It's all about God

[andrewducker]

ciphergoth pointed me at the piece here on mandatory school prayer (still a legal requirement in the UK).

[Poll #1396727]

The train of thought presumably goes like this:
1) Children should be trained to do the morally correct thing until they are old enough to make their own decisions.
2) Praying to God is the morally right thing to do.
Therefore) Children should be trained to pray.

I can't see that lasting much longer, when the majority don't believe (2).

Comments

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Assuming referring to Easter services etc, there was an unspoken rule at our school that if it wasn't your thing, you just didn't go. Some teachers insisted that you had to, but for most, as long as you didn't make a big deal of it, it was fine.

[andrewducker]

Mandatory daily prayer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_prayer#United_Kingdom

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

I'm glad Scotland has escaped then.

By all means give teenagers quiet time and support, but I don't think enforcing religion on them is doing that unless they, not their parents, are religious themselves.

[andrewducker]

I agree. Apparently 80% of English schools aren't doing it anyway, so that's ok :->

[e-halmac.livejournal.com]

We had prayer times in my tiny wee school in Fife, but I think it was our teacher's choice and more a reflection of the period (early 1980s but with very old teacher who was very sweet and good and traditional). I liked it at the time.

Perhaps rather than prayer time it should be Five Minutes Quiet Thinking Time, or something. Nap Time would be good too :D