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Child Item

Primary school college course and atheism

number10a

So, as I've mentioned on here a couple of times, I'm nearly finished the H. Dip. for primary school teaching. We have our online religion exam on Wednesday and I was going through the demo exam to make sure it works. Some of the questions that will be on it are actually shocking!! I cannot believe that a college in Ireland in 2012 is allowed to preach such shìt.

I've attached two sample questions from the exam for your viewing pleasure. The answer that I will have to choose to get the marks for the first attachment is "True". And in the second attachment, asking which statement is false, I will have to choose the one about Hinduism. So apparently, the one about atheism is true.

I am actually in shock. How can something that is so subjective and open to opinion be included in an exam in a modern college??? I could understand something like "Atheist humanism has produced the worst horrors history has ever witnessed. Discuss." But actually putting a True/False option there?? There is no notable incident in history where someone actually went out and said "Oh those darn believers! I'll kill them all!!" I can think of plenty of examples where the reverse happened though.

I knew what I was letting myself in for when deciding to train as a primary school teacher in Ireland, but I didn't think it was this bad. I had already made up my mind that I was leaving Ireland as soon as I'm qualified (for a lot of reasons, teaching of religion being a more minor one), but this just confirms it even more. Effectively, I'm expected to spout this shìte out to a child if I ever teach in a Catholic school. Unbelievable.

/rant

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Turtwig

Oh, dear lord I just listened to it. Why do religious folk produce so much waffle and bloatish crap? First it was taken out of context, then later it was actually an absolute fact. Atheism caused the greatest atrocities. That statement is always going to be on the back of my mind now.

Michael you handled yourself very well. Good job, any chance you could ahem teach us how to communicate like that, maintaining patience and composure.:)

JonPierson

Nutgrover wrote: »

Teaching religion in publicly-funded schools should be deemed illegal under European human rights law (freedom of conscience). Teachers and teachers-to-be should demand banning religious education from curriculum and removing all religious symbols (crosses, figures of saints etc.) together with religious patrons of schools. Until this is not done, absurds like this are bound to continue. As an example, try to hang a cross in a classroom or preach any religion in a public school in France - you'll be immediately fired. That's exactly what should be implemented in Ireland A.D. 2012. Religion has nothing to do with education and knowledge, so it can only be harmully confusing to children. A teacher who should be their role model turns out to be a liar and hypocrite.

I find the initialism "AD" to be offensive since it forces upon me the presumption of there being a god. I would ask that, if years are to be quoted as being either more or less than 2012 years ago, the initialism "CE" (common era) and "BCE" (before the common era) are used instead of the religionist, overtly presumptive terms.:(

robindch

Up on Butterflies and Wheels too:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/03/true-or-false-atheism-is-the-source-of-all-evil

swiftblade

Fr Vincint talks an awful lot of crap. :mad:

Galvasean

Just listened to the radio debate. Twomey lies through his teeth throughout and keeps trying to change the subject. Barely a sentence was uttered by him that didn't include something which was definitely false. The Newstalk bit cuts out as Twomey says the RCC is inclusive to everybody. I do hope this was corrected / challenged.
I think Nugent did very well to keep calm and keep the debate logical and fact based (particularly citing references which could be easily looked up by anyone).
I do not agree with some here that feel Nugent should have adopted a more aggressive approach. I think that would be detrimental to proceedings as a free for all may well have ensued which would have meant the debate would vary off course, something i think Twomey was purposely trying to do at times.

I say bravo Mr. Nugent. You came across as a gent in the debate and never lost site of the topic at hand and made your points in a clear and concise way.

JonPierson

Galvasean wrote: »

I think Nugent did very well to keep calm and keep the debate logical and fact based (particularly citing references which could be easily looked up by anyone).
I do not agree with some here that feel Nugent should have adopted a more aggressive approach.

I should probably keep this to myself but, for reasons that will now become clear, I can't. I have spent no short time with Michael Nugent, over the last few months, driving him to debates at colleges and universities around the island and making (rather shabby) attempts to video them (see atheist.ie).

