Not baptising your child - what are the practical disadvantages in Ireland?

skyfall2012 wrote: »

Hi Dades, didn't you hear that Norway has one of the highest rates of suicide in Europe and that suicide is very low in religious groups. Now don't have me sound like I am promoting religion, but you got to admit, we need something to believe in and anything science fiction I have seen -mostly recently 'The Divide'- show the future is not bright, because of our self serving ways.

According to wikipedia Ireland @ #36 is only 2 places lower than Norway @ #34 in terms of Global suicide rates - figures for both are for 2009. I suspest that due to our economic troubles Ireland may now be sadly ahead of Norway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I know many people who were brought up without religion. My own son was one.

None of them have ever expressed a lack of 'something' - indeed all the ones I know are extremely moral and ethical people - which is not something I can say about all the religious people I know...

In Ireland most of our education system is controlled by the RCC which teaches us that without them we would become barbaric and lack moral guidance. That civilization itself would collapse - the truth is, it won't not just because civilization existed long before Christianity but because people can and do live without religion in a moral and ethical way and being religious has never stopped anyone from being evil.

It's a bit like if all the schools were controlled by Tayto. The Tayto priests told us that we would die if we didn't eat a bag of Tayto a day. That we would die if we ate Walkers as they were the 'wrong' crisps but still better than popcorn which was completely the wrong kind of salty snack food.

Everyday as children we are taught that only Tayto can keep us alive.

But some people discover that in fact Tayto are so saturated with fat that they are killing us. For centuries, Tayto was able to have these people put to death (along with the Walkers/popcorn/nachos etc etc eaters) but as people became more aware about diet and the effects of fat on our health more and more people began to question what the Tayto priests said.

Whole countries turned away from Tayto and began to eat Walkers. Many people began to say 'actually, Walkers are just as bad for the heath as Tayto. I am not going to eat any crisps. In fact, now that I look at the facts - all salty snacks are equally bad and I do not want my children being forced to eat a bag of this saturated fat everyday which is paid for out of my taxes.'

Some countries, like France, said 'Ok - no salty snack foods of any kind will be paid for by the State from now on. If people want their children to eat salty snacks they will have to pay for them themselves.'

Now, the people have a choice - they can eat whatever salty snack takes their fancy if they wish - but nobody can force them to if they do not want to.

I guess I am not going to get any reasonable replies to my question here, as you just keep repeating yourself about how bad religion is (which i am in agreement with). But, you might try asking your son about it rather than waiting for him to express it. He may never express his opinion on this subject as it was your big idea that he grow up without religion in the first place. Where as I have put this question to quite a few people and the general feeling was that they felt something was missing. They had no ceremonies around burying their dead, coming of age etc. etc.

Dades wrote: »

I've never heard of the 'The Divide', I'm more of a classic sci-fi fan myself (think Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End"). You make an interesting point, though I'm not sure where you get your stat from... "one of the highest"? They're 34 in the world according to a quick wiki search. (I'd also question the reporting of many, many countries who don't feel their interests are represented by documenting such travesties).

I just want know, since you keep repeating it, why do you maintain that societies needs religion - or will continue to need religion - to function? Do you not think that education and human advancement will eventually remove any dependency on myths to progress? How can belief in the supernatural be necessary to an educated population? Don't think in term of countries that only look to its own borders, but in terms of a planet that looks to the stars.

The Norway thing I read somewhere once. But, I also read as a country it has one of the best qualities of life along with Canada (in the world).

I am off to study Durkheim(1858-1917) as I think I might find my answer there. But, just to let you know my background, I am not very well educated on this subject, I just have a hunch. I am a stay at home person, I have 2 girls, whom I did not baptise because of the 'Murphy Report'. But they at the same time ask me huge philosophical questions from the ages of 4.
Religion offered answers to lifes' big questions, an opportunity to meet people, and somewhere to turn when times got hard. My grandmother who I never met, had an extremely hard life and I have asked my father how she got through this and he always replies 'it was her faith that got her through' and he ain't a church going man.
I feel I have a responsibility to my girls to find some answers, to the void, that the absence of religion might leave in their lives. Education might fill it, if we are educated in sociology and philosophy from an early age. Human advancement makes me think of China, the war in Afghanistan, North Korea, Russia, the recession in this country, the high rates of suicide in our country, nuclear bombs etc. Boards.ie is my new religion. Thanks.

skyfall2012 wrote: »

I guess I am not going to get any reasonable replies to my question here, as you just keep repeating yourself about how bad religion is (which i am in agreement with). But, you might try asking your son about it rather than waiting for him to express it. He may never express his opinion on this subject as it was your big idea that he grow up without religion in the first place. Where as I have put this question to quite a few people and the general feeling was that they felt something was missing. They had no ceremonies around burying their dead, coming of age etc. etc.

You keep insisting that were the influence of the RCC to be removed from the Civil State -i.e. complete separation of Church and State -that that would create a vacuum which would be filled by another religion.

I have given you examples of countries that have insisted on separation -including 'Catholic' France over 100 years ago - where what you fear has not happened.

