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

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

I do wonder how much scientific teaching in schools may be influenced (positively and negatively) by the prominence of the 'evolution debate' in recent times.

I went to a Catholic school & you certainly wouldn't have heard the word 'God' in the science classroom (unless someone was uttering an oath). Even in primary school, religious education didn't generally feature more than the UK requirement, except when we were preparing for a sacrament (P3 & 7 in my case).

That said, Old Testament literalism was pretty-much non-existent in my upbringing. Even in my most religious primary school classes, we were always taught the old testament was allegorical.

I have an interest in religion, despite being an atheist (or perhaps because of...), so I'm never quite sure if there is a genuine resurgence in biblical literalism, or if I just happen to read about an exceptionally noisy minority on the internet.

[andrewducker]

I'd love to know the answer to that last bit myself. I wonder if we're losing the moderating multitude, leaving only the literalists behind.