Question about faith in schools

I have absolutely no issue with schools teaching my children (when I have them) about religion, but god help them (no pun intended) if they try to teach my kids that any particular religion is literally true.

when it comes to celebrating christmas, I'm an atheist and I celebrate christmas.  THese days it's an entirely secular holiday for most people

parents do have a choice of schools in many parts of the UK.  there are many faith based state schools, but you can easily tell how 'religious' they are by looking at their websites and talking to other parents.   if you want a non/less christian school there are other choices, although you may have to go farther.  it's worth noting that the faith based schools receive state funds, but some if not all also receive funds from the church they represent. 

we chose to send our children to a very catholic school, but there are a few muslim students who attend by choice due to the outstanding ofsted reports, even though there is a muslim school 2 blocks away.  the muslim students go to weekly mass and participate in the very catholic school life. 

I have absolutely no issue with schools teaching my children (when I have them) about religion, but god help them (no pun intended) if they try to teach my kids that any particular religion is literally true.

when it comes to celebrating christmas, I'm an atheist and I celebrate christmas.  THese days it's an entirely secular holiday for most people

I think that's the point.  My daughter is taught songs that have lines in them like, "Put your faith and trust in God and he will see you through anything," or "God created the earth" or "God sacrificed His only son to save us from our sins".  She is taught about other religions but there is an obvious bias.  And her school is not 'faith based' at all.

I also disagree that Christmas is a secular holiday for most people.  If aliens came to Earth and asked random people throughout the world why Christmas was celebrated, I think the majority of people would say to celebrate the birth of Jesus (regardless of their faith).  It is Christ's Mass afterall.

I think that's the point.  My daughter is taught songs that have lines in them like, "Put your faith and trust in God and he will see you through anything," or "God created the earth"

So what is going to happen in science classes?

Well, you can get your child excused from assemblies and other areas of the curriculum where there might be a religious bent. But this might make your child feel odd and possibly even drawn to the thing you want to avoid 

So what is going to happen in science classes?

Good question.  We were taught evolution and creationism as theories (in the US...years ago)...but we also weren't singing songs about God in school.

Good question.  We were taught evolution and creationism as theories (in the US...years ago)...but we also weren't singing songs about God in school.

I guess I don't really get the issue with singing songs about God at school, but then I did grow up with it in the UK. I went to a CofE primary school and sang songs about God and Jesus for 7 years, yet I grew up to be pretty much non-religious (my family are Christian but none of them attend church and I'm definitely not a practising Christian) - I even wrote on one school report when I was about 9 that I hated RE (completely not realising that it was definitely the wrong thing to say)!.

I was still taught regular science in school and I ended up becoming a scientist (I believe that the earth formed over millions of years and I believe in evolution.... what hand God had in that, if he exists, I don't know)... so my CofE education in primary school had little influence on my scientific beliefs later in life.

I'm not really sure what to call myself in term of my religion, really - I'm not a practising Christian, but I would also hesitate to call myself an atheist. I guess I'm just not sure if I believe in God... I'm inclined not to believe He exists, but at the same time, I obviously don't have proof either way, so I can't rule out His existence either.

So what is going to happen in science classes?

It seems to me like the fundamentalist Christian point of view is not as prevalent or vocal in the UK as it is in the USA, so the teaching of religion and science in the UK doesn't seem to be an either/or situation like it sometimes is in the US.

I've met plenty of religious people in the UK, but I haven't yet met anyone in the UK who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible when it comes to scientific matters.  Religious faith for them seems to provide a moral framework and spiritual comfort, but does not serve as a foundation for the rest of their understanding of the world.

I grew up into a good healthy atheist. 

Thats funny! That was my husbands first response when I asked about school in Scotland.

It seems to me like the fundamentalist Christian point of view is not as prevalent or vocal in the UK as it is in the USA, so the teaching of religion and science in the UK doesn't seem to be an either/or situation like it sometimes is in the US.

I've met plenty of religious people in the UK, but I haven't yet met anyone in the UK who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible when it comes to scientific matters.  Religious faith for them seems to provide a moral framework and spiritual comfort, but does not serve as a foundation for the rest of their understanding of the world.

Very well put... I remember growing up in Iowa and there was a church directly across the street from the high school. The church would hold 'prayer circles' at lunch and then send a bunch of thier students into the cafeteria to 'save' as many kids as they could by convincing them into coming outside to pray. I felt extremely pressured. One girl- who happened to be the pastors daughter- reported me to the school counselors for being 'suicidal' because she found out I was an athiest and thought it was because I didnt believe in god anymore and had no reason to live- I must want to die. Those were her exact words- I know because one of the counselors called the police who picked me up less than two blocks from my house as I was walking home from school. Even though I explained what was going on, and my father fought it- they made me eat lunch every day in the counselors office for almost 3 months after that.  Not to mention hpw scared I was being put into the back of a police car against my will -I was terrified and was trying to make it around the corner so I could point to my house to prove I was already home and to talk to my dad. They drove me back to the school and called my dad.

My earth science class that year we were tought creationism and the teacher only spend about 10 minutes crudely explaining the evolution side- adding that scientist think that humans will continue to evolve and think we may have larger heads and smaller bodies because we keep getting smarter- and would resemble 'aliens'. I raised my hand to ask a question about that and then I noticed the girl sitting next to me had started crying. Everyone got worried and asked her what was wrong and she sobbed, "But I dont want to look like an alien."