Mick has to put up with the sort of verbal diarrhoea, like that emanating from Vincent Twomey today, from religionists at most of these debates. It is, frankly, beyond my understanding how he manages to contain himself, on occasions.

He is always civil, well-mannered and polite to all those he debates with, not only during the debates but also before and afterwards. He always keeps his cool, whatever the provocation, and I have never seen him become noticeably angry.

He is, in short, an excellent ambassador for Atheist Ireland and, I would like to think, all those wishing to see a separation of church and state and a secular society.

I was talking to Mick, earlier, to congratulate him on the Newstalk feature and I said that I am sure that I would have lost my cool. Mick has this ability to lead the ignorant into clearly showing their ignorance without having to over egg the pudding. It would be hard to believe that anyone missed the fact that Twomey verbalised his bizarre idea of the 'facts', presumably in context and yet repeatedly stated that those same 'facts', as printed in the course notes, were taken out of context. I would have rammed that down his throat, Mick let him hang himself.

Sadly, though, the truth will never get through to some. I heard some of the text messages afterwards, e.g. 'well done to Fr. Twomey, someone needs to stand up for the Catholics, we're the majority'.

What the church stance actually is, and what many of its followers who have been indoctrinated to believe it is, is that human rights somehow belong to the majority. Of course, the exact opposite is the truth.

We heard the latest example of the propaganda today, following on from the concerted efforts of the church repeatedly equating 'atheism' and 'secularism' and spreading the lie that secular schools are atheist schools, whatever an atheist school is. We heard Twomey state that ultra-right wing nazism equals atheist; ultra-left wing Marxist Stalinism equals atheist and ultra-left wing Maoism equals atheist.

For any of you who are not mathematicians, that means that Twomey is stating that nazism, Marxist Stalinism and Maoism are, in every respect, equal given that each one of them equals atheist. His (Im)moral Theology course notes are bad enough, I hope he never taught mathematics (or perhaps he did... to the FFers in the last government).

nkay1985

Fair play Mr. Nugent. I thought you handled that very well. I'm usually a fan of Jonathan Healy but feel someone like Pat Kenny would have challenged him more on some of the more ludicrous claims he made.

I noticed Healy said that 7 new schools were announced that are not under the Roman Catholic banner. Have just Googled it and they're Educate Together. Surely another progression and hopefully we won't be having to deal with crap like this issue in the future. Create enough jobs in non-Catholic schools and our student teachers won't be subjected to courses such as the one in Hibernia in order to secure employment.

Mark Hamill

Galvasean wrote: »

I do not agree with some here that feel Nugent should have adopted a more aggressive approach.

I just want to point out that when I said I felt Michael Nugent should have been less nice, I didn't mean he should have become rude or argumentative or anything like that. I just thought that there were plenty of times, particularly in the latter half, where it would have been easy to verbally pull the rugs out from under Twomey's feet but they weren't taken advantage of, eg: pointing out how he was saying that the course material was pluralistic, objective and out of context; or how he was laughable wrong with his definition of agnostic (which calls into question how qualified he actually is to write course material about them or similar groups).

Besides that, I agree that Michael game across really well, is a good orator and stays a lot more calm than I would manage, I'm sure.

JonPierson

nkay1985 wrote: »

I noticed Healy said that 7 new schools were announced that are not under the Roman Catholic banner. Have just Googled it and they're Educate Together.

In fact, only five of the newly announced school patronages are Educate Together. One is VEC patronage and the other is Foras Pátrúnachta patronage. Foras Pátrúnachta says, on its website; "One of the advantages of Foras Pátrúnachta is that patronage is available to schools of any religious denomination and to interdenominational and multi- denominational schools".

Educate together is a MULTI-denominational system which does not include religious instruction or faith formation during the school day, although I understand that the same school building may be used out-of-hours for this purpose. From what Atheist Ireland believes, so far, all VEC schools include religious instruction (or indoctrination, as I prefer to call it) and faith formation during school hours. It is hard to tell what each Foras Pátrúnachta school practices, further investigation is required.

