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Religious Symbols in Schools
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Hi all,
Yesterday i was listening to BBC asian network and there was a talk going on about weather religious symbols should be allowed to wear or not in schools of UK or not and weather they should follow the French model for this.
I personally think that there should not be any ban on wearing any religious symbol in school or whatever place u are.
But I don't understand this "civilized world", at one hand they talk about personal liberty, personal expression bla bla bla and on other side they are taking the fundamental rights of a person, what a contradiction? then i think when taliban were in Afganistan then they were right doing whatever they like, because its their country and they can make any law what they like so i think this so civilized world has no right to tell them what to do and what not to, if this civilized world can do this why not they?
And then this so called "Civilized world" impose a war on them and kill many innocent people, shame on this fu** "Civilized World".
Yesterday i was listening to BBC asian network and there was a talk going on about weather religious symbols should be allowed to wear or not in schools of UK or not and weather they should follow the French model for this.
I personally think that there should not be any ban on wearing any religious symbol in school or whatever place u are.
But I don't understand this "civilized world", at one hand they talk about personal liberty, personal expression bla bla bla and on other side they are taking the fundamental rights of a person, what a contradiction? then i think when taliban were in Afganistan then they were right doing whatever they like, because its their country and they can make any law what they like so i think this so civilized world has no right to tell them what to do and what not to, if this civilized world can do this why not they?
And then this so called "Civilized world" impose a war on them and kill many innocent people, shame on this fu** "Civilized World".
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Comments
Not really.If you understand the legal consequences of sending a child to school, there is no contradiction.
Is your opinion based on the belief that children should be allowed to wear anything they want in school? Or are you attempting to give special rights to beliefs that people describe as religious, rather than something such as taste in fashion? To me, the only argument is whether kids should have to wear a uniform. If you decide the answer is yes, then it must be the same for everybody.
Strongly agree. If you agree that schools should have a uniform then it's a rule which should apply to everyone.
We weren't allowed jewellery of any kind except for studs/small hoops in each ear. If someone else got to wear a cross around their neck because it was their "religion" I would have been highly pissed off.
I'm not sure i would be pissed off if somewhere i was working started making exceptions for religious dress, but i'd sure as hell take it as a cue to be able to start wearing a top hat and Flavour Flave clock the next day.
I think that there should be a ban. If it is a private school run by a certain faith, then fair enough. But a government school should be 'symbol free' because government should be 'religion free'.
Well, once outside of school, they can wear what they like. You are being very general here because 'personal liberty' and 'personal freedoms' is not a free-for-all to go out and do thing things that may be detrimental to the society at large. There has to be some personal responsibility with those freedoms.
Were the Taliban voted into power? Did they retain power through popular vote? No! They held power by violence against their own people. So it wasn't 'their' country to do as they will. And you think that is 'right'?
It's bad enough (but unavoidable) that parents/family/communities force religious beliefs on children - unfortunately that's something we can't stop. But schools at the very least should be a refuge from religious brainwashing. Schools should be an environment where religion can be assessed in a rational and intellectual light - and children should be allowed to learn in an environment free from religion and the symbols of it.
We were allowed one pair of plain studs, a plain gold or silver coloured necklace with a small token and no other jewellery. All jewellery had to be removed for sport. I personally felt that was a very fair system.
Since when have you been allowed to wear gang colours in school?
As someone mentioned the way they do it in france. Im pretty sure most schools in france have no uniform at all, so im not sure why they single out religious clothing
Whilst most French people are Catholic, France is a secular state and there is a strict separation between Church and State. Quite rightly, religion is viewed as a private affair - and religious instruction is confined to private religious schools which do not receive state funding. (Religious teaching in a state school is illegal).
Its all very well for the catholic majority who dont have a dress code to make rules
I agree. I'm not quite sure on where I stand on this issue, but I know that the state should not deprive anyone of education, and preventing muslim girls from wearing headscarves will definitely restrict the education of some girls.
"Oh no, we didn't evolve, God made us."
"No such thing as global warming!"
Also, school isn't the place for kids to get divided when thier parents say "Don't associate with other religions" - if thier are no symbols, they can't tell, and they can befriend others - then when they find out they are of differing belief - they will question why they shouldn't like them - as they see they are nice people.
Brainwashing... superstition... Jeez. This is nonsense. Why should children learn in an environment free of religious symbols? Symbols are everywhere. They are often ambiguous. We are never free of symbols. But actually, they don't generally hurt either. 'Protecting' children from crosses and whatnot is patronising and doesn't achieve anything. The argument in here as far as I can see is about whether individuals should be permitted to wear religious jewellery. Do you honestly believe that children see someone wearing a crucifix necklace, affix their gaze to it, drool and become committed to learning the catechism?
