Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

A storm has brewed up over the practice, by British faith schools, of hiring only those teachers who practice that faith. But once again, a deeper issue goes largely unchallenged.

Teacher unions have complained that the hiring policies at these schools is discriminatory. The schools and their supporters have responded that it is natural to want to have teachers who share the pupils’ faith. On TV this morning, I saw one religious journalist (didn’t catch her name) saying: “If you’re going to have faith schools, then they should teach the ethos of the faith and who best to do that than teachers who share that faith?” (the quote is from memory but is faithful to the meaning).

The argument over hiring practices is to do with the last part of that statement. The real issue lies in the first part.

Of the 21,000 schools in the UK, nearly a third – 6,850 – are faith schools. They are all government funded – that is, their money comes from our taxes. All but a small minority of these are Christian, either Roman Catholic or Church of England. Around 40 are Jewish and there are just a few for Sikhs, Muslims and Greek Orthodox.

Why do faith schools exist? It must be for the benefit of the parents, not the children.

A child’s mind is unformed, unfinished. The function of a school is to assist a child along the path of becoming a fully formed individual, and to do this through education, opening their minds to new ideas. As Richard Dawkins so memorably described in ‘The God Delusion’, a child is not a Christian or a Muslim or a Sikh. Those are complex belief systems with profound implications for one’s moral and philosophical outlook and adopting them requires – or, at least, should require – deep introspection and intellectual analysis. Children are not capable of this. Becoming a Christian, or whatever, is a process that should not take place, cannot honestly and convincingly take place, until adulthood.

Religious education is a process of shutting off other avenues of thought – rational avenues. If you want evidence of that, just look at a recent investigation by More4 News which found that creationism (a profoundly anti-educational mythology) is being taught by 14 out of 19 Jewish schools that responded, all 21 of evangelical schools following the Accelerated Christian Education syllabus, and half the Islamic schools contacted. Even five state schools confessed to teaching creationism. The investigation concluded that over 5,800 pupils were being taught this irrational and insupportable fairy tale – that they are, in other words, being taught lies.

But that’s the answer to our question. Faith schools exist to teach lies. They exist to indoctrinate the children into the ways of their parents. They exist to narrow children’s minds, not open them.

Some parents argue that they send their children to faith schools because the schools have good performance records. And this is true. But it is purely because the schools have callously exploited loopholes in the law that allow them to select only the brightest children – which would be illegal for state schools. (Presumably that leaves equally faithful, but less bright children to take their chances.)

Religion should be a private matter. If parents want their children to believe in the same myths they do, then that particular form of child abuse should be confined to the home. Ultimately, we can’t stop vulnerable children’s minds being twisted and narrowed in this way, but this abuse should not be supported by the state.

So solving the issue of discriminatory hiring practices is easy. Get rid of faith schools. There is no good reason to have them.

Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ is available from:
 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

The case of the British muslim who forced his children to flog themselves has rightly caused outrage – including among many in the muslim community. But are we in danger of missing a more important point?

The Ashura ceremony, part of the month-long period of ‘mourning’ known as Muharram, is an important part of the Shia calendar. It calls for blood. To commemorate the slaughter of Muhammed’s grandson and his family, many men indulge themselves in self-flagellation – a ritual they apparently call ‘zanjeer zani’.

Syed Zaidi, who was brought up in Pakistan, has long been one of them. But he went further. In a ceremony at a community centre in Levenshulme, near Manchester, he first ensured his own blood was flowing before passing his zanjeer – a chained whip with five blades – to two young boys, aged 13 and 15.

In court, the boys said they were ‘forced’ to whip themselves. Zaidi claims they were willing (though presumably under intense peer pressure to join in). Under the law it makes no difference. Adults have a duty to ensure that children under the age of 16 do not come to harm – which includes harming themselves.

Christopher Hitchens has famously condemned the religous indoctrination of children as child abuse. There could be no more graphic illustration than this bloody ritual. Allowing this to happen to these young boys was an act of both primitive savagery and callous stupidity.

Many in the muslim community agree. Some are organising blood donations as a way of partaking in the commemoration in a more civilised fashion. It seems that having young boys flog themselves is taking religious zealotry beyond the theshold of acceptable behaviour for most in our society.

What none of this addresses is the damage already done to these boys. One needs to ask if, once they achieve the age of 16, it would be perfectly acceptable for these boys – who would, indeed, still be boys – to indulge in tearing their own flesh. The Early Christians used to partake in similar self-mortification which the Romans considered disgustingly uncivilised. They were right. That was 2,000 years ago and Christianity, at least in that respect, has grown up a little.

What kind of damage must be done to the psyche, to one’s moral framework, to one’s grip on civilisation, to accept this kind of behaviour from anyone of any age as admirable, worthwhile or even sensible?

In order to reach that point where the boys would even consider taking the whip in hand, they had to pass through a process of religious indoctrination. Childhood should be a period of learning, of opening the mind. But religious education is all about closing it, narrowing the possibilities and outlook, shutting off avenues of thought, conforming to a blinkered – and frequently archaic and bizarre – worldview.

The fact that anyone could consider these boys as ‘muslims’ is an indication that child abuse had taken place long before the blades tore into their skin. It’s not the whip from which they need to be protected – it’s the path that leads to it.

A poll suggests that an increasing number of religious people in the US think politics shouldn’t be preached from the pulpit. Well, it’s about time…

According to the poll by the Pew Forum, some 50 per cent of conservative church-goers believe that “houses of worship should not express views on day-to-day political matters”. That’s up from around 30 per cent in 2004. Democrat believers have always been less keen on campaigning from the pulpit.

That’s a small step to getting politics out of religion. Now if we could just get religion out of politics…

The ACLU in the US is celebrating a decision in Fredericksburg that it says is a victory for freedom of religion. Well maybe. But it’s a defeat for freedom from religion.

The issue, as reported on the ACLU website, revolved around the saying of prayers to open Fredericksburg City Council meetings. The decision of a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was that an existing policy – that the prayers be non-sectarian – should be upheld.

The ACLU statement says:

“This is a victory for religious freedom,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “The Supreme Court has long held that government officials are allowed to open legislative gatherings with a prayer, but that such prayers must in no way indicate a preference for one religion over others.”

“Individuals are free to express their own religious preferences, but religious equality cannot exist when the government is allowed to use its considerable power to promote one particular faith,” added Willis. “Today’s ruling reaffirms that fundamental principle.”

But Willis makes no mention of any right to be free of such religious mumbo-jumbo altogether. While the prayers may not be offered to the peculiar gods of Christianity or Islam or Judaism (or any one of thousands of other gods available to the credulous), presumably they will assume the existence of some kind of supernatural deity. Quite how this obeisance to some non-specific spirit is connected with council business is not clear.

It seems that the ‘fundamental principle’ referred to by Willis does not extend to atheism. Nor does it embrace the separation of church and state, about which Americans make so much noise and so little effort.