Lincs authority lets schools decide on Pagan lessons If you’re looking to improve your child's chanting skills or enhance their moon dancing, Lincolnshire may soon be the place to go – as the county decided this week to let individual schools decide on the teaching of pagan doctrine. At present, some six world religions are studied in that County’s schools. According to the …
Will they also include the Pastafarians?
"modern pagans, unlike ancient druids, are more concerned with focussing personal energies through ritual than human sacrifice"
The custom of the Druids
Was to drink fermented fluids
And run naked through the woo-ids
And that's good enough for me
...that those druids were comprehensively exterminated by the Romans, in the first century AD.
Their practices and traditions died with them. Modern druids are just crackpots in robes pretending to be something that doesn't exist any more.
I could call myself a velociraptor, but it wouldn't make them any less extinct.
And 'druids' here, feel free to flame away, I couldn't care less about the opinions of the deluded.
"Their practices and traditions died with them. Modern druids are just crackpots in robes pretending to be something that doesn't exist any more."
Indeed there is very little evidence of what druidism actually involved, so current "druids" are effectively making it up as they go along. Especially that idiot who claims to be King Arthur. Depending on which version of the whole King Arthur legend you believe it's pretty clear that Arthur was not around until after druidism was killed off, so it's more or less nailled on that the real King Arthur (if there was one) wasn't a druid anyway.
As part of your cost-cutting measures, may I suggest reducing the amount of time spent to a more useful one hour per term, thus reducing each religion to a brief five- minute overview where the individual students can then go away and follow what ever belief suits them best.
This will avoid the need for expensive committees deciding which religions should and shouldn't be taught at schools and will align the importance of religion in schools with it's place in modern day life.
I accept that there may be some jobs lost as a result of this decision, but, as part of the "big society" these people can do missionary work on the various estates around the UK to help the at need youth learn the value of religion in modern society unless they would prefer to find alternative employment.
There was a time when I would have agreed with you.
However, I think there is a place in schools for "cultural studies" and a very big part of some cultures is their religion. Knowing about religions can be of use when making friends and interacting with colleagues, for example. Or, if you want an extreme example (which I'll admit is a little tenuous and silly), if you happen to visit an Islamic country* you will at least know that drinking, eating pig meat, public displays of affection or nudity and calling teddy bears "Mohammed" is likely to be frowned upon.
I should point out that I don't think children should be taught to believe in any particular religion (even by their parents but that's another matter), but I think knowledge of religions, even if it's just for historical reasons, has a valid place on the curriculum.
For the record I'm an atheist.
*easy example, I'm sure people can think of ones for bible-belt US and similar.
Well, no, just as a basic matter of sheer numbers, as a species we haven't. I don't believe in it either, but that doesn't mean I can just disregard the fact that other people do, or that it matters to them. You aren't obliged to believe yourself, it's just good manners to understand what other people think. Like learning at least a few words of some other country's language when you go to visit. You don't lecture them about how dumb they are for not speaking English like you do.
Though they should clarify whether they mean new age paganism, neo-celtic paganism or neo-norse paganism (or indeed a variety of other 'pagan' doctrines). You could argue that they're all the same but then turning that round on the Abrahamic religions might get you stoned/burned/blown up before you'd finished your argument.
SACRE is a huge waste of public money. It should be first in line for the big cut knife.
Oh, and paganism definately isn't a religion. It's just an English word used to label any religion that isn't Judeo-Christian. Hinduism, for instance, can legitimately be called a pagan religion. Yes, it's a pretty stupid label to use in this modern age. Makes you question why these people getting paid to study religions don't even have a basic grasp of the subject they are being paid to write endless drivelly papers about.
So they're leaving it up to the schools to decide?
That's not necessarily a good thing. I would be unsurprised if no reader could think of a teacher who, had they been given the chance, could get cranky on religion.
Anyway, isn't RE about the only subject schools have to teach where there aren't targets? (Unless you count Saint Sebastian...)
Pagan means an indigenous religion, so in the country it was spawned Christianity is indeed Pagan.
