Faith schools

:s

ahem, that was a worried face.

It is certainly worth noting that England is a Christian State. The Queen is the head of the Church of England and our streets are dominated by churches, chapels and cathedrals. Therefore, just as in Islamic states there are only Islamic schools, why should England have anything more than Christian schools?

I should mention that I believe that school and religion should be separate but I’m not sure on what basis I can say that, considering i’m living in a Christian country.

In areas where there are 99% of one ethnicity I would say that it is the job of the local council to setup a school which caters for that ethnicity. A Christian is certainly not going to setup a school of Hindus and therefore it falls on the Hindus to do so, with funding from the government perhaps?

I agree with you that isolating faiths in school does lead to hatred towards other communities but is that necessarily the fault of the faith schools rather than the people who run them or attend them. It is a problem of human psychological nature that if you attach people to a certain group they will automatically be against any other groups of a similar function.

I think it is for the government to separate religion from school since you should not learn to believe in God or not believe in God, that should be kept to your religious community. By putting religion in schools, it alienates communities which is what causes tension and discomfort in the first place. Just take it out!

The idea being bounced around is that of England being a Chrisitan country, now thats ok if ur just going to use that term as a means of religious identification BUT if ur gonna use that as a basis to decide whether or not to open faith schools then its fundamentally flawed, simply because by the year 2003 the number of practising Muslims will outnumber the number of practising Christians, that is going upon the basis that going to Church is part of being a Christian…!!
However to my main point, the only way to promote religious and racial understanding is through integration. Not only will this ensure fuller understanding of different faiths but also also ensure a level of equality in education being received by all. Religion should be part of the school curriculum, I think its neccesary for one to be given a sense of religious identity (whatever that identity may be), while education in a particular religion should be kept as an activity outside of school.

It just seems to me that what you’re saying is get rid of religious communities and create one British people. Well why stop there, why not create one Human race?

I’m afraid people are too quick to join groups/communities/societies in order to feel some sense of belonging that the realisation of a human race is improbable and perhaps not practical. It seems like a nice idea, but is it workable?

I think most people would prefer to stick with their religious communities than to be a british community. Religious heritage would be considered more important by religious groups than the need for a patriotic community. After all, being religious gets you to heaven, being patriotic does not!

It’s an interesting idea you’ve raised Faisal. Is a country’s state religion dictated by the majority religious sect? I was saying England was a Christian country because it was founded as such. I wasn’t saying this is right or wrong just stating the fact that it has been and is now a Christian country. Who knows, it may become a Muslim country by 2003?

I agree that integration is the key and the more we know about religions the more accepting we become. That certainly happens in the school I goto. It doesn’t seem like it for some who go there(!) but the fact that some of my closest friends are christians and muslims shows that integration does work.

However, if we are to teach religion in school, surely we must teach ALL religions since how can we discriminate? That’s a whole lot of religions. Maybe you are advocating the teaching of the IDEA of religion, using the example of the main monotheistic religions, spiritual religions such as hinduism, buddhism, taoism etc. and any others that may crop up. But I would argue you also have to make pupils aware of atheism whether its as a faith in itself or a lack of faith. It is not the schools duty to impress religion on its pupils and so the syllabus should concentrate only on explaining the religions and the differences between them.

Religious identity will come from home and should not come from school.

i don’t think you can compare CofE schools with muslim ones. there are so many half-hearted christians wandering around the uk that it doesn’t define them so seperately. also, going to a CofE school says “yeah, i’m a bit of a christian … but i’m white, what the hell”. (they might not say hell, though). muslim schools appear, i would say generally, as more divisive because a) there is a bit of a stigma attached to islam (particularly of recent) and also because it widens the racial gap, religion aside. i hate to say it, but open-minded people aside, most people bung asians and muslims all in one category. it’s just one category, and i think people are resentful of them dividing themselves from the rest of the british community in any way. people don’t think “oh … an islamic school … i bet the have nice little koran readings and feel a real sense of religious identity” they think “oh, whaddaya know … another load of asians have gone and seperated themselves from the rest of the world”

i know this all sounds horribly offensive but i think that is the core of the problem.

any way, in my personal review, i think religious schools should be abolished, but then i find religion so proposterous anyway. the fact that i am expected to pray in every assembly, that if i testified in court i would do it on the bible,is rather worrying. i’ll tell you why - because it’s all based on nooooothing. we might as well all be worhsipping someone’s nasal hair. in fact it wouldn’t make any difference if we were, but i’m not going to get into anthropomophosising of god because i’m on a crappy keyboard. adios.

i live in devon. everyone is white here.

as far as i remember the entire population of peope of any other ethnicity in the whole of the south west is only a matter of thousands.

that asides, im with you nicola.
personally, i find religion’s continuing place in our society offensive.