Is religion to blame? Page 10

Quote: Aaron @ June 21 2008, 5:03 PM BST

They run citizenship classes in schools now, which encompass - amongst other things - all of that stuff. I think it's a required 'subject', but not sure.

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Well I was asked for labels and gave them. If you are to teach the values encompassed in religion as a seperate but divorced subject then it will take a whole generation to change society. We don't need the fear of a God sending us to hell to be nice to each other surely? And, besides, if there really is a God and we have all been jolly nice to each other then, by default, we should be ok?

Quote: Aaron @ June 21 2008, 4:49 PM BST

I'd call it even more unnecessary state interference into people's lives

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So would I, Aaron. Different beliefs help us to question what is right and wrong, and I for one wouldn't want to be told what to believe with changes in governments and political policy.

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 4:50 PM BST

We could call the subject Social Values or Good Citizenship.

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Yep A kind of social studies. What stops schools from teaching that today?

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 4:50 PM BST

We are born without any kind of preconceptions and everything we learn as a child is given to us by parents or guardians.

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Yep, and if our parents have any strong religious or political beliefs they can be indoctrinated into a young persons mind. It could, in fact, take a person 20 or more years to question what they're told as a child. So a person in the 20s to 40s could end up looking for their own answers in life.

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 4:50 PM BST

Religion is one of those things that is taught

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It may be taught, Alan, but it takes belief in understanding any phoilosophy to live what is seen as a good and honest life. What each of us really holds true could be very different depending on where we are. Sadly, everyone is not born equal. Learning maths is not a guarantee to make a person a whiz with numbers, not everyone who learns English can write articulately, and not every science student understands the laws of evolution.

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 4:50 PM BST

teach good citizenship then we would have the same values that religion promotes without the need to have blind faith.

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"Same values", back to square one, I think, AlanC.

What's the point of doing anything, if you don't have hope? I use hope instead of faith, to avoid the religious conotation. From what you're saying you make me think that whatever I do and everyone else does will be good. Leaving no doubt in anyone's mind, because everyone will be doing excatly the same thing as you and me, because we were taught it. By whom, who knows! I don't need faith that everything will work out, because there is only one outcome... Good!

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 5:12 PM BST

Well I was asked for labels and gave them. If you are to teach the values encompassed in religion as a seperate but divorced subject then it will take a whole generation to change society. We don't need the fear of a God sending us to hell to be nice to each other surely? And, besides, if there really is a God and we have all been jolly nice to each other then, by default, we should be ok?

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Yes. Or something.

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 5:12 PM BST

Well I was asked for labels and gave them.

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And that's the biggest problem with society these days - putting labels on everything.

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 5:12 PM BST

We don't need the fear of a God sending us to hell to be nice to each other surely?

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Absolutely, which is why I believe in what I do. The only hell there is, is here on earth where life teaches us lessons. It may not always be fair, but you wouldn't learn anything if it was.

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 5:12 PM BST

And, besides, if there really is a God and we have all been jolly nice to each other then, by default, we should be ok?

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Hopefully, being "jolly nice" to each other shows that different views can be debated.

Anyway... I got some writing to do.

Enjoy yourselves.

Cheers

JJ

Quote: JJ Cocker @ June 21 2008, 5:21 PM BST

And that's the biggest problem with society these days - putting labels on everything.

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Labelling stuff makes it more efficent to index in the brain.

Well people behave as individuals because we all have different experiences of life. The bible preaches the same laws to all the followers of Christ but not all christians do the same thing? Before christianity did those people have no will to survive or no hope to be alive? No they just got on with life as they knew it. We evaluate what is around us and observe what is good and bad for us as individuals. If we put our hand in the fire and it burns us then we know not to do that again. When it is all harnassed together as a society then we all learn from each other and people define good behaviour as what is acceptable to the community. Religion is a smokescreen, a way of ordering people with a false promise.

Quote: Gavin @ June 21 2008, 5:22 PM BST

Labelling stuff makes it more efficent to index in the brain.

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I agree as long as the label is not more powerful than what is contained in the index

Quote: JJ Cocker @ June 21 2008, 5:21 PM BST

Hopefully, being "jolly nice" to each other shows that different views can be debated.

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Yes but Aaron might not be so jolly nice if you keep using quotation marks in your posts

Teaching Global citizenship. I don't really know where to start on what an absolute load of bollocks that is.
I'll try this. I teach in a junior school in the roughest part of the City of Newport probably bar none. When they are in school %98 of these kids are well behaved and we teach them the values that society and because teachers tend to be middle class we also believe in.
But as one school inspector put it who stood outside the gates one day after school

'The pupils who I saw inside school are completely different when they are with their parents. Even the politist of children who I spoke to are foul mouthed and think nothing of screaming at parents and brothers and sisters alike. The level of poor parenting skills is undermining the work that is being done within the school.'

Don't get me started about kids in the comp. Nearly all the work we do is lost at home and in the first two years of comprehensive school. I know. The comp teachers have told me so.

It is parents and peers who in the end lead kids behaviour and thinking. I'm gonna stop now 'cos I could go on forever.