I'm not sure whether or not I have mentioned the matter earlier in this thread but the the United Nations Human Rights Committee has made it abundantly clear, as long ago as 2008, that Ireland "should increase its efforts to ensure that non-denominational primary education is widely available in all regions of the State party, in view of the increasingly diverse and multi-ethnic composition of the population of the State party".

NON-denominational, meaning secular, meaning no place for fairy stories in schools, only factual subjects (unless it's reading a story and the teacher makes it clear that it is not true). Personally, I do not have a problem with secondary schools teaching about religions as part of, say, history. Religion has had a major part to play in the journey from our evolution as homo sapiens to where we are today. Admittedly, without religion, we would almost certainly be technologically further advanced than we are now and, it goes without saying, there would be no religious conflicts but, be that as it may, one cannot simply ignore religion as though it never happened.

This extract is taken from UN document number CCPR/C/IRL/CO/3. Go to http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/hrcs93.htm search the page for CCPR/C/IRL/CO/3 and click the 'E' button underneath it. It is an interesting read because it is not only about Ireland's refusal to do anything about Roman Catholic control of education but also details many other human rights abuses of which we are guilty. After you read this document, if you have any knowledge of Irish law, you will see that many of our problems relate to our 1937 Constitution written by John McQuaid. If you do not have any knowledge of Irish law, please, feel free to PM me and I will try to explain where the anti-human rights parts of the Constitution are and any other matters that I can.

wonderfulname

JonPierson wrote: »

It is hard to tell what each Foras Pátrúnachta school practices, further investigation is required....

Foras Pátrúnachta are patrons of gaelscoileanna, the Irish language is their primary concern, from what I can gather through google the one in question is multi-denominational.

Can I ask, cause I don't really get it, what's the big difference between multi and non denominational schools?

Insect Overlord

wonderfulname wrote: »

Foras Pátrúnachta are patrons of gaelscoileanna, the Irish language is their primary concern, from what I can gather through google the one in question is multi-denominational.

Can I ask, cause I don't really get it, what's the big difference between multi and non denominational schools?

There are no non-denominational schools in Ireland. Such schools wouldn't mention religion at all.

Multi-denominational schools use the time usually allocated to Religious Education to focus on morality, as well as teaching children about the various world religions. The idea is that children will have a balanced education and a decent understanding of different beliefs, but they won't be proselytised themselves during school hours.

wonderfulname

Insect Overlord wrote: »

The idea is that children will have a balanced education and a decent understanding of different beliefs, but they won't be proselytised themselves during school hours.

Thanks, I like that idea, religion is something with massive historical and societal significance, in a manner that even children should know something about, teaching it impartially makes perfect sense.

JonPierson

wonderfulname wrote: »

Thanks, I like that idea, religion is something with massive historical and societal significance, in a manner that even children should know something about, teaching it impartially makes perfect sense.

I agree...but not from the age of four. Which is why I referred to secondary schools including it in history classes. Unless you have extremely bizarre parents, by the time you go to secondary school your head is probably empty of childhood fantasies like Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and should be able to distinguish between fact, fiction and 'belief'.

I think that kids are in primary school to be educated and learn how to function as part of a group. They need to be given a moral and ethical compass and, I suppose, learn right from wrong. I really do not think that confusing them with various versions of the beliefs that are held around the world is an effective use of their time. Religion sucks out 20% of the school day, not including the 'integrated curriculum' indoctrinations, prayers here and there or clergy and church visits, let alone communion and confirmation.

We, as a nation, are letting our children down. We need to be getting their heads filled with mathematics, the sciences, modern languages, etc. I don't think that we can properly benefit from a 'knowledge economy' if we don't have knowledge. It seems to me that spending 20% of children's formative years in school filling their heads with 'beliefs' is depriving them of a full, rich primary education.