As for a cult, a cult (cult = work as in culture) is an organisation. The distinction being that a cult is an organisation while a religion is a thought. Thus, the Church of Scotland is a cult while Christianity is a religion.
I think comparative theology is a perfectly fine subject for schools, and this includes the modern druid sects we refer to as pagans. However, with the rise of single faith schools no one could be trusted to teach this impartially, so it should be scrapped. Education? Indoctrination more like.
As I think Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman pointed out, the English don't go to church. But the church they don't go to is the Church of England, not one of those strange foreign inventions.
Nuke the lot of them. Religion has no place in schools and little place in a civilised society.
"Religion has no place in schools"
"Let's take religion out of politics"
Er, no, let's not. Seriously. Atheism is a belief system held by only a very few people in the world. There are lots of agnostics, lots of people who disregard religion because they want to do things many religions disapprove of (usually, sex is the issue), but that is not the same as saying there is no God. Even Dawkins can only come up with "there is no God... probably."
To remove religion (which by definition forms the basis someone's actions) from public life by decree and banning topics for discussion in an educational context is insulting to almost everyone. It makes the secularists guilty of hypocritical authoritarianism. At least traditional religions in the UK do not have the power to *impose* their will over the populace. Such a desire is illiberal and anti-democratic and should be strenuously resisted.
What we need is a serious comparative study of belief systems, looking at their origins, development and following their theology, logic and philosophy to see where it leads and what the implications are for how followers might behave. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism/Paganism/ancestor worship and Atheism seem like reasonable basis for discussion.
I'm not suggesting that any belief system is taught as the "one-true way", merely that we educate our children as to the facts and implications of the belief systems of most of the people in the world. Saying "let them decide for themselves" and then banning discussion is ridiculous. Banning topics for discussion in schools and calling it "freedom" or "diversity" is crass hypocrisy. It's merely the march of authoritarian conformism.
One would hope that education has not degenerated into making children memorise a list of all the things which are true and all the things that are false, even if the adults know the answer beforehand. It is about providing children with tools to evaluate truth and falsehood and providing an arena for them to practise and develop these skills. It is about taking evidence and evaluating it for yourself.
Stop this "I know I'm right therefore no further discussion is needed," attitude. Blind faith is an attitude we want to instil in our children.
I've run into this argument a few times, and to be honest, I think it depends on the individual atheist. In most cases, where a person just doesn't believe in God or anything similar, I think it's true that it's not a belief system.
But if we're talking about the sort of atheism that we see occasionally on, you know, certain Internet forums and comment pages - the rather angry, intolerant and preachy sort - then I think it's edging into evangelism and shouldn't be given a free pass. We especially shouldn't excuse such preachy atheists invoking 'science' as proof of their position when true science specifically takes NO position on the possibility of gods, intelligent creators or whatever, precisely because these things cannot be tested. Call them an unscientific proposition and I'd agree. Suggest that lack of evidence makes it logical not to assume something exists; I'd support your reasoning. But tell me that any of this means that such an entity doesn't - or can't - exist, and you're venturing further than logic can take you, and you're demonstrating a belief system.
No, in general atheism isn't a belief. It's the absence of belief (or 'freedom from belief' if you insist); but it's certainly treated as one by those who expound it most determinedly.
"true science specifically takes NO position on the possibility of gods"
That is, I'm afraid, complete BS. Science takes a position on gods by default. Take for example any science that tells us the age of the earth or the rest of the universe; it automatically argues against virtually all the creationist stories to be found in many religious teaching. And that's just one example. Science has a habit of arguing against an awful lot of religious teaching, just because it doesn't set out to do so does not mean that it doesn't happen.
Every religion tells us that we can't pick and mix from it's teachings, it's an all or nothing thing. So lets take the old testament as an example. We're told that we have to take all of it as, ahem, gospel. If science blows the story of creation out of the water then the whole damn tome is on the trash heap. If the priests tell us all of it is true, then if one bit of it is demonstrably false then the book as a whole is inadmissable. Even if some of it it true. The priests are hoist by their own petard there.
"That is, I'm afraid, complete BS. Science takes a position on gods by default. Take for example any science that tells us the age of the earth or the rest of the universe; it automatically argues against virtually all the creationist stories to be found in many religious teaching."
