spalen

Brisnick - I agree with you about religion being used to control the masses before structured governments were in place , or rather in the absence of other control structures. You can clearly see it in most religions , especially islam which has strong tenets of guidance on day-to-day living, like catholocism whihc has the rules that its wrong to murder etc - and please procreate so our 'clan' gets bigger.

I wasnt suggesting morality only came with religion but that schools that have a religious bent are teaching a set of rules (as above) which are useful - and they have sessions (ie lessons) each week that bring these things into debate and teaching - without RE lessons I wonder where on the curriculum these things come into play other than getting good behaviour in class generally.

I feel sorry for the OP this has now been fully hijacked into a theological debate haha.

movetoperth

My kids go to a local state school and they focus very highly on morals, when DJ was in year 1 last year every week they had a different moral to learn. He would come home and say this week we have to be kind to everyone....etc... When the bigger one started school it was again a local state school but there was a huge CofE influence, i never heard him say anything about kindness but i do remember him going on and on one easter about Jesus on the cross, very graphic i can tell you, he'd make crosses out of cutery in a restaurant and tell the waitress that Jesus died to save us and told me if he dies it would be ok because he would just come back again.

This all came to a head one day when we were walking through the village, i had his 3 year old brother in the stroller and he was holding in, he suddenly let go and jumped onto the road in front of a car, luckily the car managed to avoid him as i managed to grab him, what did he say as i stood there with tears pouring down my face, "it's ok mum if you die you just get reborn so i could come back thats what Jesus is for".

So if i was to say how i prefer my 5 year old to learn it's "mummy this week we have to be kind to people" little kids take everything literally, Religeous mumbo jumbo....... well it nearky cost me my son.

Lynn

Sorry didn't actually set out to tell that story, my mascara is running now.

spalen

flippin 'eck.

I know of a small christian(not catholic) school back in UK where on kids parents took him out of the school because they were studying 'dinosaurs' in class (im serious).

Larissa

My daughter went to a Catholic School in the UK and had an excellent education, with strong moral and Christian values. The school was like a little community and she thrived in that environment. The only thing which troubled her was pressure to pray to Mary, which was at odds with our own beliefs. I don't know that if she'd grown up in the school whether there would have been more pressure for confession etc. which is again at odds with mainstream Christianity. Perhaps non-Christian children had similar struggles - I'm not sure as her buddies were all from Catholic families.

She now goes to a public school and we have her on the wait list for the Baptist college (our own church). At the public school there is a big focus on looking after yourself, no moral education I can think of and no Christmas/ Easter stuff which felt weird.

BTW Lynn, so sorry to hear about your little fella. Reincarnation is not a Christian belief, I can't think how that crept in there.

NedKelly

Quite right, everyone knows that dinosaurs never existed because the world was created in 2002BC at 9.30am in the morning. The devil put the bones in the ground for us to dig up and to lure people away from the true path of Jesus.

movetoperth

Now i know nothing about whats Christian, Muslim, Hindu or whatever, I am a Scottish Heathen and tend not to get involved in any religion based discussion but this is really interesting, i always presumed that reincarnation was a christian thing and whats all this with the dinosaurs..... this is not a wind up i really am this thick, please indulge me...

Lynn

NedKelly

I think the Buddists invented it first. If you are a bad person you get reincarnated as a Dung Beetle or worker ant.

Mercedes

Are the Catholic schools in Australia still anti English. The reason I ask is that I knew a number of people who would be in their 30's now who were brainwashed by the Catholic schools they attended to hate the English by Irish Priests. Hopefully they have moved on from that, but has anyone else come across it?

spalen

The problem with the Dinosaurs is this....

God created the world in 7 days ( according to the bible ) , I personally cannot warrant this statement since Ive never met him to ask him.

He then plonked Adam and Eve on the earth on one of those 7 days.

But we've got zillions of years of dinosaur bones under our feet but only 100's of thousands of years of Man bones under our feet. Which kind of messes up this whole 7 day lark. Some christian(/catholic/whatever) have tried to say that the 7 days was actually 7 aeons or 7 zillion years and so the dinosaurs just kinda fit into the days before Adam & Eve.

The problem with this is that you break a belief - so if you can prove adam and eve werent real (ie not everyone came from the same 2 adults gene pool) and you can prove that dinosaurs etc existed then you kinda destabilise the whole bible (which is why Darwin was called a heretic).

There is more to it than this but its Creationism theory vs Evolutionary theory and from my experience its only few very very zealous people that believe there were not dinosaurs ( and they fall into my 'jeebus' category of people who should live on the Isle of Wight along with other groups of people I think are slightly mental)

I have simplified / jumped around the thing above but the gist is probably correct, anyhoo its amuses me.

Mercedes

Things must have been done much quicker in those days, try getting anything done now in 7 days,

spalen

It was before the unions, they were created on the 8th day along with collective workplace agreements .

movetoperth

Thanks for that Spalen, it's something that had never crossed my mind. Where i come from very few people went to church unless they were old or getting married, nobody ever asked you what religion you were, everyone was treated with same, whatever. I remember having the local minister come to school a few times when i was at primary school but he was my friends dad, it was just "oh Hillarys dad is coming in to tell us another of his stories" at secondary school RE was optional as was home economics, so i can't cook, can't sew and hadn't a clue that dinosaurs were such a problem I don't feel i have lost out because of it (other half is a fab cook!) but maybe i did.... would i have been a better person if i had known that Dinosaurs were not really Dinosaurs.........

Think i need to lie down now :scared:

Lynn

fraser

Why are morals and values christian? are you saying Buddhist, Hindus etc don't have morals or that they are inferior.

ABCDiamond

What if Adam and Eve were actually the first Dinosaurs ?

Did God say anywhere that they were actually human ?

Geordie George

When the BE awards are held again, can this thread be nominated for best comedy?