Education in schools, religion in churches. Simple.

wonderfulname

JonPierson wrote: »

I agree...but not from the age of four. Which is why I referred to secondary schools including it in history classes.

You think it's right that until the age of 12 a school give no indication of the basis behind the different cultures that are evident in our society? You must seriously underestimate children, they can distinguish between fact and fiction long before 12 and leaving a gaping hole in their world view because it's just someone's beliefs is a little absurd in my opinion.

As for the 20% of the school day and the integrated curriculum stuff, were religion treated impartially and given the weighting it merits that wouldn't be a problem now, would it? Kind of pointless to aim that at me when it is a problem within the primary school curriculum and catholic patronage and not the concept of actually educating a child about the world around them, which is what I was referring to.

Michael Nugent

Thanks for the feedback about the interview.

To avoid confusion, Atheist Ireland believes that children in primary schools should be taught about the different religious beliefs that exist, in an objective, critical and pluralist manner, but with no faith formation within school hours.

The terms denominational, inter-denominational, multi-denominational and non-denominational are used inconsistently and confusingly in Ireland.

We have been trying to get the Government to define in legislation what these terms mean in the context of the Irish education system.

In principle, using the normal meanings of the words,

A denominational school would teach religion through the ethos of one religious denomination, such as Roman Catholicism or some brand of Protestantism etc.
An inter-denominational or multi-denominational school would teach religion through an ethos that reflects some permutation of the ethos of different religious denominations.
A non-denominational school would teach about different religious beliefs through a religiously neutral ethos.

Educate Together describes itself as multi-denominational, and the Educate Together Charter describes this status as follows:

Multi-denominational i.e. all children having equal rights of access to the school, and children of all social, cultural and religious backgrounds being equally respected.

To me, that seems closer to a non-denominational school describing itself as a multi-denominational school, but I’m not sure in practice exactly what it is. It is clear that they do accept children of atheist parents, but as atheism is not a denomination the description suggests that such children are being (in principle at least) accommodated rather than accepted as equals.

It reminds me of a quote supposedly attributed to Garret Fitzgerald: “I can see that it works in practice, but does it work in theory?”

However, I think it is important that schools should have a sound philosophical foundation, and we will be contacting Educate Together in the near future to discuss this with them.

Peregrinus

The terminology is confusing, and it’s not helped by the fact that there’s a movement within Christianity that describes itself as “non-denominational”. They reject the whole notion of denomination, which they regard as divisive, but they are very definitely religious (and not particularly pluralist).

Plus, I think denomination is a concept which is of relevance to Christianity in particular. There are different traditions and movements within Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, but they are not normally conceived of as “denominations”. For that matter, there are different traditions and movements within the nontheist philosophical tradition such as scepticism, rationalism, secularism, etc; we don’t conceive of them as denominations.

We may be stuck with it, but to be honest I think “denomination” is the wrong foundation for the terminology we need here.

It seems to me that we are talking about two models of pluralism. One of these accommodates differing philosophical positions by according them all equal esteem. In practice, this might mean affording competing perspectives equal access to, e.g. school premises and resources, an equal role in pastoral care, etc. Pragmatically, this has to be subject to demand, resources, etc; if there’s only a handful of children of Group X in the school and Group X isn’t seeking to take advantage of premises or resources or access or whatever, well, there isn’t a great deal you can do about that.

The other ensures equality between differing philosophical positions by, basically, excluding them all. But this is extremely difficult to do in practice because, if you are to ensure equality, you have to exclude nontheist philosophical positions just as rigorously as theist ones. And that is pretty difficult to do.

Michael Nugent

Peregrinus wrote: »

It seems to me that we are talking about two models of pluralism. One of these accommodates differing philosophical positions by according them all equal esteem. In practice, this might mean affording competing perspectives equal access to, e.g. school premises and resources, an equal role in pastoral care, etc. Pragmatically, this has to be subject to demand, resources, etc; if there’s only a handful of children of Group X in the school and Group X isn’t seeking to take advantage of premises or resources or access or whatever, well, there isn’t a great deal you can do about that.