Science is a process of logical and systematic investigation of the world. Science presents us with certain information, and it's then up to us to determine first whether that information is reliable (have experiments or observations been carried out correctly), and second what that information can tell us.
You state that science takes a position on gods 'by default' because it presents us with information that denies many of the creation stories offered by religions.
However, I think you may have misunderstood what I said. I didn't make any mention of creation stories: I said that science takes no position on "gods, intelligent creators, or whatever". Which it doesn't. Stories are one thing; the possibility of some creative intelligence using some method available to it to create the world or some element of the world is something else, something that we can't test. What can't be tested, science doesn't consider. The same could be said about, for example, the question of parallel universes, the 'many-worlds' hypothesis. There's simply no way to test the idea, and therefore science as it stands doesn't try to do so. That it's unfalsifiable is enough for science to put it aside and work around it.
Similarly, the concept of God, gods or other intelligent creative or guiding force behind the universe is beyond the ability of science to test. It's also unfalsifiable. Which is enough for those concerned with logic and empirical investigation to ignore the possibility, and for atheists to say, justly, "there is no evidence, so I don't believe". It's *not* enough to give anyone, at least anyone who values true reason, cause to say "there is no..." or "... does not exist".
"And that's just one example. Science has a habit of arguing against an awful lot of religious teaching, just because it doesn't set out to do so does not mean that it doesn't happen."
I agree. But again, 'religious teaching' isn't the same thing as the hypothetical divine entity we're talking about. Science argues against a lot of religious teaching because that teaching usually stems from human conclusions about the world that pre-date our scientific techniques. And again, while there's no evidence there's a justification for atheists to say "there's no evidence, so I don't believe". But it doesn't validate the statement that "there is no...".
"Every religion tells us that we can't pick and mix from it's teachings, it's an all or nothing thing. So lets take the old testament as an example."
Have you any idea how many religions you're referring to when you say "every religion"? Are you absolutely sure that *every* religion takes that position? It's very common for anti-religious arguments to be based solely on the perceived failings or inconsistencies of the Abrahamic monotheisms, and for these arguments to be extended out to cover the concept of 'religion' in general without any regard to the vast spectrum or variety of beliefs that that would include.
And that number will change enormously depending on your precise definition of 'religion'. Does a general spirituality count? Do certain philosophies qualify as religious beliefs?
"We're told that we have to take all of it as, ahem, gospel. If science blows the story of creation out of the water then the whole damn tome is on the trash heap."
Not at all. I'm not Christian, incidentally, so I've no vested interest here. But no: some Christians will argue that the Bible has to be taken literally from beginning to end. However, it's quite obvious that a great many Christians don't believe that. Genesis, for many Christians, is metaphorical, in just the same way that Jesus' parables are accepted (regardless of your feelings on Jesus himself) as fables and morality tales. If science blows the story of creation out of the water then from this myth-aware viewpoint, Christianity loses nothing. Christianity's fundamental beliefs are that Jesus existed; that he preached a certain message (open to interpretation); that he taught about a reward for the faithful in the afterlife (unfalsifiable and therefore beyond scientific enquiry); and that he 'died for our sins' (note that proof of a physical resurrection, for all its importance in the eyes of most Christians, isn't essential for this element).
"If the priests tell us all of it is true, then if one bit of it is demonstrably false then the book as a whole is inadmissable. Even if some of it it true. The priests are hoist by their own petard there."
Some priests might be. The creationist, literalist fundamentalists do themselves no favours by building their religion on falsifiable premises. But the god - if such there is - isn't the same as the religion; and it certainly isn't the same as the priests.
Who wants to BAN discussion ? Most of us are simply advocating that it isn't school's place to bring the subject up or to pay people to decide which myths that haven't died yet should be discussed and which shouldn't. Schools SHOULD teach children tools to evaluate truth and falsehood. That's why science lessons should teach the scientific method itself.
Also, since when did secularism become a dirty word to anyone with a religion ? Unless you are in the majority religion and wish to exploit that situation to force your views on others then secularism should be the natural choice of all theists as well as atheists.
