In the news

Perhaps not vapourware, after all:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/14/chilcot-report-single-out-senior-british-military-figures

some sort of evidence>

There are religious people living happy peaceful lives all around you. Unless you live in a cave. Or a communist dictatorship. If you live in Britain I'd be very surprised if you knew no-one who was religious, or if you exclusively knew religious people whose faith caused only misery and destruction.

My 'evidence' is people I meet everyday, sorry I cant present them to you here.

And just to be dull I googled 'religion poll'

https://humanism.org.uk/campaigns/religion-and-belief-some-surveys-and-statistics/

"in a poll conducted by YouGov in March 2011 on behalf of the BHA, when asked the census question ‘What is your religion?’, 61% of people in England and Wales ticked a religious box (53.48% Christian and 7.22% other) while 39% ticked ‘No religion’"

You didn't say "happy", you said "force for good". I see happy people everywhere, you haven't convinced me that "religion is a force for good in communities for vast numbers of moderate people"

I also see lots of empty churches, when, according to your figures, half the population should be in them.

Back to schools - I cannot accept that pupils of faith schools are "better" (educated / rounded / nicer / perceptive / happier) than pupils of secular schools. So I don't see why they should exist.

I'm with you. I go round to my brother's place (his kids are at a faith school) and there is a picture on the fridge with the name of his kid inside a heart that says 'Jesus loves you best.' WTF? Seriously! These seemingly innocuous events can cause serious confusion in a child. Jesus loves me best? What about Mum and Dad? This is a 6 yar old, their minds are like putty, dont think I didn't say anything to my brother! Of course, the religious of all creeds think they have a monopoly on morality and without faith in a higher being the world would fall to shit... well that hasn't worked out to well for them in the past and it isn't now. Decent law abiding Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans etc would continue to be good law abiding people if they were secular... the scary thing is that it is their faith that can make them do awful things in the name of religion...

It's an emotive topic, which in itself is strange but there we go.

pupils of faith schools are "better" (educated / rounded / nicer / perceptive / happier) than pupils of secular schools.

Possibly the most egregiously facile thing I've read this week.

according to your figures>

They're not my figures. I'm interested you say you only see empty churches, where do you live? Where I live in south london there are 4 or 5 busy churches in the immediate area, and I don't have to travel far to find mosques.

I cannot accept that pupils of faith schools are "better" (educated / rounded / nicer / perceptive / happier) than pupils of secular schools. So I don't see why they should exist.

I never said they were better, they are just different.

Decent law abiding Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans etc would continue to be good law abiding people if they were secular... the scary thing is that it is their faith that can make them do awful things in the name of religion...>

Correlation is not causation. Because some religious people are violent, it does not follow that religion always causes violence. There's probably observer bias. Most religious people don't make the headlines for just peacefully living their lives.

The scary thing about faith schools is teaching religion as 'fact'; I don't want my child taught religious dogma as fact, I want them taught about things that can be demonstrated to be true, are useful and help them develop a greater understanding of the world.

Faith / belief no matter how solemnly held does not make something real, this is why I don't think faith schools are a clever idea.

And when you ask them "do they go to Church" it drops to about 10%...

People conflate Christian identity with actually agreeing with what churches use their power for in government, eg religious schools and pissing on LGBT people/women's rights (see also NI where more people are church going but again nowhere near the figure on the census)

don't underestimate a kids ability to see through bullshit when it's patently bullshit.

Correct, but there's a strong link between religion and violence in some cases: (see "the blood that cries out of the earth, book")

The Red Khmer: Part of the conflict was that they didn't want buddhism as state religion
The left behind movement in the USA: Attacks on abortion doctors, lying about contraception
Islam: Wahdaism exported by SA
Christianity: Massive amounts of deaths due to lack of contraception thanks to the Catholic church.
Northern Ireland: The other is the enemy thanks to schools split by religion (luckily a lot of the younger ones think it's a pile of nonsense)
Faith schools: Spreading other religions are of the devil and blind faith is what ought to lead government.

