I had not known that the UK actually had a legal requirement “in all state schools for pupils to take part in a daily act of worship of a broadly Christian nature.” How … quaint. That must create a fair number of atheists, since I think I would probably have reacted with some resentment if my school had shuffled me off to chapel every day, just on the general principle. And I’ve learned something else: the UK government has an infestation of holy muckity-mucks, almost like ours! When Dr Paul Kelley tried to turn the school he runs into a a fully secular institution, he was told he couldn’t do that:
One senior figure at the then Department for Education and Skills, told Kelley that bishops in the House of Lords and ministers would block the plans. Religion, they added, was ‘technically embedded’ in many aspects of education.
“Technically embedded” — I like that. It’s an admission that they’re locked in to paying lip service to a non-existent being. At least they’re honest about it, unlike their American counterparts. Kristjan Wager reports on one of our Republican senators in Louisiana trying to smuggle in support for a far-right-wing group of crazy dingleberries who want to screw up science education.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., earmarked $100,000 in a spending bill for a Louisiana Christian group that has challenged the teaching of Darwinian evolution in the public school system and to which he has political ties.
The money is included in the labor, health and education financing bill for fiscal 2008 and specifies payment to the Louisiana Family Forum “to develop a plan to promote better science education.”
These conservative groups have done more to poison the nice word “family” than the Mafia and Charles Manson combined. When I see the word “Family” in a title any more, I have to choke back a gag reflex in order to gurgle out my immediate protest — and no, it’s not because I’m against families, it’s because I despise these Christian liars who offer token support of good values and then use that window dressing to excuse dragging human dignity into the slime. The Louisiana Family Forum is no different; their goal is to keep children ignorant and pious.
The group’s stated mission is to “persuasively present biblical principles in the centers of influence on issues affecting the family through research, communication and networking.” Until recently, its Web site contained a “battle plan to combat evolution,” which called the theory a “dangerous” concept that “has no place in the classroom.” The document was removed after a reporter’s inquiry.
Ask not why America is polarized on religion—look only to the demented fuckwits who have discovered that religion is an easy shortcut to allow promotion of the indefensible and the inane, and have turned “family” into a synonym for “cult”.
You’re right about the effect of the daily worship in British schools. It has the additional effect of making hymns like “All Thing Bright and Beautiful” and “Onward Christian Soldiers” a form of torture to adults and children alike.
Bob
Look at it on the bright side. Most or all of that $100,000 will probably find its way into the Family groups pockets one way or another.
This is federal money going to Louisiana, a state with a long history of being generous to those who have a bucket under the government tap and a friendly hand on the knob.
It’s more about wealth distribution than “education”. The Family groups have two sets of values. The public ones and the real ones. Vitter himself is a classic example. A fundie cultist with a prostitute habit.
BTW, isn’t illegal for the feds to give money to religious groups? Separation of church and state. The Faith based religious nonsense was just a fig leaf so the theocrats could put the death cults on the list of groups enabled to raid the treasury.
Nor had I, and I’ve lived in the UK all my life.
Let’s see. Primary school, we had assembly every Friday morning, complete with hymns and prayers. Every now and then one of the local ministers would come by and talk to the class. I distinctly remember him picking up a book and telling us that it took faith to believe that it would fall if he let it go. Even my ten-year-old Christian self thought that was silly.
Hmm…secondary school, we still had regular assembly, but I don’t recall any religious aspect. There may have been a short prayer at the end; my memory of that time is shockingly bad, given that it was just over a decade ago. We had compulsory religious education classes for the first two years, but those were real RE classes; comparative religion and such, not indoctrination. The only religion we had ‘technically embedded’ that I can recall was our Christmas and Easter services.
Still far more than is reasonable, but daily? May have been legally required, but it certainly wasn’t enforced in any school I was in.
There’s an interesting theory doing the rounds that Britons have a steeply declining church attendance precisely because there’s a state religion, which limits choice.
In the US, there is (or used to be) separation between church and state, which has led to the free-market taking over churches who ruthlessly compete for members by making more and more outlandish promises.
The solution to destroying religion? Hand it over to the government.
The funny thing about the “legal requirement” is that most schools simply ignore it most of the time, and just make token efforts. As with most of the other aspects of religion embedded in British law, they’re only tolerated because nobody takes them very seriously.
One pernicious aspect though: children are allowed to opt out of school assemblies if their parents object. That sounds fair enough, but when I was at school the practical consequence was that when the school was gathered together as a community often the only students absent were the very few Asian kids in the school, who had Muslim parents.
“You’re right about the effect of the daily worship in British schools. It has the additional effect of making hymns like “All Thing Bright and Beautiful” and “Onward Christian Soldiers” a form of torture to adults and children alike.”
Absolutely – I was forced to go to church, I was caned for not noticing I was supposed to read the lesson one day, it was great training for Atheism!
Religion handed over to the state is the best possible solution.
The state handed over to religion is hell on earth!
I teach at a British school, and the requirement is seldom enforced unless some senior staff want it to be, and even then it is often resisted. Most schools use assembly for basic announcements, and a moment of ‘silent contemplation’ at the end is usually enough to fit the bill.
The requirement was part of the deal cut when the government took over most of the church schools.
It so happens that my deputy head is a devout christian who was long in the habit of pounding our tortuous drones on the piano, ‘Jesus is the King of Kings’ kind of stuff. Once a few of us started advising non-christian (and non-royalist) parents to politely ask for their children to be withdrawn, the resulting admin persuaded the head it was easier to drop the sectarian aspects.
Unfortunately, Brown has not seen fit to reverse Blair’s drive to hand over schools to proselytising entrepeneurs. Religion in state schools is generally more or less residual. The problem is the new faith schools.
