Atheism to be taught to UK young 'uns...

[Aos Si]

So, do they have a problem with Voudoun being taught in UK schools I wonder?

Up to now they've never taught about minority faiths in schools. It's not that they have a problem with them, just that RE only takes up a very small chunk of the curriculum and it's seen as more sensible to focus on the World's six largest religions.

War, democracy, money, sex, cheese, bacon.

Quite right too a valuable part of anyone's education if they want to know how humanity really functions.

You can even go on a field trip to the worlds many temples known as museums, banks, or brothels or internet cafés where all of these faiths can be practised with careful use of screen resources and or an order to the high priests at the counter.

[egbert]

So, do they have a problem with Voudoun being taught in UK schools I wonder?

Up to now they've never taught about minority faiths in schools. It's not that they have a problem with them, just that RE only takes up a very small chunk of the curriculum and it's seen as more sensible to focus on the World's six largest religions.

War, democracy, money, sex, cheese, bacon.

Quite right too a valuable part of anyone's education if they want to know how humanity really functions.

But the main religion, the one practiced most, The God most worshiped, is missing from the list - - Deception.

[maiforpeace]

I'm aware of the origins of Humanism. I didn't realize there were so many practicing Christians in it.

There aren't many, but there certainly are some.

I think there is an important distinction, no matter how subtle, between (secular) humanism and atheism, but elementary and middle school students aren't studying philosophy. They'll have time to work out the finer points later in their education. The blurring of the distinction between the two for purposes for simplification seems age-appropriate in this case. I still think it's a good idea to include in RE a section about people who don't believe in any supernatural deity and at least the basics of why, and I can't think of a more appropriate venue than right alongside explanations of the sort of crap atheists don't believe in. Seems it would be most instructional in that context.

The distinction is quite simple: atheists don't believe gods exist, humanists think religious arguments have no place in public debate. The distinction doesn't have to be made explicit in RE class, but if you're teaching about ethical systems teachers would do well to adress humanism, not atheism, and if their teaching about metaphysics (though I doubt they would), they should talk about atheism and not humanism.

Both atheism and humanism present alternatives to positions commonly held by religious thinkers, but they present alternatives in entirely different dimensions.

There are two types of humanism - secular, and religious humanism under which Christian, Jewish and Buddhist humanism falls under.

Ethical Culture, also humanistic in principles, of which I am a member, embraces the humanistic ideal that you write of JOZ...while most Ethical Culturists are usually atheists, Ethical Culture does not take a formal position on whether god exists or not.

However, I would agree that the more broad use of 'humanism', today, without being prefaced with secular or religious, is more often considered the secular variety since religious humanism isn't as common or as organized as secular humanism.

[charlou]

When it becomes an "ism" ... the labeling and circumscription of values, and the associated defining arguments ... that's when it's at the height of its most flag-waving ideology ... and has lost me.

[charlou]

In education, I like the idea of keeping the discussion of ethical values separate from a broad discussion about religions and isms generally.

[Pappa]

In education, I like the idea of keeping the discussion of ethical values separate from a broad discussion about religions and isms generally.

From what I recall, our RE lessons were completely devoid of any discussions about ethics. RE was always taught from a factual, comparative perspective. We had a lesson called PSE in which we discussed ethics, and various other things. It was done in a totally half-arsed way though, and you could tell the teachers regarded it as pointless.

[Aos Si]

In education, I like the idea of keeping the discussion of ethical values separate from a broad discussion about religions and isms generally.

Interestingly most religious practitioners throughout history have too. Which is perhaps the problem with religion.

Religious ethics are worthless if you ask me, they are contingent on you believing in God and since more than half the kids these days coming through schools will have been raised by atheists, this seems to be a pointless area to look into. Besides the advocacy of more pluralistic ethical means seems a better way to tackle morality, ie mixing and matching from many camps, religious, utilitarianism, relativism etc.

[MrJonno]

Religious ethics are worthless if you ask me, they are contingent on you believing in God and since more than half the kids these days coming through schools will have been raised by atheists, this seems to be a pointless area to look into. Besides the advocacy of more pluralistic ethical means seems a better way to tackle morality, ie mixing and matching from many camps, religious, utilitarianism, relativism etc.

