Ireland first course on Atheism to be launched in schooll

smacl wrote: »

Exactly, which is why a far narrower definition of atheism works so much better for me. On you start advocating any one world view over another, you're implying that one way of doing things is superior to another independently of context. This leads to multiple opposing views, polarisation, and you start falling into all the traps that every other religion has fallen into. World view to me also suggests an as yet undisclosed socio-political dimension, just begging for a few power structures to be tacked on.

All of that may or may not be true, but it is not what I was addressing in trying to respond to your request for a broad definition for educational purposes.

I was not trying to promote what I would prefer people to mean by atheism. I was trying to describe what people do actually mean by atheism.

Obviously it would have to be translated into age-appropriate language by educational professionals, and revised based on piloting and feedback etc.

But the general principle should be to teach about atheism in an objective, critical and pluralist manner, consistently with the Toledo guiding principles, and not to promote our own personal preferred views of what atheism should mean.

Absoluvely wrote: »

Catholics :cool:

Given that Catholicism tends to mean just about anything these days including those things which patently aren't Catholic, I'd agree.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

I'll find time to answer your main question in detail later.

But why on earth would you consider yourself an agnostic (by which I assume you mean that you would no longer consider yourself an atheist) because of your beliefs about tropes?

Surely you should consider yourself an atheist or not on the basis of what you believe about the idea of gods?

I don't by any means consider myself to be agnostic. However, when dealing ordinary everyday folk I do find it more comfortable to use that label. To most people "agnostic" means what atheist means to me. Atheism itself carries too many negative associations. Very often it's not the words we say that but the concepts understood by others that count. On this forum I'd have no issue with using terms like 'ignorant' or 'mild paedophilia'. Depending on the company outside this forum I would never use such language. I just feel that the idea of an 'atheist' course is feeding more into the negative stereotypes of atheism. My fear is that it's lead to distinct paradigms in education. Where parents will have option of choosing between your curriculum and the Catholic Alive-O shyte. Neither of which to my mind would be desirable solutions.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

It seems that a lot of the concerns are about the use of the word atheism, rather than the content of the lessons.

Firstly, the classes will be teaching ‘about atheism’, not teaching ‘atheism’ because we will be conveying the information in an objective, critical and pluralist manner in accordance with the Toledo guiding principles.

That will include teaching about the types of ideas about atheism that are some people have expressed in this thread: i.e., that it means only a lack of belief in gods, that any additional concepts are not atheism and/or should not be linked to atheism, etc.

But those are personal beliefs, not objective reality. The objective reality is that the idea of atheism means different things to different people. Insisting that it means only what you want it to mean is simply not reflecting reality.

The reality is that there are atheists who believe that atheism is only a lack of belief in gods and nothing else, and there are atheists who believe that atheism is intrinsically linked to wider worldviews including social and ethical ideas.

There are atheists who spend little or no time thinking about atheism, and there atheists who are active around the world in atheist organisations, promoting change in society while self-identifying as atheists.

There are atheists in democratic countries and in nondemocratic countries who face different challenges and opportunities with regard to manifesting their atheism.

There are atheists who want to limit the use of the word atheism to coincide with their own preferred usage, and there are atheists who are happy to recognise the ambiguity of reality where different atheists think differently.

The bottom line is that you are entitled to your personal beliefs about how you think about atheism and how you use the word atheism, but you are not entitled to insist that everyone else thinks about atheism and uses the word atheism in the same way as you do.

Not only is that leaning towards a type of fundamentalism, but more importantly it does not reflect objective reality. And children should be taught about reality in an objective, critical and pluralist manner.

"Irishness" means different things to different people. What constitutes a person being Irish is distinct and unchanging. No two people have the same idea of gravity. A physicist would imagine it very different to a layperson. Likewise, an atheist physicist would likely view atheism differently to an accountant atheist. Subtle differences, but differences none the less. However, no matter what we look at things, be they "irishness","gravity" or "atheism" we always discern whether something falls under a word or definition by striking off the significant things the criteria doesn't entail. For example, person is not an Irish citizen: not Irish; a force of repulsion: not gravity; person believes in a God: Not an atheist. That's the one thing that's truly universal to all atheists. (Apart from possibly being human.) Surely the definition of a word should be based on its universal characteristics not the subjective ones of the individual?

I'm actually of the opinion that terminology of atheist is useless. I use it, but only because the word exists. It says nothing definitive about anyone and if it anything the term tends to obfuscate conversations rather than clarify them. It's some sort of grand scale fallacy of popularity.

Jernal wrote: »

I don't by any means consider myself to be agnostic. However, when dealing ordinary everyday folk I do find it more comfortable to use that label. To most people "agnostic" means what atheist means to me.

That's interesting. I am almost the opposite of that. I am more likely to say that I am an atheist when talking to people using ordinary day-to-day language, and to clarify the nuance that I am an agnostic atheist in forums like this or when speaking strictly philosophically.

I'll try to come back to your other points later.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

I’m happy to debate what I believe people should mean by the word atheism, but that is a matter for personal discourse or public advocacy, not for designing a school course.

I don't think there should be any such school course. It massively overly-emphasises atheism. Plonk an atheist/secular humanist module into the religion/world philosophy section of the curriculum and you're good to go.

Penn wrote: »

I'm not saying that students shouldn't be taught about atheism, I'm saying it should be taught as part of a religion class. That Religious Education should be about all religion and no religion, without promoting any of them.
{...}

In an ideal world, however, it's very hard to get teachers to give atheism its allotted time in a religious education class. I remember we had 2 religion classes a week in secondary school and we had 1 class during that time in which we touched upon atheism/agnosticism.