Many countries have have officially established religions. When I was in Iceland, I learned that all citizens must belong to the state church, although they can petition for removal and I gather it was pretty pro forma. Religiously motivated craziness like we see is all but non-existent in Iceland
However, the situation in Iceland is in no way applicable to the US (duh), not the least because they have something less than 350,000 people and have nothing resembling the complicated history of religious dissent and contention that the US has.
PZ is correct in saying that state funded schools in the UK are required to have a daily act of worship by law. However this requirement is frequently ignored for a number of reasons, the mains ones seeming to be a lack of an auditorium large enough to accommodate the whole school, and the lack of staff willing to take part in such an activity. As a result this law is largely ignored and when it does take place it is often on a weekly rather than daily basis and consists of singing a hymn (All things Bright and Beautiful being a favourite. Bob is right, I HATE that hymn!) and maybe a vague kind of prayer that expresses hope everything gets on well together.
In short what we have is a rather typical British compromise. Many in education would be happy to see the back of the requirement but know that attempts to do so would create a backlash from the usual suspects. Instead the law is pretty much ignored, the inspecting bodies do not question whether the law is being followed and the politicians can appease both sides.
You mean religious mullahs are structurally embedded into the British system of government?
Sounds like we need some American-style regime change. It’s the only way.
When I was at school – more years ago now than I care to remember – there was a daily assembly at the beginning of the school day with a couple of hymns and the odd prayer. There was also a compulsory period of RI (Religious Instruction) once a week, if I remember correctly.
Hardly anyone that I knew of took them seriously as acts of worship, though. They were just a part of the daily routine like eating breakfast.
One thing about Brits, though, is there is a healthy scepticism about anything even approaching religious zeal. You just don’t get the sleazy televangelists there that you have here in the US. If they tried it, they’d probably get the piss taken out of them in the same way that David Blaine did when he spent a few days hanging around in a tank by the Thames.
In defence of the British system, they do have a state religion, courtesy of Henry VIII, son of a usurper, who needed a divorce. Since science hadn’t discovered the germ theory of disease, he didn’t know that his failure to produce a son was the result of syphillis, so he argued that God was displeased with him. The Pope wasn’t buying it, so he broke away and founded his own church. Heads rolled, literally, on both sides of the question. He was the self-proclaimed Defender of the Faith, as the monarch has been since then.
Now that Prince Charles has married a divorced woman, normally a bar to ascending the throne, it is about time to disestablish the Church of England; but don’t hold your breath.
OTOH, I didn’t do me any harm to proclaim “I pledge allegiance to my flag and to my Queen and country” every morning.
The requirement for a daily act of Christian worship is, as the saying goes, ‘more honoured in the breach than in the observance’. Rather like the USA’s restriction on the consumption of alchohol by those under 21.
Inkadu,
Church of England/Wales/Scotland Bishops do indeed sit in the House of Lords by virtue of their position. The Chief Rabbi and a leading Muslim also have seats but were appointed to the Lords as individuals and not as a result of the position they hold.
This may well change as there are plans to (finally!) have an all elected House of Lords.
I propose we start a new group, MARS (Militant Atheists for Religion in Schools), to demand “a daily act of worship of a broadly Christian nature” in every classroom, enforced by corporal punishment for non-participation, or non-enthusiasm during participation.
Organized christianism in America will be extinct within a generation (not counting among the S&M crowd, whose mostly secular culture will, alas, have to bear this sacrifice for the national betterment).
I went to school in the UK and we had a Humanist headmaster who allowed very little faith teaching, and what there was tended to look at the main faiths throughout the world. However, I imagine this was an exception.
There is currently (until Nov 15) a petition on the UK government’s website to end faith schools and stop the teaching of Creationism (which is spreading all too rapidly in the UK, I’ve seen MPs calling for it to be taught and public seminars called Answers In Genesis recently).
If you’re British and reading this then perhaps you could go and vote on
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/faithschools/
There’s 17,000 votes so far.
“All Thing Bright and Beautiful”
Come on, who else is thinking, “Planet of the Apes?”
Im with sailor. If we could have the same thing over here, the natural rebellion of youth against authority would do the trick.
It came in, it exists, it gets enacted and enforced to greater or lesser extent (depending on the number and extremity of the nutters in charge and in the vicinity, eg local vicar) and schools variably get penalised in inspections for not including it (again depending on who’s involved). However, in practice there’s probably little respect for the daily farce among the enslaved participants (and not just from me!); and secondary/high schools also don’t always enforce the RE lessons up to age 15/16 exam level as they are supposed to do.
you know, having finished a full-time British education about this time a year ago, i actually feel that all the praying, hymns etc where what helped me to atheism, and i’m sure most of my peers at school felt the same.
while it’s actually nowhere near as extreme as being enforced every day, a good bit of hymn-singing every week or so works wonders for allowing young, open-minded pupils to see the gaping holes in Christianity.
Forced religion in school certainly gave my atheism an early boost. Although some of the songs that we were forced to sing are almost universally recognized as classics, and not hugely religious (Morning has broken, Jerusalem), just hearing them now makes me feel tired and bored.
Ontario public schools had mandatory religious education up to the 1970s. When I was in elementary school in the 1960s, there was a daily bible reading and the class recited the Lord’s Prayer right after singing the national anthem each morning. Being Jewish at the time, my parents instructed me to stand silently during the Lord’s prayer. Thursday mornings, there was a 45 minute “Religious Education” period, during which I and the 2-3 other Jewish students were excused to spend the time in the library. (I guess there were no other religions represented in the class :/) By the time my kids were in school in the 1980s, the daily bible reading was gone, the recitation of the Lord’s prayer was replaced by a period of silence, and I think the weekly religious education session for elementary schools was subsumed into the “multiculturalism education” portion of the standard curriculum. No wonder the country is going to Hell In A Handbasket.
In an effort to address this moral degeneracy and restore the Cult of the Family, in the upcoming Ontario provincial election, we have candidates representing the “Family Coalition Party”, in whose opinion
A family is defined as those individuals related by ties of blood, marriage or adoption. Marriage is the union between a woman and a man.