You wondered who will teach our young about morals and ethics - It has been pointed out by myself and others that by an objective standard of moral and ethical beheaviour the RCC falls well short having been proven to be corrupt and more concerned with protecting itself time and time again.

My son is a grown man and getting him to stop expressing his opinion is the difficult thing- if he wished to join a religion he is free to do so. He hasn't. I think that indicates he has made his choice.

Skyfall - to be honest it seems to me that you have bought the RCC's propaganda as to why we 'need' it hook line and sinker...
In Ireland they have a near complete monopoly on the things you describe - that does not mean their way is the only way to mark important events in our lives. That is just what they want us to believe.

skyfall2012 wrote: »

I apologise if I offended anyone, I may have misinterpreted the tone of your post.

My post was written with my tongue firmly in my cheek but that is not to say it doesn't contain some truth.
Replace Roman Catholic Church with Tayto and one begins to see how absurd it is.

Look at it this way - Abrahamic religions tell us that unless we do what they say (and they all differ as to what they say we should do...) we will spend eternity in hell. Now, I may be wrong but since as far as I am aware nobody actually knows what happens when we die they have no proof of that.

Many religions have and some still do insist that those who question them be put to death - do as we say or die. That is exactly what totalitarian political regimes do - why is it acceptable for religions to murder people but not Fascists? It isn't. But religions claim they have permission from God himself to carry out, what are by any objective standard, atrocities.

My 93 year old great-grand uncle has been an atheist his whole life. He was also an RAF medic during WWII and witnessed the most appalling things. Why was an Irish atheist a member of the RAF you may well ask. Because he believed Fascism was a force of evil which had to be stopped and the only way to do that was to crush them. He is not a violent man - he is a kind, funny, honest, caring and ethical man who risked his life for the greater good of humanity. He volunteered to be there and his main role was providing on the spot medical care to severely wounded men. He did not do this because he believed in a God - but because he believes in Humanity and that any organisation which uses terror, torture, murder and fear to control people is a threat to humanity. He views the RCC as being the model for these tactics.

His sister (my grandmother) was a Catholic and committed Irish republican who shared his views. She believed her religion was her business and she had no right to impose that on others. Each must act according to their own conscience. She was so proud of her baby brother that during the rationing she would save her egg and sugar allowance to bake him a cake (despite having 4 small children) as she believed this man who would risk his life to try and stop the evil of fascism deserved to have, at the very least, cake. 50 years later he told the story of the cherry cakes she would send him at her funeral and how much it meant to him. She did not do it because she was 'religious' - she did it to show her supposedly 'godless' brother that she supported him and was proud of what he was doing.

Her elder brother was also an atheist and was jailed during the War of Independence. He was a member of the West Cork Flying Squad and fought for Irish Independence- not for Ireland to be transferred from the control of Westminster to the control of Rome. He was excommunicated by the RCC (he had been baptised) for his republican activities in an attempt to put pressure on him to conform.
This committed Irish republican was proud that his brother was fighting Fascism - even if it meant wearing the uniform of the British military he had fought so long against.
When he died in the 1970s he was buried in a plot reserved for 'heroes' of the War of Independence - there was no religious ceremony. 100s of people attended his funeral. His passing was marked without the need for a priest.


My great-grand father was a medic in WWI - he believed he was fighting for Home Rule for Ireland. In disgust at the level of control the RCC exercised over the Irish Free State he converted from RC to CoI and was so vilified by local people that he was forced to move to the U.S. for a number of years. Why did he do that? Why did he subject himself to being spat at in the street by people he had lived next to all his life? Why did he put himself and his family in a situation where his name was being read from the pulpit on a Sunday by the local priest who urged his congregation to boycott my families shops? Because he fought for Home Rule - not Rome Rule and his conscience would not let him rest -neither would the memory of his 23 year old brother in law who died for the same cause in France - he had to protest.

All of these people are/were very moral and ethical people. They were prepared to die for what they believed in - and what they all believed in was the right to think without fear. That as human beings they had a duty to stand against oppression where ever they encountered it. What they all shared was the utter conviction that no religion or political ideology had the right to impose it's rules on people using terror, murder, economic pressures, vilification and all the other bully boy tactics employed by those who seek to dominate us.

Religion was not their motivation - a profound sense of what was ethically and morally right was.

dixiefly wrote: »

Are you for real? Where in the Irish education system is this happening now or even in recent years?
I have had children going through the Irish education system in several schools and also college and that is not my experience.
I am very interested in examples as you identified "most of our education system". Maybe my family were just lucky to have avoided this major part of the education system that you refer to.

Perhaps you should read the statements coming out of Rome a bit more often.

dixiefly wrote: »

I can understand why you would question the religuous upbring of the child considering your own lack of belief but you are not making a binding committment for your child by doing so..

Actually, according the the Catholic Church being baptised is a binding commitment.

dixiefly wrote: »

If you had said Rome in your posting I wouldnt have argued, however you were referring to the Irish education system and I assumed that you meant the Irish education system as a whole.

93% of State funded primary schools are under the patronage of the Roman Catholic Church.
Do they listen to Rome or to the Dept. of Ed?