Are religions unfair to women?

I think feetlebaum has a good point there. Let's hope the modernisation of Islam doesn't take so long.

Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity - which 500 years ago was pretty much as horrible as Islam is today. In places it still is...

Says it all. Frightening.

How to erase a woman in eight easy steps.

I think that just about sums it up!

They look very pretty in picture no 3, including the dolly! After that it got scary.

Thought- provoking www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2013/may/17/pictures-of-week-mother-daughter-doll

Lilygran said:^ I have thought for a long time that secular people imagine Islam is a manifestation of minority culture, rather than a world religion. ^

Honestly, how can anyone believe that? Islam scares the shit out of me, they way it is growing, the way it brainwashes its adherents, the way angry young men use and abuse it in the cause of violence and murder, the way women are subjugated and their belief in it all makes them their own jailors, the way so many mad mullahs get away with it....the list seems endless.

I don't want to see Christianity disappear, as it is far and away less harmful than Islam, and is perhaps one of the bulwarks against Islam's spread, but I do want people to understand that most of it is just stories, and they should not ruin their lives by being scared of an imagined hell, scared of their sexuality if it is different from the norm, and they should not believe all the unnecessary dogma.

But if it gives them peace and security, so be it.

Exactly. In my case ' lessons were learned'. ( I hate that expression)

And I expect the long walk did them the world of good. No one is forced to send their child to a faith school. There are always alternatives.

(Nice day Soup? It's horrible here. Wet, windy and freezing cold!)

My children went to the local primary school close by which just happened to be RC with nuns. I thought a Christian ethos wouldn't be so bad and it is part of our culture and history, but they were VERY strict and then DD2 came home upset as she had been told in no uncertain terms that if you wanted to pray you MUST light a candle first and being a girl she should pray to Mary to intercede for her. She couldn't pray to direct to God. When DD1 reached year 4 they all changed schools - even though it meant a very long walk - and they were much happier.

Not argy bargy, but the exchange of ideas and rousing but civilised discussion of the finer points, such as if it wasn't secularism and those values of the French Revolution that made the difference, what was it?

...not from me, Bags...I'm not in the mood for argy bargy. Much too nice a day

He was wrong. It was the secular ideas of human rights (liberty, equality, fraternity) that really did it. They just happened to develop in countries where the dominant religion was christianity. But they developed in spite of the religion, not because of it.

I expect an argument!

It was Billy Graham who once said, "Wherever Christianity has gone in the world the status of women has been raised to a higher level".

Might not take too long

Wow BB that's some rethink, viz your 'whole world view'

Lily - I do not see myself as being anti-faith, but pro-honesty and fairness.

Filling a child's mind with one faith is to my mind not an honest activity. I am very happy for children to learn about all faiths and their place in human development over the centuries, and their potential place in their life if they so choose.

I just want them to be told that these are personal beliefs and they are not obliged to subscribe to any, or any particular one, of them.

What I was taught as "truths" as a child in a CofE school run by nuns are simply beliefs - no-one made that distinction and we were told that all these things were true (even when they contradicted one another!). I and many of my friends saw through it at a very young age, and were very puzzled as to why these people (who we were being asked to trust) were being so dogmatic about things that were so contradictory and clearly in some instances untrue.

Children need to be able to trust their teachers to be honest with them, not to have to sift through what they are being told to try and decide which is belief and which is fact.

Faith schools are divisive in a multi-cultural society. They emphasise difference rather than a common humanity.

Well silly silly me thinking all this time that Islam was a manifestation of minority culture - than you SO much for putting me right. I will go away now and reconsider my whole world view

I would certainly include Islamic and Jewish schools in a ban on any 'faith' schools.

I think Christianity gets a bad press and is the target of many ill-founded attacks. It will be interesting to see whether the anti-faith brigade now switch their attentions to Islam and what the reaction will be. I have thought for a long time that secular people imagine Islam is a manifestation of minority culture, rather than a world religion.

That proves it - too many faith schools!

Lilygran What exactly are you getting at?

There are a number of posters on GN who object to faith schools and don't have much time for religion in general. They could take heart from the latest news about the decline of Christianity in the UK www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10062745/Christianity-declining-50pc-faster-than-thought-as-one-in-10-under-25s-is-a-Muslim.html. I don't know if the news about the increase in Islam will be equally encouraging to them.

So anybody that disagrees with you j08 is in favour of a police state? When people are making perfectly valid comments, why do you feel the need to be so unpleasant?