(and they go on to point out that: The Family Coalition party would revoke all legislation that re-defined the term “spouse” to include same-sex persons, within the limits imposed by federal law. )
Re: All Things Bright and Beautiful:
Do they still tend to sing this verse, or has it been dropped since I was at school, what with the modern egalitarian sensibilities?
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
Assemblies is only one part of it; when I was a kid (admittedly, quite a long time ago), we had daily assemblies with hymns, readings, and occasional visits from the vicar, AND there was compulsory Religious Education (“RE” or Scripture) class. This was basically Bible stories in primary (elementary) school, and more Bible stories, plus some more philosophical and ethical discussion in secondary/high school, and a bit of comparative religion around the age of 16. Assemblies ranged from humdrum to dreadful; scripture actually could get interesting if the teacher wasn’t an idiot, and we got more deeply into questions of ethics, or symbolic analysis (which happened often, actually; the teachers weren’t blowhard evangelicals thank goodness). I fully support keeping religion out of schools, but as I see it, there were two positive upshots of compulsory religion in my young life: a life-long aversion to religious practice (from assembly… yes, it works! … although only perhaps on those who don’t go to church as well, or does that compound the effect?); and sufficient knowledge of the Bible as a cultural artifact that I can understand and enjoy Biblical references in art and literature. I’ve always found it surprising that so many supposedly devout Christians seem to know very little about what’s actually in the book….
When I came to America, I was pleasantly surprised to find that religion was not supposed to be in school (setting aside those cases where it does sneak in, oh and that funny flag-worshiping ritual). I am utterly against putting it back in school, even to reproduce the rather positive results of my own experience, but I would love to figure out some alternatives that would work as well.
When I was in Jr. High in rural southern Minnesota, we had “release time” for the last period of school on Wednesdays. That means, we all packed up and went to our respective churches for religious indoctrination (as a Methodist it was called “confirmation classes”). Those who didn’t go to release time had to sit in study hall.
I wish I’d been an atheist then, and I hope someone sues their asses now (if it’s still being practices).
I always thought our school assemblies were part of a program to immunize children against religion.
Wintermute — I can’t speak for anyone else, but that verse was excised when I was at school so it just seemed like a nice nature hymn. This would have been 1960s to 1970s. My mother told me and my brother about the existence of that verse so we knew what an evil establishment hymn it was.
She also disliked the tune.
It has been dropped (in most places anyway), due to it revealing too much about the evil nature of religion. I saw/heard something relatively recently about the fact of it being dropped. Unfortunately I don’t recall where. I do know it was definitely still around in the 60s and 70s. However, the song doesn’t appear at all in the earliest hymn books in my collection and that verse had been dropped from it by the time of the latest ones (which also happen to be from the less authoritarian and more easily embarrassed flavours of Christianity).
Re #12:
Well, not quite. Henry VIII removed England from the Catholic Church, but he didn’t establish a state religion. That was done by Elizabeth I in order to stop the purges that happened every time a monarch of a different religion took the throne; it was explicitly designed to “look Catholic and sound Protestant”, and generally not be offensive to anyone, which is why it remains so much of a milquetoast religion that even outspoken atheists can become bishops.
The title of Defender of the Faith was granted to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X for a book he wrote on how great the Pope was. It was revoked after he broke with the Catholic Church, but the English Parliament later granted the title (in reference to the Anglican Church) to Henry’s son, Edward VI.
I’m not sure how syphilis would prevent someone having sons, especially in light of the fact that Henry VIII had three children, one of which was a boy.
Re: All Things Bright and Beautiful, here’s the Monty Python parody:
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spikey urchin,
Who made the sharks, He did.
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
AMEN.
that particular law, as already mentioned, is by and large ignored. Even the roman catholic secondary i went to didnt bother with it and that was a school where the local diocese had sign off on teacher appointments.
I think it has survived due to this, organising a campaign against it fails when everyone asks “what law? How come my childrens school isnt impacted by it?”
However with the religious types getting more demanding about their special privileges this and other items(such as the lords spiritual) are getting questioned more and more.
I’ve always thought it was quite amusing that succeeding kings and queens of England have arrogated to themselves the title Defender of the Faith. I assume it means that if a king or queen ever wins and Olympic gold medal all his or her successors will call themselves Olympic Champion.
And on that note…
Having spent my entire elementary and secondary education in Catholic institutions in which religious instruction and observation were mandatory, I can testify that it didn’t take. In fact, the rote nature of both the instruction and observation probably contributed to the weakening of the commitment of many American Catholics to their religion.
“”The money is included in the labor, health and education financing bill for fiscal 2008 and specifies payment to the Louisiana Family Forum “to develop a plan to promote better science education.””
Isn’t this an example of how we can expect the religious to accept framing of science? This is the frame the religious have been placing on science education and it is a lie. They no more care about real science than they do about a flat earth. They have learned the framing technique very well. They have been purposely and maliciously framing their particular ideology into a science format and have convinced many of their sheeple that science is what they are teaching.
Isn’t this the very thing that framing and appeasement lead to? If we allow this to remain unchallenged and to stand as being a pursuit of science then we have only to expect that the future scientists will not have an adequate education. And isn’t this what we can expect from the religious who have time and again revealed themselves to be manipulative liars?
Monado, the title Fidei Defensor, or “Defender of the Faith”, was given to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X in 1521 in recognition of his writings, which vigorously attacked Martin Luther and early Protestantism.
It wasn’t ’til around 10 years afterwards that the kerfuffle happened about divorce that brought about his split with the Roman church, then under Pope Clement VII. The title has been passed down through the monarchy, and “F.D.” is still on the coinage.
