Humanism at last

Yes. Included in moral guidance teaching.

yer last sentence is plain daffy.

gb

jings YOU don't think that the non-religious are wicked heathens, but then you are more enlightened than some people.

By the above definitions , Buddhism is not a religion - they worship no god. It is however taught under the religion syllabus.

As someone above suggested, children do sometimes listen to what they are being taught in RE and make their own conclusions about whether god exists; but the point is that this was not obliged to be taught - we leave them to work this out for themselves. The syllabus has not included telling children that humanism exists and that not all people believe in a god. Now this will be obligatory and rightly so.

I have friends who believe in god who also agree that humanism should be taught in schools. It is a matter of honesty.

What has happened in the past is that children are taught about religion in primary school and they take on board that god/s exist (because this is what is in their lessons) and then later they conclude that this does not seem to be true for them - and then they are left wondering why they were only told one side of the story? - and wondering what else they were told was not true!

I value honesty in dealings with children; and this is what we will now have.

Nothing wrong with explaining humanism to school kids. Just not in RE.

I was not lucky enough to have the RE kids get these days, so I don't know a thing about Buddhism. Except that Buddha seems to spend a lot of time sitting with his legs crossed, which possibly accounts for his cheery smile and fat tummy.

Huge apologies to any Buddhists reading this!

I will get off the thread and go and do something more useful.

I recall being told that there was a book once that the censors got at and thought that the sentence "X sat regarding his navel like a Buddha" was unacceptable, so they removed the word Buddha. I can't see that that improved things very much!

Easiest solution is to stop calling it RE. Call it moral philosophy or something inclusive.

I've just looked up Gotama Budha in a very old set of books we have on faiths of the world - in fact I looked to see if Buddhism was included at all if it is not considered a to be religion.

It says Budha (Gotama) a historical personage worshipped in Thibet, Tartary, the Indo-Chinese countries and China as a divine incarnation, a god-man, who came into the world to enlighten men, to redeem them and point out to them the way to eternal bliss. This remarkable person, who commenced his career as a mendicant in the East, has given origin to a system of religion .....

So, according to this old book, he was reckoned to be a divine incarnation - not dissimilar to Jesus.

If religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods
and humanism is a rationalist outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters
then humanism shouldn't be included in RE or Comparative Religions, unless the subject is re-defined.

What exactly should be included?
What about this religion? Prince Philip Movement (worshipped on one of the Vanuatuan Islands)
And Jediism ?

A very interesting article by the BBC education journalist on the BBC website:

Religious education in England 'needs overhaul'
By Judith Burns Education reporter

There is a case for not teaching any religion in school, leaving it to families and whatever religion they follow, school is for academic education. If schools insisted on good interpersonal relations, respect and consideration for each other and that we are all the same regardless of elitist groups with God on their side, there may be less antagonism in the word.

Totally agree. However, to be fair, we are talking about the GCSE syllabus- where students are taught about religions/comparative religions- and not about teaching 'a religion' per se. Quite a different animal.

The point is that such a syllabus should also include 'non religious' options of developing a moral framework- which actually get very close- as the basic principples come back, again and again- because they make human common sense. The old A'Level was called 'religious education and ethics' - so could easily include the above.

In many areas though, parents have little choice- the local school is the only school and CofE- even if they are not religious, or Hindu or Muslims, as was the case in the village where I lived when our 2 were little. Was I supposed to take them away from their friends to bus them into town or to another school far away (the next villages all had CofE schools).

In the last town where I taught- there was a 'choice' of 3 secondary schools and 6th Form. A private Grammar school, a Catholic school, and a Comprehensive school. The first was of course beyond the means of a large %, the second was perceived as 'better' than the 3rd- but only a small % of those who attended were practising Catholics- many had grand-parents who were, once, and who were baptised out of tradition more than religious belief. The 3rd school 'suffered' from creaming from the other 2, and was therefore not comprehensive at all. The idea of parental 'choice' is not always a real 'choice' at all- and comes with a price. My GC are in a CofE school, and the religious content is quite prevalent- they are definitely taught religion rather than 'about religion'- especially during Advent- but throughout the year.

Our local primary is one of the few "non-aligned" schools available to parents to choose. However it has: religious celebrations for Christmas and Easter, and a visiting group who work with the children to enact bible stories.

I think that the latter is a step too far; the others might be acceptable as cultural entities.

There have to be schools available to those parents who do not want their children to be brought up with religious bias in their lives.

Heard on TV today that there are 174 different approved RE syllabuses in England and Wales in State schools, and several 1000s in academy schools- which I find quite incredible.