Thanks again for your reply. I understand that this can be a frustrating topic, so please feel free to ignore my curiosity if it displeases you. That said though, I think you’ve already satisfied my curiosity with this reply, though not in a way I was hoping. Not a problem though.
Except, how would a person of faith accept to follow that kind of education if it contradicts their beliefs? I don’t think any religious person, who believes their faith is the correct and most righteous path in life, would want to teach kids about the dangers of religion on a society’s freedom.
First off, I do not think that one must believe that their religion, or religion in general, can do no wrong, in order to follow and practice it. That is not a pre-condition. There are different degrees of faith; some are devout, some simply tag along, and some fall somewhere in between. Talking about the potential dangers of religion is simply stating a fact, and to those who believe this goes against their faith, then something twisted is already in place. Of course, it’s not possible for us to test teachers on whether they would properly observe reality, but we should allow them to not talk about such a topic if it bothers them, or that they should simply be dissuaded before taking up teachers’ training.
In any case, as you’ve mentioned in another section of your reply, if there are enough diversity amongst teachers, and I don’t doubt that there are many who are irreligious or, like yourself, anti-religious, then I don’t see why it cannot be communicated effectively to children.
And unfortunately, I don’t think your reply answers or deals with the crux of that argument in that section: you can’t prevent people from being irrationally religious, and now they can more easily hide themselves behind the facade of secularism.
Religious symbols in public spaces only applies to people with very specific roles in public services. Like teachers, judges, police officers, members of parliament, etc. Anybody else can wear whatever religious symbols they want anywhere, provided it doesn’t hinder things like official government ID photos, or being identified properly when voting for example, in which case it’s important that they remove them if it covers their face or hides their identity.
Thanks for the clarification. I think it’s okay if the justification is for identification, which would otherwise be impossible if they must cover their faces. As far as I’m aware, most major religions don’t enforce such a rule, and if there are, not strictly so (I think Islam requires rather strict coverage of the face, but as far as I’m aware, that’s only true for either certain sects or areas).
I still do not agree on why religious symbols should be removed from public roles. The rest of this reply should make that clear, along with the previous section.
That said though, I can somewhat accept removing these symbols from roles that are in a position of strong authority, either through political power or violence. I’m much less certain on those of softer form of authority, and teachers fall in this category.
No. There are some private religious schools, but even there it’s not nuns teaching to the students. And yes, we have been able to train teachers from all backgrounds. We have no problem with more progressive teachers who don’t mind working in a secular environment. As for the teaching about different religious or ethnic backgrounds, there are classes on that in elementary school about religion and moral values.
Thank you for clarifying on this. It’s reassuring to hear that, though I’m somewhat surprised, though in a good way, that nuns don’t run the show in those religious schools.
There has been one example that has really increased the discussion on this topic, and it’s the case of the Bedford elementary school in Côte-des-Neiges in Montréal where a ground of religious teachers started imposing their beliefs and their morals on everyone. They prevented girls from signing up to soccer because they claimed it was a boys’ sport. In another case, when a kid fell unconscious due to a malaise, instead of calling for medical help, they asked everyone to gather around the student and pray.
Hmm…
For that first case with soccer, I don’t think that’s a religious view per se. It’s traditionalist for sure, but I wouldn’t say it’s rooted in religion. Ask an old Chinese person (the Chinese are mostly irreligious to lightly religious) and you’ll probably hear the same thing. But then again, you may know more here: it may have been proven that the perspective of these teachers were influenced by their religion.
For the 2nd case, I can only say I’m appalled at what happened. But then again, in a school where we’ve simply banned religious symbols, who’s to guarantee this wouldn’t happen?
Well, my belief is that religion is a system of control of the population. It spreads like a cancer for the minds. It prevents rational thinking and scientific advancement. It also causes strife and violence. I am anti-religion. So yeah, I do have a certain bias towards secularism. I want people to be free, and if that means freedom of religion, that’s fine. But one fundamental right should be freedom FROM religion, which I never see mentioned anywhere because most people who are in power are almost always religious.
If anyone wants to practice their faith, they should be able to do so at home or in their places of faith. But, leave everybody else out of it.
I don’t think the freedom FROM religion needs to said here in Canada; many of us are already atheists. Not following any religion is, by itself, a kind of faith imo, not to some big person up in sky, or some prewritten destiny, but to believe that we humans have our own dignity and sensibilities, the ability to hold ourselves accountable, and to carve our own future.
Yes, many of those currently in power are religious, but at this point, at least from how things have been presented, it seems more ceremonial than definition, a footnote rather than the title, that they are who they are “oh and they’re also a Christian / Muslim / whatever”. There are some amongst the electorate that do care about that, but the voices are small, though some rare ones loud. There’s potential to devolve into what we see now in the US, however, but forcing secularism with a heavy hand will only serve to provoke them and direct them to more extreme measures.
You are most welcome to be anti-religious, and I too don’t have a good reason to believe religion should be around, and actually believe that we would all be better without it. But I think your stance is quite a bit more extreme. I wouldn’t say what you said in the affirmative, but would say that it’s a very exploitable vector to mobilize society for irrational actions. I think saying that religion is inherently anti-rational-thinking and anti-science is a stretch, though less so for the latter.
Faith is simply a double-edged sword. There were those who used it for social good, and there are those who used it for social bad. As with any systems that we humans come up with, once they’ve been around long enough, we as a species know more about the system we’ve made to both streamline and exploit it. Tribal hierarchy, royalty, religion, gangs, town councils, and as we would all know well, governments, and if you allow me to use non-political systems, trade, finance, insurance, even healthcare. Any system initially made with good intentions to serve humanity can end up being exploited by certain people for bad, and the longer its around, the more people who know how to exploit these systems. That’s why I have no qualms about your stance, but I wouldn’t say I fully support it, because all I see is that we’re simply stuck in this cycle, where we only try to tear down what ends up being broken, but never addressing why we tend to exploit them. I digress.
I think my comment is getting too long and Lemmy isn’t happy about it, so I’m going to cut it out into a separate reply.