While they are bollocks they are a major influence in how human beings work so its important to learn about them

[Aos Si]

Religious ethics are worthless if you ask me, they are contingent on you believing in God and since more than half the kids these days coming through schools will have been raised by atheists, this seems to be a pointless area to look into. Besides the advocacy of more pluralistic ethical means seems a better way to tackle morality, ie mixing and matching from many camps, religious, utilitarianism, relativism etc.

While they are bollocks they are a major influence in how human beings work so its important to learn about them

In philosophy maybe in RE I wouldn't muddy the waters with them, or you'd probably end up in an argument about whos God was right, and that would be detrimental to the the purpose of the lessons. You can learn about pointless human in-fighting about whose god has got the biggest dick in a philosophy subject without muddying the subject too much, because philosophy is meant to be muddy and contentious when it comes to religion. That's why most text books these days tend to criticise moral absolutism as being full of shit, well outside the apologist camps anyway.

[HomerJay]

Also, humanism is Christian in origin. The earliest humanists were Christians advocating strict seperation of church and state. Erasmus, seen as the founder of humanism, was a Christian and a bible scholar. Apart from his well known work on secular ethics, one of his most important works is compiling and translating the bible from (at the time) the best sourches available. There still exist such Christian humanists.

There are - as far as I know - no Christian humanist groups, because for Christian humanists, the things humanist groups concern themselves with have no overlap with their religious beliefs.

We seem to be getting very confused here between terms. The word humanism may date from Erasmus but the concept of humanism goes back to the Greeks, a few hundred years before Christ the Saviour was born and a couple of thousand years before Erasmus.

The Secular Humanism we know today dates from the Greeks, nothing to do with Erasmus, not even close.

There isn't a need for Humanists (even Secular ones) to be Secular in the sense of separation between church and state, that is purely contingent, in fact one Secular Humanist society in the UK has bridged the gap into the 'multifaith' arena.

I diverge with them in this point because, as Charlou pointed out, we don't have an ism and I don't have an ism I want taught in RE.

Secularism is Politics, so I wouldn't want the kids confused by teaching them about religion, just teach about the politics.

[FBM]

I don't have any axe to grind about definitions, origins and the like. For me, the parts of the OP that stike me most are:

"School pupils aged just four are to be taught..."
"Youngsters will continue to learn about..."
"Children as young as four will be taught..."
"Both primary and secondary school pupils will be included..."

...and I was just pointing out the importance of age-appropriate content wrt these students' curricula. Trying to teach all the theoretical, philosophical distinctions and nuances will just put the younger ones to sleep, and they'll retain nothing. At the younger ages, simplify appropriately. Just like when you speak to toddlers using short sentences and simple vocabulary. They need comprehensible input or they just turn their attention elsewhere and remember nothing except that it's a difficult and boring subject. In middle school, they can ramp it up a little more, and by high school the teachers should be able to fill in most of the distinctions and nuances.

[camoguard]

I think it's a good subject to teach too. I don't know if four is the right age or not. It seems kind of useless depending on their home life.

On the humanist front, I like Paul Kurtz's idea with the Neo-humanism. I don't know if I'm sold or not but I'm thinking about it. There are other results for googling Neo-humanism which appear to be woo so I'm being specific. Kurtz is thinking of the next more inclusive secular idea that rational people can get behind with or without a religion (after we agree on the rational part). It's thoughtful.

[egbert]

Jesus is a brown stain.

You should join "Atheists For Jesus"! It's time to fight the Muslim hordes. Support the new Crusade!

[camoguard]

I'm probably not going to do that. Despite the fact that I think Islam based theocracies are inferior to Western world governments in terms of freedom and rights and the safety of their citizens, I don't hate the fact that people have a Muslim faith more than a Christian faith. Hate is such a strong word. But I am an atheist specifically in reaction to Christianity as I've run into it. I'd ally with Muslims first.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm probably not going to do that. Despite the fact that I think Islam based theocracies are inferior to Western world governments in terms of freedom and rights and the safety of their citizens, I don't hate the fact that people have a Muslim faith more than a Christian faith. Hate is such a strong word. But I am an atheist specifically in reaction to Christianity as I've run into it. I'd ally with Muslims first.

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