Even if the argument is extended to whether schools can put a crucifix on their walls, sing hymns, make the children pray, teach the kids about Christianity above other religions... my school did all that. Were we brainwashed, led mindlessly into 'superstition'? Of course not. It depends on your upbringing, your own temperament and has almost nothing to do with what the teachers say. School for young kids - hell, all kids - is about playing. I attended Sunday School because I got to play there, then when it stopped being fun, I stopped going. At regular school my friends and I would sing the wrong words to the hymns on purpose; we learnt the pre-lunch prayer by rote and that's all it was: some boring words we had to say. We never really talked about Jesus much though we heard about him enough, and there was never any sense from most people that they thought of Noah, Moses, the Good Samaritan and all those guys as anything more than characters from some good stories. Some people did believe, and it would be a snooty thing, and against the other evidence, to suggest that they had absolutely no control over it, or that they couldn't have reassessed their beliefs - and kept them or renounced them - at a later date.
When people act like this stuff is dangerous I think they're forgetting what it was like to be a kid. We didn't have tiresome attitudes towards religious belief either; those come later when people start regarding Dawkins as their God.
But before i say anything i should clear that i am not a religious person but an anti to religion but there is something which i think make me think its their right, so what is that?
Actually we have to see it from factual point of view and that is that, people in majority out there belief on religion and they believe it like they can deny even sun rise but cannot say there is something in their religion is wrong or anything, so when a child brought up in a house where these thing become part of their body and at once saying them remove it would not be good plus there is some kind of respect which religion has (i don't think it should be but as a matter of fact its out there) so we have to take care of that as well because people can get furious if we say something about their religion.
Actually different countries have different methods of making Govt. Not every one go through voting so cannot say illegal if that country has different system.
Not really. Religion is a choice, and so anyone who opts to do something because it's against their religion is depriving themselves of that opportunity. And where do you draw the line? If you allow headscarves, then you can make exactly the same argument for girls wearing full burkhas.
You say that France doesn't have a uniform, but it depends on how liberally you interpret the word uniform. They presumably have some sort of dress code in the school, which applies to everyone. Personally, I wouldn't be in favour of a school that had no formal uniform banning religious attire specifically, although I see no reason why if the school banned a particular article (jewellery or head wear for example), then they should have to make an exception for religious forms of said articles. I can undestand why they do it though. For the same reason that someone would presumably be sent home for wearing a t-shirt with an offensive remark on; to avoid conflict. But personally, I don't see the difference between wearing a t-shirt saying "Jesus Loves You" and one saying "Iron Maiden. Just like I don't see the difference between banning a turban and banning a baseball hat.
So crushing peoples' lives by forcing women to cover up at all times, restrict them from education, force men to grow beards, banning music, banning kite flying, banning sport, killing anyone who opposes their interpretation of their religion etc without the mandate of the majority of the population, is 'legitimate' government? That is not 'government' - that is oppression.
There's nothing wrong with a world full of symbols. That's quite different from giving a child a symbol and saying "this is what you are." And allowing children to wear headscarves and suchlike emphasises the differences between them from a very young age, and labels them with the religion of their parents, when they couldn't even explain to you the basic metaphysical claims of that particular religion. A child isn't a Muslim or a Christian any more than they're a Tory or a Marxist. The whole reason that we have uniforms is to try to go some way to removing these differences between children and get them to socialise without prejudice. Allowing exceptions for religion completely destroys this concept. Argue with the concept of uniforms if you want, but understand that allowing religious exceptions to uniforms is removing the very reason for having uniforms in the first place.
So the fact that 70% of people stick with the religion they are born with is the result of them objectively considering their position later in life and deciding that the religion that they were brought up in just happened to be the correct one out of thousands of possibilities? Give me a break. People stay with their religion for a variety of reasons. But the main one is because they're never taught to objectively question it, and are never taught about all religions equally. They are told from a young age that they are a muslim, or whatever, and they become comfortable with that identity and set of traditions even if they don't actually really believe any of it. There are a hell of a lot of cultural Christians, for example. You've got to go to church on Sunday, because you don't want to upset granny, for example. Now I think that's more of a parenting and upbringing issue, and you can't do much about it except to try to change attitudes through debate and discussion, but I don't think that the government should be facilitating it by funding things like faith schools.
A lot of people here think that we in the west are so nice that we only maim and kill the people in other countries ...cos we care.