The other ensures equality between differing philosophical positions by, basically, excluding them all. But this is extremely difficult to do in practice because, if you are to ensure equality, you have to exclude nontheist philosophical positions just as rigorously as theist ones. And that is pretty difficult to do.

Or else (the model I would advocate) you accord them all equal esteem by teaching children about each of them in an objective, critical pluralist manner. That does not exclude any of the philosophical positions; what it excludes is giving any of them greater esteem by teaching that it is true and that the others are false.

By the way, I agree with your earlier comments about the terminology of denominations.

kylith

JonPierson wrote: »

I agree...but not from the age of four. Which is why I referred to secondary schools including it in history classes. Unless you have extremely bizarre parents, by the time you go to secondary school your head is probably empty of childhood fantasies like Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and should be able to distinguish between fact, fiction and 'belief'.

I think that kids are in primary school to be educated and learn how to function as part of a group. They need to be given a moral and ethical compass and, I suppose, learn right from wrong. I really do not think that confusing them with various versions of the beliefs that are held around the world is an effective use of their time. Religion sucks out 20% of the school day, not including the 'integrated curriculum' indoctrinations, prayers here and there or clergy and church visits, let alone communion and confirmation.

I disagree. Leave religious instruction to the parents? Yes. But to leave all religious information to them, I think, would be a bad idea as it has the potential to lead to sectarian divides.

I think that from an early age a child needs an impartial person who can say "Religion X believes X, and that's ok. Religion Y believes Y, and that's ok too".

nkay1985

kylith wrote: »

I disagree. Leave religious instruction to the parents? Yes. But to leave all religious information to them, I think, would be a bad idea as it has the potential to lead to sectarian divides.

I think that from an early age a child needs an impartial person who can say "Religion X believes X, and that's ok. Religion Y believes Y, and that's ok too".

I'd agree with you on this but I would also not like to see it take up a significant proportion of class time either. I'm sure in practice it doesn't get 18% or 20% of class time but I certainly wouldn't be happy if this was he case, even if it was actual teaching rather that faith formation.

Mark Hamill

wonderfulname wrote: »

You think it's right that until the age of 12 a school give no indication of the basis behind the different cultures that are evident in our society? You must seriously underestimate children, they can distinguish between fact and fiction long before 12 and leaving a gaping hole in their world view because it's just someone's beliefs is a little absurd in my opinion.

If children could distinguish between fact and fiction long before twelve then there would be no religious people.

wonderfulname wrote: »

As for the 20% of the school day and the integrated curriculum stuff, were religion treated impartially and given the weighting it merits that wouldn't be a problem now, would it? Kind of pointless to aim that at me when it is a problem within the primary school curriculum and catholic patronage and not the concept of actually educating a child about the world around them, which is what I was referring to.

Even if religious education was simply information about different beliefs, 20% of the day is far too long. Many many people have certain sports, or their nationalism, or drinking alcohol, as the basis for their cultural identity, should they also get 20% of the schools day? If you have to learn all of your culture in school, then that culture obviously doesn't impact on your daily life and therefore isn't that important. There comes a time when it is needed to point out that school is there so that you can learn to make a difference to your culture, not merely to have it mindlessly droned into your mind.

Start young, one class a week teaching kids about different religions and cultures, but leave the rest of the week to teaching them to read and write, use numbers, be creative, be skeptical and learn about the physical world.

the culture of deference

JonPierson wrote: »

We, as a nation, are letting our children down. We need to be getting their heads filled with mathematics, the sciences, modern languages, etc. I don't think that we can properly benefit from a 'knowledge economy' if we don't have knowledge. It seems to me that spending 20% of children's formative years in school filling their heads with 'beliefs' is depriving them of a full, rich primary education.

Education in schools, religion in churches. Simple.

well said

Mark Hamill wrote: »

If children could distinguish between fact and fiction long before twelve then there would be no religious people.

as I said before, no religion until you are 18

JonPierson

wonderfulname wrote: »

You think it's right that until the age of 12 a school give no indication of the basis behind the different cultures that are evident in our society? You must seriously underestimate children, they can distinguish between fact and fiction long before 12 and leaving a gaping hole in their world view because it's just someone's beliefs is a little absurd in my opinion.