I can’t hear “All Things Bright and Beautiful” anymore without thinking of the Monty Python version. The couple of times I had to sing it in church after hearing the Monty Python version I giggled all the way through the hymn. Now that I don’t attend church anymore I don’t have that problem. The only version I hear is the funny one.
RAven wrote: “Vitter himself is a classic example. A fundie cultist with a prostitute habit.”
Not only prostitutes, but a diaper fetish to boot. At least he acknowledges that he’s full of shit.
“I’ve always thought it was quite amusing that succeeding kings and queens of England have arrogated to themselves the title Defender of the Faith.”
Prince Charles is reported to have said that when he has his coronation he want to become “The Defender of Faith” and not “The Faith” in order to avoid being seen as anti other religions and denominations.
The man becomes more and more deranged as each day passes.
The daily act of worship in UK schools cemented my atheism early. My parents had just not mentioned religion, pro or con, but I loved the Greek myths about Zeus and Odysseus et. al., which they explained as stories made up to explain (eg) lightning before science had been developed.
My primary school head was a catholic (and a nice old dear, BTW), but when she told us about christianity – and especially the lives of the saints, which she liked talking about – I couldn’t believe that the Greek mythos, which was at least consistent with all the war and disaster in the world, had been replaced by such obvious tosh. I thought that at about 8 years old, and I still think so 30 years later.
Growing up in apartheid South Africa, I can really relate to this. At primary school I had Calvinist dogma rammed down my throat and looking back, that is probably the main reason I am now an atheist.
On a related note, evolution was only officially added to the high school curricula in the last few years. Before that, it was included in ecology sections, but labelled “not for exam purposes”
Some people get a lot out of religious instruction. My mom grew up in a Southern Baptist orphanage during the 1920’s, where the little kids were treated like evil bastards (they must have been – why else would they end up in an orphanage?). So my mom came out of there vehemently ANTI-religious. She used to say that “you don’t know what hypocrisy is, until you see a minister playing grab-ass with a fourteen year old girl.” So let’s not just reflexively reject religious instruction from those more godly than we.
Daily act of worship? Not in any school I ever attended. We did have RE – one half hour per week, twinned with the music class – literally. The two classrooms were in a portacabin in the playground. One class on each side, and at the end of the first half hour they’d switch places.
It did make for a relaxing hour on a Thursday afternoon. Our RE teacher once showed us a drawing of a dead bee, and asked us which book of the bible it was. Answer : Nahum.
The message I getting here is that the situation in the UK seems to suit both atheists and those intent on religious indoctination. The indoctinatots think they will be producing loads of god fearing kids by insisting on daily worship, the atheists would appear to think that daily worship is either not going to make any difference or increase the liklihood of kids rejecting religion.
Whilst I would eventually like to see the requirement done away with it is not top the the list of priorities. The current governments avowed intent to increase the number of faith schools (which paradoxically are exempt from the requirement to have a daily act of worship if I recall) is far more of a concern. It is times like this I wish John Diamond was still alive. I could just see him leading a campaign to get state funding for an atheist “faith” school. The fits the religious would have would just be wonderful to behold.
PZ,
When I read the Louisiana House’s appropriations bill this year, I was absolutely shocked at how many earmarks there were for churches. I was aghast. And, what can I really do about it?
Squid *nasty*? Settle down folks, or PZ will launch a cephalopod fatwa on the Pythons!
At primary school (Northern Ireland) we had a local minister who would visit class and give us religious instruction, which was very definitely based on getting us saved (and it worked with me, although the effect terminated in my 20s). One thing I can still do is recite all the books of the bible, Genesis to Revelation, in 17 seconds flat, and I know a heck of a lot more about the bible than most Christians I know (I even did some door-to-door when I was in my very early 20s, and initially felt embarrassed that I found myself often thinking that the atheists we met had some very good points).
One thing I have never forgotten was the time when our primary 4 teacher (that’s, what, 4th grade in US language?) outright asked our class to put up our hands if we weren’t Protestant. I put up my hand, and was asked to stand up. “What religion are you then, little Amenhotep?”
“Please, Miss, I’m a Presbyterian.” Cue gales of laughter from the class of 30.
I got a lot of stick for that, even though technically I was right (although I didn’t understand why at the time – Presbyterians are “Dissenters”, not “Protestants”). My parents did not buy into the NI Protestant/Catholic thing, and had explicitly not made any issue of it in our home or our social mixing (this was in the 1970s when things were *bad*). My mum is still a Christian, but my dad became an atheist a few years ago, which I’m very proud about (he’s a great dad; my mum’s a great mum too).
In some ways, yes, religious education can prepare you for being a very effective atheist, and I would advise all atheists here to read their bibles – it is a veritable bunker stashed with ammo! We’d be fools to decommission it or put it “beyond use” :-)
People sometimes forget that the UK does actually have an official state religion, and the head of state is also head of that church…
It’s typically very nominal, as noted by others above. It also has the useful effect of getting the official proselytizing out of the way in the first ten minutes of each day before everybody is fully awake.
There’s also the RE classes mentioned by others, which in my case were not comparative religion, but classes in atheism. Specifically, we read the Bible in class, starting from the beginning. I still remember the howls of laughter when we did Leviticus…
I agree with Deacon Barry – no school actually follows these requirements unless they are faith schools. RE lessons cover a fairly wide range of religions, and are a very good idea because they help in the understanding of other cultures.
The law is probably still on the statue books due to the way laws work in the UK. Laws are not generally repealed, but are gradually replaced by newer legislation. For example, the requirements for each london taxi to carry a bale of hay is still on the books, but assumed not to be in force and replaced to newer legislation requiring cars to be in working order.
If somebody ever is tried under a law like this, then the case will get referred to the highest court in the land – the House of Lords – who will decide if the law should still be on the books. Bishops (“Lords Spiritual”) make up 3-4% of the house of lords, so this is unlikely to be a huge problem.