"Atheism is a belief system..."
Of course it isn't a belief system! While we're at it, I am atheist; I am not "an atheist". I don't believe in god, or for that matter, that that universe was created by a chocolate space fairy, a divine league of multi-dimensional donkeys or any one of an unbounded set of things that are so improbable that I needn't spare any doubt by taking an agnostic view.
God is just one of many things that I don't believe in, but religious apologists try to elevate it to some special status by claiming that atheists "believe that god doesn't exist". God is on a par with the purple people that live under the carpet. It isn't my fault that much of the world has been taken-in by a two-thousand-year-old marketing scam. I recognise that these believers exist and will teach my children about them myself, thankyou.
"One would hope that education has not degenerated into making children memorise a list of all the things which are true and all the things that are false"
Oh you naive optimist! What on earth do you think SATs, GCSEs (and, increasingly, A-levels) are all about?
"It is about providing children with tools to evaluate truth and falsehood and providing an arena for them to practise and develop these skills"
I couldn't agree more; unfortunately, you won't find such an approach in more than a small minority of schools (if any). It's the antithesis of the modern school system.
Just because. But it is quite good. So far, it seems like all the "fun" bits of Buddhism without the brainaching philosophy (not a surprise that Shinto/Buddhism co-exist).
Sorry, I gave up on The Bible (I'm supposed to be a CofE) a long time ago. I just cannot reconcile the vengeful God of the Old Testament who was happy to wipe out the planet (bar some examples in a big boat), throw plagues at families for untold generations, led the Jews on a merry dance around a desert until they all but died... with the soppy hippy God of the New Testament that loves everybody and let his own son be murdered in order to demonstrate this love. Excuse me? [well, at least we have Revelations - a crowd-pleasing finalé]
Sadly there is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328703/Remembrance-Day-Poppy-burning-Muslim-protesters-mar-Armistice-Day.html which will tip the balance back into her hands. Then again, she would appear (from her website) to support a Christian view and that the loss of it shows how we're all spiralling down the U-bend. It'll just give more for ranting about.
BTW, as unpleasant as those Muslim protesters were, it looks from the photo that there were maybe 15-20 of them. Is this representative of anything? Or are papers like The Fail doing more damage to relations with ordinary (ie non-crazy) British-resident Muslims by ranting in this manner?
The problem with all the righteous indignation spouted by the Daily Fail is that the word "minority" is clearly missing from their dictionary. I don't care what the group of people under discussion, there will always be a minority who will act counter to the normal behaviour of that group, often in very naughty ways and often in the name of that group.
Any rational person knows that not all basques, muslims or indeed Irish catholics are terrorists (shall I wait for the obvious joke, or carry on regardless?). The Daily Mail will not, however, allow that to get in the way of a good rant. The sad thing about Fail journalists is that most of them know all this, but write what they write in order to pander to their readership and sell papers.
So Daily Mail readers who believed that Paganism is a single religion and all pagans eat babies can upgrade that belief to solid knowledge once it is printed in the Mail. Whatever is printed in the Mail is *fact* every Mail reader knows that.
Seems everyone's got an opinion on paganism just now. I assume it's something to do with the Daily Mail selecting pagans as their bogeyman-du-jour recently.
The shame is that none of these commentators seem to have or want the first clue about paganism. If they did, they'd know that paganism isn't a single faith but a set of vaguely related, generally nature-centred beliefs. I know the Reg loves a good religion troll, and if you're going to have a pop at religion then paganism can't be immune. But for crying out loud don't just hang on the Mail's coat-tails. Pagans have been doing their thing for years: it's not our fault the media have only just noticed.
And it seems an irrational one at that.
