Religion and Engaging with the Teacher

I think you've fallen for too much facebook guff. You are operating in a free market. Nobody forces you to live in a particular area or to attend a particular school (you can actually even home-school your children if you want to!!). You choose where you want to live and you choose what school to send your child to or what school not to send them to.

There is a Constitutional right to education. Which is why the State provides teachers. The teacher gets paid regardless of whether they teach in a religious or non-religious school (once that school is properly certified and approved). If the State builds a school, it owns the school. If another body builds the school, it owns the school. If the State proposes to build a school, it has an open call for potential patrons to apply for it. A parent may be any religion, or none, and send their child to the local Catholic school because they like the school. That parent pays tax. It isn't your right to decide to over-ride the Constitution and say that his child shall not receive the same funding as every other child who attends a public school. You don't get to discriminate based on your own intolerances.

You have your set of beliefs. If you build your magical Atheist school then sure a Flying Spaghetti Monsterian can move into your area and use your argument that the government is using taxpayer money to fund your beliefs in a school rather than what they believe to be the real truth - Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.........so you're gonna have to hand over your school........

You think i care whether the schools are taken out of church patronage?? i couldnt care less, but it just proves you arent reading my posts. Like i said i dont really care what man in the sky you believe in, but personally id rather get on with things than see injustice everywhere because its all a load of nonsense really.

Assumption A: that a more suitable school further away, but still within reach, exists. Most parents both have to work and driving kids about for hours every day is madness.

Assumption B: that this school has enough places available to admit all applicants from within its catchment area, because you're outside it so will be right at the bottom of its admission policy criteria.

Most ETs are already oversubscribed from within their own catchment area so there is no chance of a child living in an adjacent area which has no ET getting in. None whatsoever. But people still keep putting this forward as a "solution".

10 per cent? So you're claiming that Catholics make up 90% of the population now?

Meanwhile, back in the real world, only 78% bothered to tick Catholic on the last census, and that figure includes OAPs. Most parents (even among those whose children do communion and confirmation) don't regularly attend church and clearly don't regard the Catholic faith as very important in their lives beyond a nice day out for the kids. You'll spot them on the day at the mass, not having a clue when to stand up or sit down because they haven't been to church since they were a child themselves.

Most marriages taking place in Ireland are now non-religious. What makes you or anyone else think that these future parents want a school system dominated by religious ethos schools which indoctrinate during the school day?

Please don't lie. Where did I say that I should be allowed to over-ride the Constitution and discriminate against non-Catholics? Did I say that non-Catholics should be excluded from Catholic schools? Did I say that State funding for teachers in non-Catholic schools should be removed (The converse of that was proposed by another poster who wants to deny State funding to any child that attends a Catholic school). I have repeatedly said if Catholics/Jewish/Muslims/Athiests/Flying-Spagetthi-Monsterans want to get their act together and get a proper structure in place and support for a school then they should be given support. But the don't get to sit on their arses and steal the effort of others.

Nobody forces anyone to attend a school. Your own story is proof of same. There was a Catholic school near you which you didn't want your children to attend so you moved. That is free choice in action. I assume you moved to a non-denomination school. If there was a Catholic family living beside that school you moved to, it isn't discrimination against them that that school isn't Catholic. It would be discrimination if they were not allowed to attend it, or if there were different rules for State funding of Catholic schools compared to other denominations. People can moan that they can't afford to move house.....well that could be easily solved in advance by considering these things before they bought the house. Additionally, as others have pointed out, the vast majority of schools built in the last couple of decades have been non- or multi-denominational. These are often built in quickly growing areas. Which are also the areas with cheaper housing! The issue with not moving to those areas is not that they are not affordable, it is more snobbishness than anything.

Maybe a person lives in a relatively large town. They live in the older part of the town. There is a nice Catholic school beside them. On the other side of the town are all the new sprawling estates. The Educate Together school was set up there 10 years ago to cater for the massive influx of people. There are lots of immigrants who moved to the town. They have a fine new school there. But maybe Mammy doesn't want little Paddy to be mixing with the "new people". That's why they won't send them to the ET school. It's "too far away" they will pretend. Mammy has high-faluting ideas that she is special and little Paddy is special and she wants special rules made for her and everyone else should change and conform to what she wants on any given day of the week. Any child should be welcome at any of the schools.

Your argument is completely twisted. You are effectively taking the position that unless and until every single facet of education conforms to your specific desires, you are being discriminated against. If there was a single Catholic school in the country, you'd say you were being discriminated against because of its existence. That is completely self-centred madness.

So despite the fact the church is dying out, we still have almost 80% identify as catholic, 44% of marriages in 2019 were catholic.

Im not saying people want a school with a religous but most people are sensible and dont really care as long as its a good school, using words like indoctrinate and dominate shows your true colours in that regard.

what would the colour of your skin have to do with religion???

You’ve been making good, sensible arguments for the most part, but you’ve let yourself down here. You’ve essentially just said “you’re probably a racist with a viewpoint like that”, without quite coming out and saying it. Makes it seem like you’re starting to feel outmatched.

you are being 'left out' of things you dont want to be involved in anyway. Like i said it depends on the strength of your convictions, im happy to go along with it myself, if i cared that deeply about id make alternative arragements. Im sure my kids, much like i did, will start to question religion before they goto secondary school, sooner maybe as we dont attend church or make any reference to religion outside of school. I certainly dont feel they are being indoctrinated.

Like i said the core principals of most religions are fine anyway, its more the instituitions themselves that are the issue.

You have no right to tell anyone what they can or cannot post.

How is it any more defamatory than calling them utterly incompetent? They're either one, the other, or some mixture of both...

I absolutely DO want to be involved in the school's celebratory end of term event at Christmas and the school musical event. The problem is that they're founded on religious matters which don't apply to me, or to a growing number of other students and families.

why dont you suspend your disbelief for a few hours and join in, they wont go up in flames if they partake in a nativity play. Treat it as any other work of fiction.

Why should I expect my children to partake in something that isn't positioned as an work of fiction, but positioned as real life and we should be bowing down and adoring? Why should the State being paying people to indoctrinate others with their religious beliefs?