A change from politics...

[sqbr]

I've been pondering doing one of these for a while, but wasn't sure I'd get the wording right. Since it worked so well on his lj, I've decided to completely steal the language of angriest's recent post instead(*).

1. Tell me your religious beliefs. It can be as simple as "I am an X" or it can be a lengthy paragraph if you like. If you feel your religious and/or spiritual beliefs are private, either don't reply or leave a note saying as much.
2. If you want to reply to something someone else has written, feel free - particularly if you want to ask them a question about the religion you've always wanted to ask but have never been able to, or felt comfortable enough to.
3. This is one of the biggies: if someone asks you a question and you don't feel comfortable answering it, do not feel obliged to answer. Either don't reply at all, or drop a quick reply saying "I don't really want to answer that".
4. Religious intolerance will not be tolerated. I'm aiming this particularly at the aggressive atheists who seem to get their kicks scoring points, but the rule applies in any direction.

I know a lot of you are on both flists, I decided to do it now while it's still fresh in your heads. You are quite welcome to repeat/post a link to your comment over there! And yes fred_mouse I know you were also planning on stealing his idea, but, well, there's no reason it can't be stolen multiple times :D

(*)And yes, I checked it was ok. Don't want to be sued for copyright violation by the big mean famous writer :)

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

I did a bit of searching, but I can't find any information about these opt-out Special Religious Education classes

My state school had someone come in and teach us all creationism, and it was definitely opt-out (not that my parents would have minded RE in principle), but that was years ago.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I wrote about SRE here. It's opt-out by law, though some school may choose it to be opt-in. (Your location may vary.) Schools are not permitted to offer any programmed educational activities to opted-out students during SRE time. And parents and humanist societies who wish to offer a secular ethics option instead have been refused on the grounds that they were not offering an approved religious persuasion.

WA's State Education Department has no idea how many students have been opted out or what religions are being taught in their own State schools. They don't collect that data, and can't answer the question.

On the swearing on a Bible: it matters not to me that politicians can "swear on whatever they wish". I think they _shouldn't_ be swearing on any religious text when taking public office. If they must swear on a wodge of paper (which I find a bizarre concept in itself), how about the Constitution?

Claiming we have no State religion doesn't really ring true to me while the Lord's Prayer is routinely said in Parliament and State schools routinely teach Christianity.

I'm not going to dignify the "if you don't like it, move to China" with a reply. I don't want a government that's "anti-religion"; I want one that's religion-neutral, and that considers religion - all religion, whatever flavour - to be a private matter with no business in State institutions.

[alias_sqbr]

nb: you replied to me, col_ki probably didn't get notified.

Wow, ok, so if that's still in force when I have kids there will be Words.

So certain non-christian religions are allowed? I'd prefer United Universists or Bahai etc to christian, and at least that way the kids would be getting an alternative to the pervasive christianess of society (not that they shouldn't know a bit about christianity too, if only in a "these stories underpin our culture" sort of way. Cam had no religious upbringing and doesn't know useful things like "why is that Supernatural episode called "Lazarus rising"?" etc)

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

(Don't people sub to whole threads? I use subthread notification very sparingly. Ah well, I figure if he's keen on the conversation, he'll come back.)

I've seen the occasional parent report a Baha'i class at their school (again, it wouldn't be my choice - they might give good PR, but their beliefs are sexually repressive, anti-gay (believing as they do in faith-based "cures" of this "abnormality"), and not in favour of repro rights). Anglican, Uniting Church, Catholic seem the commonest faiths taught. I've heard of JW classes, and the occasional Islam one. Never heard of a UU course in Australia.

The general teaching _about_ Christianity falls under GRE, General Religious Education. Obviously, I have no problem with that, and we're teaching it at home same as we do every other cultural feature.

I've also had local Church advertising sent home in the schoolbag from time to time, in State kindergarten, which either means that our teachers are spending time distributing it, or some random outside person is being given access to the kids' belongings on-site during class time.

[alias_sqbr]

I just have notification for all replies to comments I make on by default and tend not to subscribe to much else. Is there a way to set "notify me of any replies in threads I've started" by default?

Huh. Did not know that about the Bahai.