The laws of nature are too finely tuned to allow life to exist for these to have believably (to me) arisen from blind chance. A very tiny change in any of many parameters provided by fundamental physical constants would make for a universe in which there are no galaxies or other basic building blocks of life. But the fact exists that we are here. It seems that some atheists try to get around this problem by claiming the laws of physics 'evolve' without proposing either any science, or physical observations or any hypothetical mechanism for how this idea works in practice - so that there doesn't seem to be any difference in principle between this idea and a belief in magic. Other atheists claim that there must be an infinite number of universes, with different laws of nature in each, so that the one universe we inhabit can have all the laws just right to allow life to exist. This is just like the idea that Shakespeare's complete works were created randomly by 1 of an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters getting lucky. This infinite universes idea also isn't useful scientifically because it can't be tested or verified, so again this idea isn't different in principle from believing we are controlled by the spirits of our dead ancestors.
The Victorian athiests who proposed a steady state universe had a much better hypothesis which avoided the problem of an observed universe arising out of nothing, by claiming that the universe has always existed in an infinitely long past. But there is too much observational evidence for the big bang theory nowadays for atheists still to push the steady state universe hypothesis despite being much better than current atheistic explanations for why we are here. So how do atheists get out of this one ? Either evolving physical laws or Infinite typing monkeys it seems, both of which are wild ideas, neither having a shred of physical evidence to support them.
Occam's razor makes clear the idea that the works of Shakespeare were creatively written by one intelligent human as the simpler and more logical explanation than infinite monkeys at typewriters authoring this set of works. Similar reasoning based upon:
a. the fact we exist
b. the laws of physics tuned very slightly differently from those which are observed would not allow life
c. the fact that the universe has an observed beginning
Makes the leap of irrational faith needed to be an atheist far too great for me to be able honestly to accept this. It needn't surprise us that atheism is a minority view. Humanism should be given the rights and respect due to any other irrational religion which as a minimum claims to respect the ethical golden mean (i.e. the 2nd commandment). Those interested in the consequences of expressions of atheism less deserving of respect might do well to search for the terms "social darwinism" in order to study the movements so described by their opponents.
"The laws of nature are too finely tuned to allow life to exist for these to have believably (to me) arisen from blind chance"
There is a story about a sentient puddle which thinks that "wow, this hole I'm in fits me perfectly. If it was smaller I'd overflow, if it had cracks in I'd drain away, obviously it must have been created for me, it couldn't have just happened by accident!"
Unfortunately that puddle (and you) make the error of getting things backwards, we can *observe* the "finely balanced" laws of nature simply because we have evolved in this universe where we *can* exist, but that doesn't mean that this universe was created for our benefit.
Meanwhile your comments about the "creation" of natural laws and comments about Shakespeare are simply Straw Men which show *your* lack of understanding of the subject rather than the invalidity of the arguments.
'If the rate of expansion of the universe 1 second after the big bang had been one part in 10,000,000,000 the universe would have recollapsed. If it had been greater by one part in 1,000,000 the stars and planets could never have existed. ' Stephen Hawkings, quoted in The Dawkins Letters by David Robertson.
Science, as I understand it, presumes that cause and effect occurs sequentially forwards in time, with cause preceding effect. Atheists, it would seem have to assume the opposite, that the present causes the past rather than that the other way around. This is just one of many myths it seems atheists have swallowed to in order to avoid the obvious. I'm not the one getting things backwards.
I didn't mention anything about creation in my post either Graham, you brought up the subject of creation. The evidence from the works of Shakespeare is that the existence of creativity is more likely to imply intelligence than randomness.
You quote Stephen Hawking (there's no 's' on the end of his name) as many religious people have done without understanding what he was talking about and instead jump on this statement and claim it as some sort of "proof" that the universe must have been "designed" and therefore that their "god" exists.
Your claim that "Atheists, it would seem have to assume the opposite, that the present causes the past rather than that the other way around" shows the fallacy of the above claim, it is those who profess to religion who swallow the myth that goes "we are here, therefore a god must have created the universe for us to be here in", whereas the atheist says "isn't it fortunate that the right conditions happened to come about for us to be here and observe these conditions".
And, please, don't try to convince me that because you didn't use the word "creation" you did *NOT* imply it in your words which I quoted in my previous post "The laws of nature are too finely tuned to allow life to exist for these to have believably (to me) arisen from blind chance".
If the laws did not "arise from blind chance", what other word would you use to describe this process??