This does not mean religious people are always non secular, or violent.
It does not mean there are no other political or economical influences.

It does mean religion is a wrench that can be used to twist people into accepting things bad for society, or in the case of ISIS use damaged people as living bombs.

And it also means that all the religious people that tick their religion on the census prop up a system they may not agree with (which I BTW do not blame anyone for, people often don't know how census results are used by religious groups for more power)

Something like 60% of people who say they are Christian haven't been to a church in the last year. That isn't to say that religion is necessarily on the decline but it surely indicates a culture in which people's secular needs take priority over the spiritual.

There were 8 village churches within 10 miles of where I grew up in Cambridgeshire. The ones that haven't closed are now empty on a Sunday.

I think it's a shame - the church (small c) can have a very positive community impact especially in areas where there is no social scene to speak of. In my view a community centre or pub would do the job just as well, though.

All said - I went to a CofE village primary school and I still managed to become a heretic. There's hope.

But when the bullshit is drummed into you for the majority of your waking hours, five days a week (whether it is relevant or not to whatever else you are learning), it becomes more difficult to filter out.

Just think The Tooth fairy, Father Christmas, and 9/11.

#chemtrailz are real doe.

The Tooth fairy, Father Christmas>

ah the destruction and hate these malicious lies have caused

It's nothing on the wars caused by Protestants and Catholics about what end you open your Easter egg

What you mean like how Father Christmas loves children with rich parents more?

Bearded man creeping into your bedroom in the middle of the night + person offering money in exchange for body parts.

It's of course again a little more complex: Religion and culture are intertwined. Islam had a period where science was very advanced while Europe was in the dark ages. Then it changed as the people in power wanted a regressive literal doctrine (unfortunately every religion can be used and abused for anything) and now the moderate and scientific Islam is losing ground against a regressive Islam in some parts of the world as it's a handy tool to twist people into fighting other people's fights (Saudi Arabia).

I think critical evaluation skills come when they are older than 6. My eldest has got very into religion as she gets taught it as part of key stage 1. One of her teachers is clearly an active Christian so she believes a lot of it. For now. They are doing Judaism this term, which is entertaining. (As an aside, she associates vegetarianism with Islam, as all her Muslim classmates eat vegetarian school meals as the meat options aren't Halal. They are not the Muslim kids, but the vegetarian kids).

My niece went to a catholic school and was clearly having her head filled with some top shelf woo from about the age of five. Hearing a kid of that age spout old testament, deuteronomy fire and brimstone is as scary as it is fascinating.

then about four years later she moved school because she started reading harry potter books, much to my sister in law's parents dismay.

don't underestimate a kids ability to see through bullshit when it's patently bullshit.

Exactly.

My daughter is at a Catholic primary school (wife Catholic, me atheist) and I don't see any evidence of the children being rammed full to the point where they suspend disbelief.

The children are normal children, they love football, watching TV, playing with friends, messing around and swearing like sailors. They just have parts of their day which build up a comforting belief system on top of a strong community. Sure it involves mythical beings, but so does half the stuff they play and entertain themselves with in real life.

I'm sure there are some religious schools that go over the top on their teachings, but it's rarely just the school to blame. It all starts to go wrong when it's reinforced at home (parts of NI being an extreme example of this).

The fanatics will do everything to segregate kids, and if the kids disagree they can get kicked out of their family.

If you're mixed with other social groups, well, they'll help you out, by keeping faith schools not inspected and government funded you risk isolating kids that are already in a more vulnerable position as their parents are fanatical nuts.

Government should really not accept that.

Also, you see here that some people are clearly emotionally manipulated and refuse to discussion abortion or LGBT marriage rationally due to all sorts of shit put in their head when they were too young. Kids having to watch late term abortions when they're 12.

Religious schools tend to invite religious groups that do that crap instead of the FPA. Some groups are sex-shaming, suggest to kids contraception doesn't work, exaggerate side-effects etc etc.

(of course every group has a bias but some groups teach abstinence only sex-ed which has been shown to not work everywhere)