment is either false or simply not worth defending.
Frowzy wrote: » Perhaps if all if these people had paid attention in religion, LCVP, civics and debating class they would be able to carry out a more balanced discussion without pointing fingers. However perhaps they opted out!!
Zillah wrote: » In early years in secondary school religion class I had a belligerent weirdo who would go off on incoherent rants about God and invoke his poor understanding of physics in an attempt to instil the class with a sense of religious awe. Later we had a hippy who did guided meditation and I'm pretty sure was stoned a lot of the time. So if that counts or not I'm not sure? Either way, glad I didn't waste all that time doing something like math or science.
Zillah wrote: » I literally can't think of any motivation to block him from doing school work other than pure, unadulterated spite. This is all a vindictive desire to punish the uppity atheist and nothing more; it would be quite refreshing if anyone would admit that.
Frowzy wrote: » I have explained in my posts that I don't feel that we can be patient or tolerant if we don't understand another's beliefs.
smacl wrote: » Why so? I'd try be patient and tolerant of people by default and continue that way until such time as they repeatedly behave badly enough that my patience is worn down and I become intolerant of them as a result. Mostly, this doesn't happen, so I can get on with them just fine while remaining ignorant of their beliefs.
lazybones32 wrote: » I have one Q for you: how can anyone here admit that the teacher is punishing the student? It is the teacher, and only the teacher, who can admit that. I can admit to many things on his behalf, if you like.
Frowzy wrote: » Is someone discussing their beliefs considered "behaving badly" now? Or are you talking about something else? My comment was specifically on topic.
smacl wrote: » I think you missed my point. If someone behaves reasonably and fairly towards me I'll reciprocate and we can get on just fine without delving into one another's beliefs. Your suggestion that we can't be patient or tolerant of someone without understanding their beliefs implies a default stance of impatience and intolerance to those different to ourselves.
smacl wrote: » the child and his families constitutional rights are being abused.
Frowzy wrote: » Genuine question as I'm totally clueless about the law. Is there something in the constitution about attending religion classes?
This story raises a range of interesting issues concerning rights protected by the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Both documents protect freedom of religion (which is a right of both parents and children), and stipulate that parents have the right to determine their children’s religious education and upbringing. As part of this, both documents grant parents what might broadly be described as a right to withdraw their children from religious instruction to which they object.
Frowzy wrote: » I think you mistook my point
smacl wrote: » Not an expert either, but from my previously linked article written by someone who is; Basically, a school cannot insist that any of it students are given religious instruction against the will of their parents, as to do so would violate the above. So while mandatory religious education is allowed, if it places "undue emphasis on one religion or world-view, an opt-out must be provided and it must be effective". A brief look at the prescribed senior cycle religion textbooks leads me to suspect this is typically the case. In the case of the OP, the opt out is clearly ineffective.
smacl wrote: » Not admit, accuse. The implication of your post that you're only guilty of a transgression of you admit to it, which is clearly not the case. From what I've read, the child is being treated unfairly for having opted out of religion class. Unless that class is taught in an entirely object manner without pushing any religious agenda, the child and his families constitutional rights are being abused.