As for the 20% of the school day and the integrated curriculum stuff, were religion treated impartially and given the weighting it merits that wouldn't be a problem now, would it? Kind of pointless to aim that at me when it is a problem within the primary school curriculum and catholic patronage and not the concept of actually educating a child about the world around them, which is what I was referring to.

I apologise if you think for one moment that I am being personally critical of you in any way at all, it was certainly not my intention. I was only thinking, last night, how well this thread was going.

I see this whole matter matter as a debate, not a 'cast in stone', opninionated set of views and, in that light, I can see, very much, where you are coming from. To be honest, after I wrote that, I started to wonder, myself, how it would be best to handle the current situation where kids from all over the world are coming together, probably for the first time, in Irish primary schools.

I think, though, that culture and religion are not necessarily the same thing. On the other hand, religions quite frequently have an (adverse?) influence on cultures and the mindset of different communities.

Having read your post, I think you are correct that 12/13 is probably too late to be starting but I still maintain that 4 is too young.

Perhaps, though, the best way to approach this would be through, say, geography. Maybe it could be done by teaching the kids about different countries' customs, national dress and food, even, and then saying that in these countries people have different beliefs and how the different beliefs have different gods, and ideas of how the world was created, and say that many people don't believe in gods at all... and now let's move on to science.

What would you suggest? How would you introduce religion and how early do you think it would be sensible to do so?

By the way, you are of course correct in saying that the current curriculum (http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/Curriculum/Intro_Eng.pdf) is tremendously biased towards religion and that just has to be the influence of the church on government, disgraceful.

I apologise again if you think I was being personal, I certainly did not intend to be.

Ms Mustard

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Or else (the model I would advocate) you accord them all equal esteem by teaching children about each of them in an objective, critical pluralist manner. That does not exclude any of the philosophical positions; what it excludes is giving any of them greater esteem by teaching that it is true and that the others are false.

In my experience as an Educate Together parent, this pretty much describes what ET already do. Their "multi-denominational" stance welcomes all religions and none. My children would be counted among the "none" (if counted that is, which they aren't unless they choose to volunteer that information themselves)

oceanclub

Hi all,

I know there was an article in The Journal about this issue, and i thought there was ones in the mainstream media (Examiner? Indo?) but can't find them. If anyone has any links, could you paste them here? Would be grateful,

P.

oceanclub

Ms Mustard wrote: »

In my experience as an Educate Together parent, this pretty much describes what ET already do. Their "multi-denominational" stance welcomes all religions and none. My children would be counted among the "none" (if counted that is, which they aren't unless they choose to volunteer that information themselves)

It's not surprising that another Iona Institute patron, David Quinn, has written a few articles both criticising ET for talking about teaching _about_ atheism (rather than teaching it in the sense of indoctrination) and also trying to stir up Muslim parents against atheist parents, a pretty nasty tactic:

http://www.ionainstitute.eu/index.php?id=1402

http://www.ionainstitute.net/index.php?id=1407

P.

recedite

Michael Nugent wrote: »

The terms denominational, inter-denominational, multi-denominational and non-denominational are used inconsistently and confusingly in Ireland.

We have been trying to get the Government to define in legislation what these terms mean in the context of the Irish education system.
[*]An inter-denominational or multi-denominational school would teach religion through an ethos that reflects some permutation of the ethos of different religious denominations.

[*]A non-denominational school would teach about different religious beliefs through a religiously neutral ethos.
[/LIST]

Educate Together describes itself as multi-denominational, and the Educate Together Charter describes this status as follows:

Multi-denominational i.e. all children having equal rights of access to the school, and children of all social, cultural and religious backgrounds being equally respected.

To me, that seems closer to a non-denominational school describing itself as a multi-denominational school

There was some discussion about this earlier in this (long!) thread, but basically there is deliberate confusion inherent in the terminology being used.