The real issue here is the points lost during Ofsted inspections. No legislation is required to change this, only a change made by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). The DfES person quoted is basically saying they can’t be bothered.
“That must create a fair number of atheists, since I think I would probably have reacted with some resentment if my school had shuffled me off to chapel every day, just on the general principle.”
That’s certainly how it worked for my son. He’s an even more rabid atheist than I am after thirteen years being force-fed religion through school!
Andere Laender, andere Sitten, as the Germans would put it. Other countries, other practices.
The fact appears to be, however, that the religious instruction has not resulted any increase in the number of contributing adult people in the pews in the UK. Quite to the contrary. Even in the UK, people are fleeing the Anglican church.
NB: there is religious instruction here in Germany in the public schools, for those who want it. That is, there are school periods set aside for people who want to attend. It’s optional. The instructors are selected and paid by the respective religious institution.
In one hilarious incident reported only a few years ago, an instructor who had thentofore been teaching a Catholic class came out as a lesbian. The RCC fired her from her position. She was so popular an instructor that her students resigned en mass from the official course, and engaged her to continue teaching them.
Mitchell & Webb – should be compulsory viewing in school assemblies:
As a relatively recent product of the British education system I recall much of our “indoctrination”. Although I went to an officially Church of England school, it was also a super-selective state grammar school. Pair a population of unusually bright students with the typical British skepticism and you’ve got a tough audience for any “holy man”.
Two things come to mind: Once my school paired up with the equivalent girls school for some form of RE conference. We all yawned through the majority of it until they stuck a fundamentalist down in the chair in front of us. We couldn’t believe what this man was saying about women’s rights, evolution etc and when he asked for questions, both sides were ripping into him about the fossil record, dna, human rights etc. Most of his answers were met with laughter and he left early. After that, that conference never took place again.
Due to our CoE status we were required to have a chaplain. Acutely aware that reading directly from the Bible wasn’t going to get through to anyone he would quote frequently from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy apparently without any sense of irony with regards to the author.
Referring to the idea that the law requiring Christian worship in schools is an achaic holdover akin to the requirement for taxis to carry a bale of hay, it is not as archaic as that. It is still one of the standard things that are checked by Ofsted in the school inspection, and the Ofsted report will state if a school is failing to meet the requirement, although nothing is ever done about it.
The law was actually debated in Parliament recently, and amended slightly. Parents have the right to withdraw their children from the act of worship, but children do not have the right to withdraw themselves. This included ‘children’ of 16, 17 and even 18 years of age. This was challenged under European human rights laws. Over 16s can now exempt themselves, but the law is still there.
Zib
Good one. I have never seen that. Thank you.
I am quite happy to tell any American Christian who is willing to listen that the surest way to turn the US into a secular nation is to put religion back into public schools.
I simply point to what’s happened to church attendance in the UK over the past 30 years despite (or because of) the establishment of Christianity as the state religion.
There was no bigger waste of time than all the hundreds of school assemblies I had to attend over the years. Mind you, the RE teacher had the weirdest nickname for a teacher I’ve ever seen: “Fain”. Never did find out how that started.
This is something we British commenters and bloggers have discussed in Pharyngula’s comments several times before so it’s not new to this blog. Religion’s role in UK politics and education is something British bloggers have written about at length – in fact I have a whole archive of posts on the topic.
Fundies are everywhere, you know – but of course, US religious nutters are always madder and more dangerous thah anyone else’s, American exceptionalism being what it is.
I am reliably informed by several members of the sixth form (state school) in which I have had and still have sons that there would be a riot if there was any attempt to introduce any daily act of worship.
They don’t see the point, since over 90% of the year is and has been for years past solidly atheist; and I must say I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality and depth of the discussions between them as they arrive at their opinion.
I say keep the regulation. I couldn’t bear the sound of bishops bleating if anyone seriously suggested its repeal.
Now, apply this reasoning to the Pledge of Allegiance.
Makes me wonder why more people don’t call for it to be abolished so that children will become more patriotic.
II grew up in the UK, and went to school in primary and secondary school in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I remember the resentment felt by the majority of my other school mates who, like me, had come from an Indian heritage and had Muslim/Hindu/Sikh backgrounds and were FORCED to take part in Christian prayers and Christian choir singing at school assembly.
I’m surprised that there is still a legal requirement. I thought that this derogatory treatment in schools had stopped in the early 1980s, at least in my area.
As for myself, because I was exposed to a multitude of religions at an early stage and I began enquiring about each and their dogmas, histories, etc and investigating scientific processes and theories.
I began questioning everything and sought truth through an open mind but through reason (scientific processes) rather than through the irrationalities of superstition such as those espoused by religion and their blind faith.
So there, I survived!
I share your aversion to groups with the word “Family” in their name. The religious right in this country has a history of taking over words and treating them as their personal property; family, values, life, are all ruined.
In primary school they probably just about managed that. So long as you accept hymns. And have a pretty broad definition of hymn.
I remember among the standard stuff, they managed to slip in ‘Streets of London‘ at the end of assembly (the reserved hymn spot) fairly often, which is one of the few songs I had to learn that I still like. There was also a short round we frequently sang called ‘Shalom’ – there was not a single Jew in the school so it still seemed to count.
Secondary school, not a jot. The teacher we had for religious education (what of it there was) was often more interested in Buddhism than Christianity. We did have a maths teacher who was lapsed (atheist) Sikh and explained how she hid that she had cut her hair short from her parents over the video-phone. By sixth form, we had discussion classes with both the principle and head of sixth form where we discovered there was not a single Christian in the class, and neither man seemed phased.
Eldrich Anchovy:
That was a thing of beauty! too bad people react badly to very long email signatures.
Forcing people to make religious observances is guaranteed to make them resent it, and religion with it. I say go for it!
In scotland the only compulsory lesson is (or at least was) RE or religious education, subjects like maths, english and science were not required. I think the idea was to make sure everyone was a “good xtian” butI have never seen anything more likely to cause atheistic tendancy than this class
What price disestablishmentarianism?