Comprehensives suck.

Quote: Aaron @ June 22 2008, 1:05 AM BST

Comprehensives suck.

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Not all suck and even some kids come through it all despite suffering dogs abuse for years on end. I know a couple of our ex-pupils who have done this. Middle class comp's do better because of levels of parental support but the lunatics out number the good 'uns. There are two and a half good comp's in Newport the rest you'd want to avoid like the plague. And we're not talking about bad teaching here. It's pretty close to the lunatics running the asylum. The government have no idea.

Do you think religion is any better at making these kids more responsible out of school than they are in it?

Quote: Alan C @ June 21 2008, 5:34 PM BST

Yes but Aaron might not be so jolly nice if you keep using quotation marks in your posts

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What's wrong with quotation marks in posts? Does it upset the programming structure or sommit?

Quote: JJ Cocker @ June 22 2008, 12:08 PM BST

What's wrong with quotation marks in posts? Does it upset the programming structure or sommit?

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Oh it's in the rules somewhere and it has lots of capitalisation around it to show how naughty they think it is - doesn't stop Aaron using it though so it's a bit... do as I say, etc ;-)

No human can possibly know everything that humanity has ever discovered. And humanity hasn't really dented the totality of knowledge. So each human bases their world-view on a pitifully small amount of knowledge. We mock the faith of others but we all live by faith.

Atheists, religious folk, and agnostics make decisions based on the interpretation of the available facts (as they see it) and their own personal biases and preferences. In that respect, religious belief is a reflection of personality type rather than 'apparent' intellectual capacity - Einstein was no lightweight but he apparently believed in a God.

And all faith is blind, by definition. It's believing in something that we haven't seen or experienced but we've grown to accept through means such as eyewitness accounts / formulae / textbooks etc. We're all blind men in a dark cave accussing each other of being blind. But that's the essence of mankind. We're intellectual snobs, preferring to mock those who differ for being 'stupid' enough to put their faith in the fairy tales of science or religion.

It's clear that science and religion have failed to deliver the long-awaited answers when, after millennia of research and debate, our intellectual champions still resort to deceptive logic and jokes, rather than admitting the real paucity of answers. We have more knowledge but we aren't more enlightened. Our choices still come down to what we prefer to believe.

And that's why religion or politics or anything else we pick on isn't the cause behind suffering or pain. It's man's nature not his beliefs that causes division and violence.

Quote: Aaron @ June 22 2008, 1:05 AM BST

Comprehensives suck.

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I'm a product of a comprehensive and I seem to have survived, although, it was some years ago. And the only thing I sucked there was pineapple chunks or aniseed twists.

Personally, I hate labels, especially those assosciated with class. I like to think (no quotation marks) - out of the box! We're all individuals, and, generally speaking, we all have to work at something to stay alive.

Quote: Alan C @ June 22 2008, 10:34 AM BST

Do you think religion is any better at making these kids more responsible out of school than they are in it?

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Not necessarily better, just another choice. Which is what life is about.

Religion and communities around places of workship can provide a lot of comfort and support in times of need. Families, friends, schools, social groups and even work can also do that, but they also provide areas of conflict, too. So life isn't always perfect wherever you go.

If everyone had somebody then there wouldn't be lonely or homeless people in the world, and I can't see anyone blaming religion for that. Unless of course, religion should be picking up the pieces of a fractured society.

In my humble opinion, wars may blame religion, use it as an excuse, but it's egos and power that create the conflict, not people who are looking for a meaning to their lives.

Quote: Alan C @ June 22 2008, 12:17 PM BST

Oh it's in the rules somewhere and it has lots of capitalisation around it to show how naughty they think it is - doesn't stop Aaron using it though so it's a bit... do as I say,

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Ok, obviously missed that. I'll wait for Aaron to give me a severe ticking off. Do I get to keep me pants on?

Quote: SlagA @ June 22 2008, 12:21 PM BST

And that's why religion or politics or anything else we pick on isn't the cause behind suffering or pain. It's man's nature not his beliefs that causes division and violence.

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Excellent, SlagA.

Quote: SlagA @ June 22 2008, 12:21 PM BST

It's man's nature not his beliefs that causes division and violence.

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Top marks for hitting the nail on the head. A 21st century philosopher, if I ever I saw one. Thank you for your insight.

I certainly tolerate other peoples beliefs - I hope that the reverse has not come across in my posts? JJ asked for the views of an atheist and I gave mine. Religions, alas, give power to people who abuse it as well as politicians, etc. As for not having all the answers - I hope that will always be the case.

Quote: JJ Cocker @ June 22 2008, 12:30 PM BST

Ok, obviously missed that. I'll wait for Aaron to give me a severe ticking off. Do I get to keep me pants on?

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What kind of comprehensive school did you go to that deemed it necessary to take your pants off for a ticking off?! Or is this a recently acquired reaction?

Besides that I am now informed that I got it all wrong about the quotation marks - he meant something completely different. So get those pants back up and quote for England (or Scotland or whoever)