'And, please, don't try to convince me that because you didn't use the word "creation" you did *NOT* imply it in your words which I quoted in my previous post "The laws of nature are too finely tuned to allow life to exist for these to have believably (to me) arisen from blind chance".
If the laws did not "arise from blind chance", what other word would you use to describe this process??'
The purpose of my post was to expose the apparent illogicality and irrationality behind atheist viewpoints as to how the universe came out of nothing. But I fully agree that the apparently intelligent arrangement of the laws of physics and early cosmology, leading to how the universe and nature came into being as disclosed by scientific enquiry, does lead to further metaphysical questions of the kind you ask which can neither be answered scientifically nor proven mathematically.
If the take of atheism on this question is illogical and irrational what other metaphysical options are available ? The other options are to claim that we have and can have no knowledge (agnosticism) or some kind of theism. If atheism in a universe with apparently intelligent laws is irrational, then presumably theism is a more reasonable viewpoint than atheist fundamentalists would ever accept. But if physical laws and early cosmology are intelligently arranged this points us firstly to a theism concerned with a legislator of the laws of nature and only secondly to a creation by means of this legislation.
"the apparently intelligent arrangement of the laws of physics and early cosmology, leading to how the universe and nature came into being as disclosed by scientific enquiry, does lead to further metaphysical questions of the kind you ask which can neither be answered scientifically nor proven mathematically."
ITYM "can not *YET* be answered..." Of course they also cannot be answered by simply pushing the answer away and saying that "$deity did it" with the stipulation (implicit or explicit depending on your faith) that such questions should not even be *asked*.
As for the rest of your post, you keep claiming that atheism is "illogical" and "irrational" simply because it doesn't fit in with what *you* wish to accept, chucking in lots of unproven (and unprovable) "If's" as if(!) that makes your arguments valid, so I see no point in wasting more time trying to convince you otherwise.
"The purpose of my post was to expose the apparent illogicality and irrationality behind atheist viewpoints as to how the universe came out of nothing."
There's no fundamental irrationality here, although the position is often made to *appear* irrational by the fiercer and more evangelistic atheists.
The recent hubbub over Stephen Hawking's announcement that God isn't necessary for the universe to exist (bearing in mind Hawking's only ever previously used 'God' as a poetic metaphor, as far as I'm aware*) seemed to play into this. People treated this pronouncement as though it proved God didn't exist, when in fact it told us nothing we didn't already know: the universe didn't *need* to have been created - but that's neither here nor there if the question is whether it *was* created.
"If atheism in a universe with apparently intelligent laws is irrational"
It would be, *if* there *were* 'apparently intelligent laws. There aren't. There are laws that *could* have been designed by an intelligent creator (with the inevitable question as to who designed the laws the creator lives within); but those same laws *could* have evolved from the initial conditions of the universe, whatever those conditions are found to have been.
*If* there were laws that could clearly be demonstrated to be intelligent in origin, then sure, it would be foolish to deny the creator, whether you knew anything else about it or not. But the laws we live by aren't clearly intelligent. At best it's a possibility.
"... then presumably theism is a more reasonable viewpoint than atheist fundamentalists would ever accept."
Theism isn't an intrinsically unreasonable viewpoint, despite the assertions of the more passionate atheists. Any given belief, religion or creed *may* be unreasonable in the light of existing scientific information, but that's different. Logic and science tell us nothing about whether there was an intelligence involved in the appearance of our universe, or of whatever higher domain our universe might exist in. It's a moot point. This should be demonstrated by the fact that religion and science both, ultimately, end up facing the same problem: the universe just happened. Stephen Hawking said:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
So we have religionists arguing that 'God' created everything from nothing; while possibly the most well-known figure in physics argues that God isn't necessary, because the law of gravity created everything from nothing - even though, 'before' creation/the big bang there was nothing there for God or the law of gravity to exist in or act on. Either way, the laws we live with are the same, and therefore it's pointless to try to infer the existence of God from those laws.
(*I mention it because some people have claimed his statement represents his sudden abandonment of religion, and thus a victory for atheism, when as far as I'm aware he'd never expressed any particular belief in the first place.)
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