I’m a product of UK schools (CofE Assisted, no less), and after a stint in the US I’m back in the UK with two kids at the local primary. There is some obvious religion (the Nativity every year, and various teachings about what religion means), but the teacher I discussed it with was clear that it was not part of an attempt to convert anyway, not least because she’s an atheist.
In our discussions I explained my opposition to the kids being taught faith (rather than about faith), and made it clear that if my kids were told that Christianity (or any other religion) was true I would explain that their teacher was a liar and not to be trusted. Good schools here are very keen on ‘contracts’ between school and home, so I think that this would make them think twice about pushing doctrine.
Ha ha — my kids are at a Roman catholic school here in Scotland and my 10-year-old son’s already an avowed atheist and my daughter says she’s the only girl in her class that doesn’t like “the churchy bits”.
Church is tied in to education in the UK but most state-run schools are fairly light-hearted about it, in my experience.
I’ve heard an awful lot of “oh, that requirement’s residual; it keeps both sides happy”.
Well, I’m British. I grew up with that requirement, and now its affects my children. If its so bloody residual, then why haven’t we tossed it out with the rest of the garbage?
Oh, of course! The Bishops in the House of Lords realise its the last foothold on the nation’s children, with their lovely little minds, all open and brainwashable.
If they’re attitude were any more self-serving, you could accuse them of egotism. As it is, they’ve gone beyond the art form into the realms of ‘fuck everyone, we’re right’.
My answer? Screw you hippy. Take off that dress, come down off your pedestal and join us in the real world, where ‘opting out’ means making your kid different in an arena where children have the mentality of pack animals.
Wankers.
My recollections very much match those of Ian Spedding. It was just part of the daily routine. As to All Things Bright and Beautiful – the Monty Python verses are a watered-down version of what got sung in the back rows of our assembly hall. The “poor man at his gate” was certainly in our hymn books in 1969, but we normally only sang about three verses, not including that one.
Incidentally, not only is Religious Education a compulsory subject in British schools but, at least in the 1970’s, it was the only compulsory subject!!
I live in liberal Canada with the separation of church and state and I was forced to recite the Lord’s prayer every morning. That was only 15 years ago in elementary school. That helped turn me to Atheism. The final blow was reading the Bible. What a horrible book!
NZ pretty much imported the British system. State schools secular, but with the occasional bit of carol-singing at Christmas. For my last two years of high school I went to a private Presbyterian girls’ school, where every Thursday morning the chaplain would come to assembly in a purple dress and burble vaguely for half an hour. Most popular assembly to skip. That idiot’s now a lecturer in Religious Studies at the university, and styles himself as an expert in Islamic terrorism.
#42 – my grandmother said the same thing – she became a staunch atheist after spending the 1920s in a Baptist orphanage. She said that she was a good girl when she went in, but that they were a pack of hypocrites who forced her to become a liar and a thief.
David Vitter? Did he write that bill before, after, or while he was being spanked, powdered and diapered by his friendly local Roxanne?
Just noticed that you’re using MS Comic Sans for creationist quotes. Finally, an appropriate use for that stupid font!
We have that problem here, in the Southern USA. We have constant First Amendment violations by the religious right. If we try to fight it, we’d get ostracized. So we basically have to shut up.
#8 is just about right when saying that we Icelanders must belong to the state-church. When a child is given a name it will be registered in the state church unless the parents direct otherwise.
I hate to have to admit that the new buisness concept; religion, is also making its way into our society with for example a 24/7 t.v. broadcast where silly looking people rave on whith testimonials and dooms-day preaching. Of course there is the constant banner running across the screen telling you where you can put your money to save your soal. Fill-in material is made up of American preacher-tapes and I would not be surprised if they receive money from the US to help fund themselves. The idiocity is on the rise and I´m sad to say that it seems to be getting more agressive.
“tristero” is wrong in assuming that the history of religion, in our more than 1100 years, has been calm. This country succumbed to Christianity in or about the year 1000 after threats and manipulation from a new king in Norway. He is usually known as Harald the fair hair but his name also lives on here as Haraldur lufa meaning “with the ragged unclean hair” So even though this country became Christian without a bloody fight. (Which, by the way, almost came to be.) Only a part of the population were Christian at the time. All kinds of consessions were made and the old heathens were able to practice their old ways. For your information I might add that these people referred to themselves as “Heathen” for this in old Norse (Icelandic) means clear or clean. The old Pagan religion seems not to have had big place in peoples minds. I am no specialist in these matters but it seems to have been more of a system or society-plan if you wish, rather than a heart-felt religion. Dissent did not stop there but I will for the time being.
“Streets of London” as a hymn? …OK, sure, whatever.
I only ever heard “All Things Bright And Beautiful” in the context of chorus songs performed at the secular school I attended from Kindergarten to Senior Year. We certainly didn’t have the pro-caste verse in it. We performed it side by side with songs from other religions and perfectly secular songs as well, so it didn’t come with the air of forced religion that tainted it for many. As a result, I quite liked it. But then I liked anything they let me sing alto in. “Streets of London” too, and “Carol of the Bells,” and so forth, depending on the season. I was a sucker for interesting harmonies.
My three children attended school in Scotland. They are now grown (18-22), and atheists by choice. A factor in their decision was the content of Religious Education in school, which has equipped them well to argue their case for atheism.
Hello all, Being the true Brit atheist hypocrite I am! My three children attend church schools and they are very good ones too, one being affiliated to the Cathedral and with the harvest festival, nativity plays etc their mum and I attend church a dozen times a year or more. The children use the facilities every week. Today I took the youngest to see a 12th century chuch (beautiful) and my daughter did some fundraising for the Scouts which is based at another church. When we go the Cathedral at christmas I stand at the back and observe the congregation, I`d say that more than 60 per cent of those attending were doing so because their children are involved with the school orchestra. I have often wondered how the attendence figures trotted out every year would look if the church were not so ingrained in our education system.