My husband on the other hand- sang hyms and repeated prayer in morning assemblies but was tought science and that science/religion were seperate. He was also exposed to a lot of other religions and hoildays.

My earth science class that year we were tought creationism and the teacher only spend about 10 minutes crudely explaining the evolution side- adding that scientist think that humans will continue to evolve and think we may have larger heads and smaller bodies because we keep getting smarter- and would resemble 'aliens'. I raised my hand to ask a question about that and then I noticed the girl sitting next to me had started crying. Everyone got worried and asked her what was wrong and she sobbed, "But I dont want to look like an alien."

Maybe it should have been made clear to that girl that humans evolving in that way is going to take thousands of years and it's not going to affect her in the slightest ! It's like telling everyone that the sun will burn out and we'll all die, without clarifying that it's not going to happen for another 5 billion years!

My husband on the other hand- sang hyms and repeated prayer in morning assemblies but was tought science and that science/religion were seperate. He was also exposed to a lot of other religions and hoildays.

Yes - we were not taught creationism in any science classes at all in school - I didn't even know what the words 'creationism' or 'intelligent design' meant until they were in the media a couple of years ago. I was taught about God's creation of the Earth in RE lessons (as well as being taught about Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism etc.) and about the scientific theories of creation in science lessons, but the two never crossed. It was then left up to me to decide what I believed.

One of my friends from school is a practising Christian and also has a degree in Theology, but she is open to both the scientific theories and the religious side of things. We've had some really interesting conversations about science vs. religion over the years .

alljustsquirrels, did you go to a US public (state) school or a private one?

I went to public school in New York, and my experience was very different from yours.

In high school, I had a Western Civilization teacher who was removed from teaching my honors class because he was accused by some parents of "teaching the bible in class."

What really happened was that he had us read the section of the New Testament where Jesus talks about how "the meek shall inherit the Earth", etc., and talked about how hypocritical that was considering Christianity's role in things like the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.  I would not call that teaching students the bible.  But he was demoted from his job anyway because of it.

I was also taught scientific method in the early grades and the difference between a scientific theory (based on repeated observations and experiments), which is what scientists mean when they say that evolution is "theory", and the word "theory" as it is commonly used.

We vaguely touched on different religious beliefs in Social Studies, just as part of learning about different cultures.

I also never heard of Creationism or Intelligent Design till after I left school. I graduated from high school in the 1980s; I think those terms probably weren't invented yet.

ksand24, I think my education was a lot like yours, except we didn't have separate RE classes; we learned about other religions in Social Studies and didn't go into anywhere near as much depth as you probably did. 

ksand24, I think my education was a lot like yours, except we didn't have separate RE classes; we learned about other religions in Social Studies and didn't go into anywhere near as much depth as you probably did. 

I'm not really sure how much depth we actually went into, since RE was generally considered a doss lesson (during GCSEs we still had to attend RE classes even if we weren't taking it for GCSE so it wasn't taken very seriously... it became more social studies-based by then) . I remember making Hindi masks in Year 7 and drawing the 5 pillars of Islam in Year 9, but then I also remember watching movies and an episode of the ITV kid's show The Famous Five (because one of the guys in my class was in it) .

I went to a very Catholic faith based school and we were NEVER taught to take the Bible Literally, in fact in RE (which was mostly centred around Catholicism at GCSE but previous to that had looked at all religions with a Catholic bias) we were taught what was a fable, what was an allegory, what was a metaphor etc.

In Science classes religion was never mentioned, and I was taught biology by a nun. We were taught evolution and scientific theory without taint.

We did learn about how some Christians believed in ID and creationism in RE but it was more a case of "some people believe that the Bible should be interpreted literally and therefore they believe that..." I remember much scoff.

The first time I met someone who believed in the literal interpretation of the bible was a born-again Christian I met at University, who was on my degree course, he questioned a Nobel Prize winning physicist on the age of the universe "because the Bible says..." the lecturer took it really well and just said "If you can produce a workable mathematic proof of that based on observed evidence, I'll read it, otherwise we'll have to agree to disagree"
I think the guy ended up quitting that course, I could never understand why he would put himself in that situation again and again.

In my school career we were never taught about religion in any way.  It might have been mentioned that the majority of people from a certain area believed in a particular religion...but the religion itself was never explained.  The word 'religion' wasn't mentioned much as even just saying the word was a lawsuit waiting to happen.  And I grew up in the middle of the Bible belt in Jerry Falwell, everyone is super-religious territory.  Some of the kids did a prayer circle around the flagpole but it had to be done before school started so it wasn't 'on school time'.

We were taught creationism and evolution as theories.  There was a little bit of an uproar during the teachings and the class discussion was promptly shut down.

The son of a preacherman was in my studyhall during military training.  Someone asked him how he couldn't believe in evolution when there was physical evidence that it existed.  His response was, "How do you know God didn't throw some old bones into the ground when He created the Earth?  Maybe He did it as a test of faith.  The Bible isn't meant to tell all.".  Point taken.

The son of a preacherman was in my studyhall during military training.  Someone asked him how he couldn't believe in evolution when there was physical evidence that it existed.  His response was, "How do you know God didn't throw some old bones into the ground when He created the Earth?  Maybe He did it as a test of faith.  The Bible isn't meant to tell all.".  Point taken.

The guy at uni had the same opinion about Dinosaurs, that they were there to test your faith and were part of a larger conspiracy. I sort of envy people with that level of unequivocal faith, but I wouldn't trade a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage.