by Edman
As a resident of the Southern US, I tend to make the mistake of thinking that the power struggle between fundamentalists and secularists is confined to my region, and that the rest of the world is somehow a little more enlightened. A UF reader has kindly sent in a letter informing us of a similar struggle Down Under. From the email:
Over here in Australia the battle is on a slightly different footing as organized religion battles to stay in the class room. They have 1 hour per week, and an unwritten agreement that there will be no alternative tuition during scripture time. This is being challenged with an ethics class and the churches are fighting tooth and nail to stop it.
I have to say: that Save Our Scripture website is pretty creepy, and it looks like they have their tentacles in a number of different issues, from education to anti-gay legislation to video game ratings. (My apologies to any intelligent, gay, video game-loving cephalopods out there.)
Fortunately, the Big Controversy of Evolution hasn’t raised its ugly head yet in Australia…oh wait, what’s that? It has?
Damn.
Is there a place the fundies haven’t gotten to?
Hello Edman… Who’s Edman?
Edman is the man. Edman, I suppose you should introduce yourself…
By popular demand, an introduction:
Hi! My name is Edman, and I’m the new kid on the block. I’ve done some illustrations for Daniel in the past, and he’s invited me onboard to contribute articles, silly videos, or doodles from time to time. As far as any “atheist testimonial” is concerned, I was raised a fundie in the South, and after attending Bible college, ended up not believing in god after all. Funny how that works.
And I’m still stuck in the South, where I routinely see chrome truck nuts (with matching rims!) dangling from souped-up sedans. Just try unseeing that.
Welcome Edman! Nice to meet (or at least read) you :-)
I was wondering who you were. I sensed something was up when the post tags were used.
I do love meta data…
I don’t understand why the god-fearin’ folk don’t ban the display of model genitalia in public. I’m totally not buying that truck nutz are supposed to represent bull balls.
Um…isn’t Make a Stand implying, then, that teaching scripture does not teach children ethics? It’s an interesting dichotomy they’ve created with their arguments: “Parents and their children should not be forced to choose between ethics classes and [Scripture classes].”
This stuff is kinda flying under the radar here in NZ, I here more about it from American websites than local sources. We’ve had an hour of what was always called R.E. but was actually evangelism in our primary schools forever, but I was always told that it was a school by school decision to have it. There were two kinds of lucky kids – the first group got to go to “Father” who I assume was Catholic, but none of us kids could ever figure out how you got to join his class, except by already having a family member there. I have no idea why we all thought his class was better – possibly candy was involved. The other lucky kids got a note from home to go hang out in the Library for an hour instead.
We do hear about the Aussies trying to stop all R18 material from entering the country and we go “eh. dumbass Aussies” and keep downloading porn.
the first group got to go to “Father” who I assume was Catholic, but none of us kids could ever figure out how you got to join his class, except by already having a family member there. I have no idea why we all thought his class was better – possibly candy was involved. Candy is a pedophile best friend.
Also you Kiwis owe the world an apology for Ray Comfort.
Exactly what i was thinking — candy followed by a good hard rogering from “Father.”
Probably a class you don’t want to get top grades in.
Don’t Hillary and Rutherford make up for him!?!
Personally I’d have no problem with an hour of week of education *about* religion in the schools- as long as it was a broadly-based survey of world religion (and its alternatives) and not a catechism class for a particular religion.
I suspect the Christian fundies would start howling if somebody was allowed to sit down and explain Islamic or Hindu theology to their kids in school.
and as long as all of it was introduced as fiction.
Actually, I was hoping that if the kids got to hear it all at once, they’d figure that out for themselves. Knowledge is power.
“Personally I’d have no problem with an hour a week of education *about* religion”
That’s all ‘religion’ is, knowing something *about* God. There is no power, no transformation, no imparted truth in knowing something *about* God, it all remains in the periphery, is topical and entirely futile, meaningless.
There is another Way of course.
There is another way… woo!
Actually other religions do get a voice in Australia, based on the local community. The scripture classes are taught by external volunteers not trained teachers. The School my sons go to have Catholic, Anglican, Hindu and Buddhist (new this year) scripture. I’m assuming that Judaism and Islam are also available in some schools.
The no scripture option is however made as unpleasant as possible (from the point of view of an elementy school child). Thouse who do not attend scipture are supervised in the library where they must either do their homework or engage in other quite study. No talking is permitted.
So far however it has only been the Christian denominations that have made vocal objections to Ethics classes. One article pointed out that parish priests where ordered to show up at P & C meetings across the state (even in schools that are not yet offering the Ethics class).
Do the indigenous people get to come in and talk about the Dreamtime, etc?
Actually, enforced scripture in school in Australia isn’t too surprising, considering that the transported convicts had to stand in stalls and listen to hours of preaching.
I imagine the answer is yes. Many years ago when I went to Bondi Beach Public school (grades 2 – 4) the Maori kids had Maori culture lessons. I think out of 25 kids I had 5 Maori classmates.
For those of you who don’t know the Maori are natives of New Zealand but for some reason a large number had settled in the Bondi Area of Sydney, I don’t know if this is still the case but it was back then.
Here in Belgium children has a choice.
Go to Catholic Religious class, go to religious class of your choice, or go to morality class.
50% back then went to morality class, I happen to end up into a Catholics class.
What barbaric country would keep the children form not having to have fun or education during that time?
Funnily, for all that my country is supposedly very religious – and it is – I’ve never had a religious class. I don’t think anyone has, either – unless of course they go to a Catholic/otherwise religious (mostly Christian) school. I don’t remember even bothering about religion for a long, long time.
Funny, because over the border in SA, it’s only religiously-run schools that have R.E., and if parents write a letter of complaint (e.g. they feel it is an insult to their beliefs, they feel that it is not benefiting their child, they feel their child’s studies in other areas are sufferring, what have you) to the school they can have a child removed from the class. Of course, that means either a lesson in the library doing quiet study or a ‘free’ lesson for senior students, but it has happened.
In some other schools it is possible to do the SACE Stage 1 & 2 Studies of Religion, but it’s not a requirement, and very few schools offer it. It’s the easiest course that there is though, so people do it for an easy SACE unit (much like Vocational Studies).
We have compulsory R.E. classes at my school, but they’re a joke. The Year 11s and 12s treat them as a study lesson, if they come in at all. The Year 12 lessons are mostly evangelizing – a last-ditch attempt at conversion before we leave. It’s hilarious because most of my year are either athiests or agnostic (we have some Zen Buddhists as well, and one member of the Church of the Sub-Genius). If they were ethics classes, they might at least get more than 50% attendance – and hey, some work might actually be done!
The main problem at this school is the teachers though, so don’t take this as covering all SA schools. I went to another school to see what their R.E. classes were like when I considered changing schools, and they were quite good – there was lively class discussion and the teacher seemed to know how to keep things lively, at least.
I grew up right in the middle of the Bible belt, but you know, as hard as I think about it, I can’t remember one single time when we were offered a religion class (of any kind), prayed in class, talked seriously about creationism (props to my stepfather who was my junior high science teacher. he was an evangelical Christian but still had enough knowledge of science to know evolution was real and that it had no real relevance to the baby Jesus raising from the dead), or anything religiously motivated like that, really.
In Pakistan, Islamiat is a compulsory subject and has been since Zia’s rule. I actually gave the final exam for it this year. And nobody has ever said anything against this.
Is it because everyone agree with it or because they know the sh*t will really hit the fan if the do say something?
They agree with it.
Do they really agree with it or do they just pretend to agree with it because the penalty for apostasy is death?
When I was 6-7 yrs old I had a teacher that was very christian and apparently my father objected to the fact that she taught us about religion. I dont know if she was the only teacher but my father got a compromise: Another teacher came [to our place where children go after shcool that can't go home and parents pick them up after work.. like a kindergarten for kids 6-12 yrs old] and sat with me, my brother and some other kid in my class and whos parents knew my dad and anyway…for an hour a week she talked to us about other religions and read from the bible, the koran and all other sacred writings. One religion was covered in two weeks and she kept at it for two semesters.
I actually never thought about if we have scripture classes in sweden or not… I think ill look that up.
Thanks for the link!
Elliot – Young Australian Skeptics