Dan Dennett, amongst others, have argued that the best way to undermine religious belief is to make the teaching of comparative religion compulsory, as it is in UK schools. Perhaps that’s why the UK has far fewer believers (and far far fewer churchgoers) than the US. (I’m ignoring Islam for the moment.) Ergo, the US should make the teaching of religion compulsory. As soon as kids realise that there are many different gods, they’ll also realise that a. it’s inevitable that they can’t believe in all of them and b. that probably means that they shouldn’t believe in any of them.
You guys have already experimented with removing the separation between church and state: GW himself tells us that, along with Tony Blair, he gets his advice directly from god. Could there be a better way of destroying god’s credibility?
It’s kind of weird that private schools with religious mandates and countries with state religions sometimes seem much more tolerant than religious fundies of our church and state seperate schools and country.
It seems in England even the whackos are more willing to discuss issues and wider viewpoints are recognized. Here even the most secular politicians are unwilling to dare to question that religion is a positive good and a universal fundation.
Thanks, Mez and Wintermute, for correcting my potted history. The point about syphillis is that the son of Henry VIII, young Edward, was congenitally affected: sickly and dying in his teens. I do not know how he managed to have two healthy girls – they were older but I do not know the chronology. Eliz I was the daughter of Anne Boleyn.
Another Brit here. I’ve always liked my former vicar’s description of RE at school as being an innoculation which prevents you getting full-blown Christianity later (he saw this as a bad thing, of course).
I too remember the hymn book at primary school containing stuff which wasn’t particularly religious, so you got Streets of London and stuff about feeding birds in winter (actually, you had to do that “for the Father’s sake”, now I mention it) as well as stuff like “Jesus’ hands were kind hands”.
Amenhotep’s comment about Presybterians being dissenters and not Protestants reminds me a story a teacher I know tells. He once asked his high school class of history students what their religions were to illustrate the diversity of religions in the US. He first asked for all Christians to raise their hands, but well under half the class did, yet he knew that all but two, who were Jews, were Christian. Puzzled he asked those who didn’t claim to be Christian what they were. The answered, uniformly, “I’m Catholic.” It seems that their priests and nuns emphasized Catholicism as the expense of Christianity. So much for understanding one’s own religion.
By the way, adopting a British-like plan for incorporating religious instruction in the US public schools would precipitate a horrendous political blood bath. Can you imagine the cat fight among the branches of Christianity over what beliefs would be taught? It might even cause a civil war that we atheists could watch from the sidelines until some Christians got hold of their senses and realized that government should stay out of promoting religion.
Zib #51 funny link thanks!
Henry VIII had two sons. The other was Henry FitzRoy, by Bessie Blount. There was a third son, by Anne Boleyn, who miscarried. He didn’t have syphilis, he had a syphilitic ulcer which is a different animal (or so I am told). He just wasn’t very fertile.
When I was at school in England over fifty years ago the religious instruction lesson was called Scripture. One teacher had an unusual idea of what scripture was and it included the take-off check-lists for a wartime flying boat.
Tacitus at #55: Fain is an old joke. There’s a hackneyed hymn called “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” that continues “I fain would take my stand.”
If you add a couple of commas, you go from “I want to take my stand” to “Hullo, I’m Fain. I take stands.”
I didn’t say it was a good joke, right?
LOL – thanks for the explanation! It’s a bit strange that some school kid would come up with something like that (especially from my old school), but hey, that’s as good an explanation as any I can think of.
My religious education at primary school in Leeds was made up, largely, of discussions about dinosaurs. My middle school headmaster thought that this was amusing, but looking back it seems that my primary school headmaster must have been resisting the requirement to teach Godly things.
We still had to sing the odd hymn in assembly though
The interpretation of the law varies wildly from school to school. At my first primary school in a Scottish mining village, we got daily recital of the Lord’s Prayer, weekly assembly with hymns (usually At The Name Of Jesus, because it was the only one Mrs Jackson could reliably accompany on the piano), and sermons from the local minister a few times a year. At the more multicultural school in town, we sang hey-everyone-be-nice hymns lite (yes, including Streets of London!), and also painted our hands with henna for Eid-ul-Fitr and made Diwali lanterns.
Pamela #85: do you also remember Gladly, the cross-eyed bear?
I was educated at an independent Scottish school. One atheist friend used to express his dissent by reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Manx, but he was a little odd.
I had no such easy option as being the senior and most-trustworthy Jewish student in the school I had to lead the Jewish Assembly which ran in parallel to the christian one.
Of course I learnt to dissemble, especially to the succession of local rabbis and other self-appointed faith-leaders who came along once a week to direct our feeble efforts at worship. The only potentially embarassing moment was when one of these turned out to be someone involved in expelling me from after-school hebrew college a couple of years previously. That was _not_ a piece of information I wanted propagating back to my “real” school.
A Toronto radio station asks if funding should be stopped for catholic schools. You can read the story here, and if you register you can vote in the poll.
http://www.680news.com/
What really pisses me off is this: Dr Paul Kelley… wanted to challenge the legal requirement in all state schools for pupils to take part in a daily act of worship of a broadly Christian nature. There are only a handful of exceptions at faith schools where the daily worship can be based on a different religion. (Emphasis mine). It seems it’s fine to worship a different god, as long as you are worshipping some god. More ‘belief in belief syndrome’ I think. Surely there must be some way to challenge this blatant discrimination against atheists?
Ben. Yes, one could take a case to the European Court of Human Rights. It would be a very long haul.