The term "multi-denominational" lacks specific meaning. The VEC are setting up primary schools in which the kids are segregated only during the mandatory "religious education" class. They would be divided into different groups and each group indoctrinated with a different brand of mumbo jumbo. The term multi-denominational fails to distinguish this from the more objective teaching about religion of the Educate Together model, where any religious indoctrination would have to occur outside school hours.

So, even the terminology invented and perpetuated by the religious is misleading and inaccurate. That's without even getting started on the indoctrination itself, including the prayers and imagery pupils are exposed to throughout the day in a denominational school.

It was pointed out that there is at least one school describing itself as non-denominational. But it is a privately funded montessori school;

iguana wrote: »

There are, they are just completely private and receive no state funding. Drumnigh Montessori Primary, for example, is non-denom.

http://drumnighmontessori.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=9

It seems that when Educate Together were starting up, they were informed by Dept. of Education that a non-denom school would not get any state funding. As a result, they changed their "labelled status" to "multi-denominational", but anyone who cares to look can see that they are in fact "non-denominational" according to this (silly) terminology. I would imagine they are now getting to the stage where they are big and bold enough to challenge this nonsense without fear of losing all the teacher funding. But that might require changes to the Irish Constitution.
Good luck if you decide to tackle this one....

wonderfulname

JonPierson wrote: »

I apologise if you think for one moment that I am being personally critical of you in any way at all, it was certainly not my intention.

No worries, didn't feel that at all just thought you went off on a strange tangent.

JonPierson wrote: »

I think, though, that culture and religion are not necessarily the same thing. On the other hand, religions quite frequently have an (adverse?) influence on cultures and the mindset of different communities.

Influence is too weak a term IMO, look at Irish society alone, it is weighted down to an absurd degree by Catholicism, it is not at all the same thing as culture, but to understand our culture, past and present (even lack thereof at certain levels and times), and our history, you have to understand the Irish interpretation of the religion, it has had a massive impact. Of course the same is true to differing degrees of other cultures, cultures kids today actually see whereas I wouldn't have, and could have done with being given a basic understanding of as a child that was missing due to the heavily Christian orientated primary education I got. As somebody else said even x believe x and y believe y would have been more than helpful.

JonPierson wrote: »

Having read your post, I think you are correct that 12/13 is probably too late to be starting but I still maintain that 4 is too young.

Agreed, it's a bit too much for a very young child (unless you're in the business of gettin' em' while they're young :P) But whenever history and geography start coming into the picture in a proper learned fashion makes perfect sense to me. As you've said it is an aspect of both, in my opinion one which can't be overlooked. I'm pretty sure Martin Luther, monastic settlements and Henry VIII came up in primary school history for me, I think it would be pretty hard to understand those topics without an introduction to Christianity first, just like I had an introduction to Greek, Norse, Roman and Egyptian gods (although strangely nothing else currently practised...) for those aspects of history.

JonPierson wrote: »

By the way, you are of course correct in saying that the current curriculum (http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/Curriculum/Intro_Eng.pdf) is tremendously biased towards religion and that just has to be the influence of the church on government, disgraceful...
...What would you suggest?

There was a conversation here at some point (probably around the time of the exams) about leaving cert religion, the incredible bias and questionable motives of the course are something I think would interest you, and certainly reinforce the idea that religious education in Ireland isn't at all about education. Also I would imagine in a lot of schools where the subject is compulsory that 20% figure isn't far off, and more of a crime than in primary school as it can come at the expense of entire areas of study, rather than just stealing time from each. Then of course there's the problem of schools offering their own brand of RE, timetabled, yet not for national examination...
Official Syllabus
Recent Exam

That was a wee bit off topic but anyway, just to say it's not just a primary school problem.

Mark Hamill: There is a difference between education and indoctrination, if you're just considering education, god would be forgotten alongside dragons. Indoctrination however, well, there's a reason the Hitler Youth* was mandatory...