The real gist of this discussion, once again, is that our “New Atheist” friends once again divide the world into black and white and enforce their natural law that “indoctrination” is only something “these others” do. They point at laws, crying foul, and don’t really care whether they are enforced or not. (And no, enforcement is not when the school acts on it, enforcement is when the school administration gets its butt kicked for not acting on it). They don’t really care what the contents is, what is actually DONE, but solely what is written.
But hey, atheists by definition aren’t fundamentalists, right?
wow, I think buffybot (#70) and I may have gone to the same school. Except that in my recollection the chaplain was on Wednesdays and on Thursdays we had “singing assembly”. This occasionally included hymns but more often was decidedly secular – the songs I remember most clearly are “We Go Together”, “Footloose” and, uh, “New Zealand, Kainga Tuturu”.
We also had “religious education” until early high school and then “religious and social education” (from which I remember only a harrowing unit on cervical cancer). Can’t really complain about getting religious education if you send your kids to a Presbyterian school, though. Also, am pretty sure the majority of my ex-classmates are atheists.
Oliver – so you support the laws enforcing religious worship on children?
I’m in my last year of school in the UK. My school is pretty good for a state school, but every time it’s inspected, it gets mildly blasted on the report for not following the “daily worship” requirement. Yay for my school! I’ve been a bit disappointed with RE lessons, though. It’s comparative religion, certainly not Christian indoctrination, but a couple of years ago we did study all the classic “arguments” for God’s existence (Thomas Aquinas, Pascal, Paley etc.) without the teacher pointing out to the class how they were completely fallacious. I made myself mildly unpopular by taking it upon myself to do that part of the explaining! I couldn’t bear for a large chunk of the class (those who wouldn’t see the inanity for themselves) to walk out of those lessons thinking there was actually something in those arguments.
At my primary school, we did have daily worship in assembly. It was just taken for granted by more or less everyone, I think.
Back to lurking…
I’m Welsh and was also bought up with the tokenistic religious aspect in school. The weekly hymn in assembly and all that. I don’t remember it being much of a big deal. Certainly not many of us pupils took it seriously.
I think the religious education classes in the UK are certainly worth discussing here though. They are compulsory up to age 14 (year 9, or form 3). From what I remember, Christianity made up barely a fraction of it, and at least as much time was dedicated to Bhuddism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam and, well, atheism. Indeed in my case it would have been tough to draw the line between the outright religious aspect and just ethics in general. I remember at one point spending a few weeks discussing the problems facing homeless people in Colombia, for example.
Perhaps some in other schools might be unlucky enough to end up with particularly devout teachers or something, I’m not sure. I’m not certain what the deal is in the rest of the UK. I doubt I was the exception though. So I think it’s safe to say that these classes (once a week in my case) are an example of any sort of indoctrination. Besides which, I found it quite interesting.
* are NOT an example!
I’m normally slightly irritated by needless secondary posts pointing out obvious typos but since in this case what I meant is precisely the opposite of what came out of my fingers I think I’ll forgive myself in this case.
I recently watched that old Pallisers TV miniseries. They talked about disestablishment like it was just around the corner. There was some talk of women’s sufferage which was largely dismissed as far-fetched. Oddly enugh, the younger generation of women in the show would have the chance to vote in their lifetimes, but there is still an established church to this day.
I am amazed no one has yet invoked the Pythons with their reworking of “All things Bright and Beautiful”:
http://www.geocities.com/fang_club/All_things_dull.html
I went to school in the UK in the late 1970s and 1980s. We sang hymns and recited prayers during assembly every morning, and, until a cafeteria system was introduced in about 1981, we had prayers before lunch, too. There was also a couple of hours of RE (religious education) each week, up until the age of 14, when continuing the lessons became optional.
I remember sometimes wishing I was one of the Jehovah’s witnesses or others that got to sit out of the assemblies. Particularly when Mr Vanham was playing the piano. While he could play the piano, which was great, it seemed that he could only read and play music at about half speed. Couple that with a particularly slow and repetitive hymn, #53 “Peace perfect peace is the gift of Christ our Lord”, and we would drawl through it for what felt like an eternity.
Part of me is still stuck there in dismay at there still being two more verses to work through.
The rest of me managed to finish school, the prayers and the hymns with a healthy, skeptical, atheistic viewpoint, along with most of my peers. Whenever I hear people here in the US bemoaning the lack of prayers and faith in schools, it makes me chuckle, as I don’t think it’ll produce the legions of Jesus soldiers that they believe it will.
Oliver,
To quote Space Ghost,
“All the time, in Jerusalem.
…wait, what?”
On a related note, some trouble brewing in the Republic of Ireland due to the religious hold on the school system: with most schools in Eire being catholic, looks like immigrant kids are SOL if they want an education. Have to do away with this nasty divisive crap.
wintermute asked in post #23:
Re: All Things Bright and Beautiful:
Do they still tend to sing this verse, or has it been dropped since I was at school, what with the modern egalitarian sensibilities?
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
“This hugely popular but faintly nauseating “little” Sunday School hymn for infants was first published in 1848, in a collection of hymns designed to raise money for deaf-mutes.
It was written by Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-95), wife to the Archbishop of Armagh and Protestant Primate of Ireland, as a way of elucidating the opening of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”
A member of the Anglo-Irish establishment, Mrs Alexander clearly had no compunction about keeping the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate, but even before the age of political correctness, the offending third verse was usually omitted – the Inner London Education Authority positively banned it in 1982.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/09/22/bmhymnsbright122.xml
I heard an interesting snippet on the radio this morning. Apparently when British MPs were asked to identify their holiday reading for the summer, the most popular choice among Labour MPs was … Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”.
Now I can’t see _that_ happening in the USA just yet.
stirrings in the UK atheist political undergrowth here.
Not only did they make you go to church in my local school, they also got REALLY angry if you play top trumps in church instead of listen or pray.
Matt Penfold: How will that happen, in the absence of a written constitution and also no precident to draw upon?
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
Evolved by natural process,
Your God did bug-ger all.
very interesting