*Not a Godwin, simply the best retrospective example of indoctrination there is.

JonPierson

Thank you, wonderfulname. I think you were tempted to say something about me that I may not have already revealed but that you probably guessed. Yes! I am English and I didn't move here until I was 33, 25 years ago – with my Irish wife and our newly-born (now confused) son. (I have taken out Irish citizenship, by the way.)

So, I did not have to go through the religious indoctrination that it seems my Irish contemporaries (including my wife) were forced to endure. England, Scotland and Wales have state education, in state schools, available to all (Northern Ireland is just, well, 'not the same'). Yes, the schools were sort of Church of England-ish but there was certainly no requirement whatsoever to take any examinations in the subject of religion, unless you wanted to and my memories of 'Religious Education' was, basically, story telling.

I have known Ireland since the early 1970s and I have to admit that I did find it peculiar?, quirky?, weird? that I had to 'smuggle' condoms into the country – including for family members! I think I was also asked to 'import' certain publications that, whilst on open sale in England, were banned in Ireland. It will come as no surprise, then, that not only I, but many others, found this to be a bit 'backward'. And I don't only mean English people, there were plenty of young Irish people I met (I was young then, as well) who held the same opinion.

So, moving on to 1991 and my son has to go to school. I was assured that the indoctrination was not as bad as it used to be and so he went to the local (RC) National School. I live in rural Meath and the nearest alternative was a CofI school in Drogheda, about 9 miles away, so no escape from religious indoctrination anyway. (I don't recall having any knowledge of Educate Together and I'm sure there was nothing reasonably close, mainly because there still isn't.)

I decided that the best way to 'fit in' to my new home area was not to make waves, so I didn't. Let's face it, it's bad enough being a Brit!

My son went through all of that mumbo-jumbo stuff but, at home, I made it clear that what he was being taught at school was only one, limited, view of the world and that many people believed that there are no gods, and I was one of them.

OK, it helped that I was an atheist and my wife had spent 16 years in England, mostly with me, and, although, at the beginning, she went to mass, that gradually tailed off. When we came over here, she really didn't mind me telling our son that there wasn't a god and she told him she thought there was.

Happily, he has turned out to be an extremely caring, generous, honest, respectful and sensitive young man and, yes, he's an atheist, currently having a second go at doing a science degree.

I'm not sure when I first started to get worked up about the injustice of effectively having a State church in Ireland, and the adverse effect that has on the country and its people. I think it was probably a year or so after I had a breakdown, caused by severe depression, from which I still suffer and, as a consequence, am unable to return to work.

In an attempt to rehabilitate myself, and on the advice of one of the psychiatrists I saw, I started to do a law degree in 2007. The first year included the study of the Irish Constitution and I was shocked from the first line of the preamble. A few months after I started my degree (14th December 2007, to be precise) I found atheist.ie and realised that I was not alone!

The most interesting subject I studied was Human Rights. The second most interesting (but for me, ultimately, extremely difficult when it came to the examinations) was Jurisprudence. Both of these subjects really brought home to me the desperate need to see my adopted country become a secular state in which the constitution could be amended and so see Ireland able to fully adopt international human rights best practice.

It is disgusting that the Roman Catholic church is able to, effectively, dictate to the State how children are educated and what their heads are filled with. It is outrageous that taxpayer's money (I do have a [much reduced] income from my employer so I still pay taxes!) can be used to give to a church. It is an obscenity that the influence of the Roman Catholic church prevents Ireland from adopting the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in full.

I shall work, with Atheist Ireland, for as long as it takes, or for as long as I can, to make Ireland a secular state that is, like the Atheist Ireland goal says, rational, ethical and free from superstition and supernaturalism.

darealtulip

It was in the Irish times:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0310/1224313106779.html

Sadly in the same paper:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0310/1224313105941.html

expectationlost

Fr Vincent Twomey who rejected any problem with the course notes is still the author of Hibernia College religion courses isn't he? what does Hibernia College have to say about that.