Atheist Ireland Forum

I know someone who I assume is Atheist as she didn't baptise her child or do any of that christian stuff and neither has had any problems at all with the school, or parents.

Many schools have other-religion students. Some married RC+COI parents don't baptise their children untill the child can choose which religion to take.

RDF why not just ask around, ask the school, bound to be at least one non-religious student, then just make it two. If there is only one non-religious student in the school already, wouldn't you be making that child FIT OUT just so you can fit-in.

In fairness I don't know many real catholics most just go along with it as if watching corrie, many churches are half empty, so wouldn't supprise me if many parents in that school are doing the same as you plan on doing.

Rather than jumping to conclusions, which is not very scientific, why not just find out more infomation, if you want to stay anonymous, ask someone else to enquire, or maybe AI could contact the school.

At the end of the day the decision is yours alone, no matter what AI-members may say here on the forum, or what the CCL wants you to do out of fear.

Im in a similar situation myself. Im 33 with 2 kids; 3 1/2 and 16mths. Brought up RC with a very religious upbringing,rosary every night of the week etc etc and when I had my first child it made me face up to some underlying thoughts.I didnt believe in god or either did my partner and I realised that not baptising our child was the best thing we could do for her,ourselves and hopefully one day society.I was surprised that my family never once mentioned the fact we didnt baptise her;that they obviously respected our decision and didnt made a big deal out of it but also in a way by doing that it was like the whole thing was just brushed under the carpet like a dirty little secret.I never got the chance to say to my family:"Im an atheist!" as they never asked any questions!I intend on explaining myself to them soon as I have told a lot of my friends the story and they treat the whole atheism thing with awe,shock and amazement at the same time.I explained to one good friend who told me he kind of feels the same way but he knows hes going to do the whole baptism,communion confirmation crap with his kids because if he doesnt its social hari kari.I said to him I was an atheist;but saying it sounded like I was telling him I was a pedophile! I dont have to explain to anyone here why I detest the whole concept of god religion etc in our society as everybody has their own reasons but unless I start being true to myself and my beliefs then my little girl and boy will be growing up in a world where they are brainwashed continuously by fairy tales of everlasting life heaven and hell purgatory satan unbaptised babies in eternal turmoil when they die holy water splashing etc etc and I cannot have that. We will deal with the school situation when it arises but Im sure we'll get through it,at least we're being honest.

Thanks for that Marks. This is partly why I haven’t had my child officially ‘opt out’ of religion class because it’s futile. There’s nowhere for him to go during ‘religion class’. Even if there was, religion permeates the entire day, so ‘opting out’ would be entirely symbolic. As mentioned, my child so far has no concept of god, religion or anything like it, so clearly symbolically ‘opting him out’ would mean nothing. We met his teacher who told us that he does the religious curriculum which requires religious instruction every day but then said, in a very hushed tone ‘I only do it twice or three times a week’, when it’s expected of him to do it every day. He then said that even at that, all he gets the kids to do for the religious book is ‘colouring in’. The reason, I suspect, that he lowered his voice was because it was a parent teacher meeting and there was likely other parents waiting outside the door for his next meeting and he mightn’t want them to hear what he actually does. As Marks says, it depends on your teacher. If I found serious religious nonsense being forced down my son’s throat, I may well have a different attitude. For now, I’m happy that he’s not baptised and will not be making his communion. If it gets tougher, I’ll deal with it as it arises.

Derek, please don’t take me up the wrong way. I’m not having a go and I very much commend you in your position. I just felt that such an important issue warrants a more wide reaching discussion from people who have been through it, from people who are going through it and for people who will go through it in the future.

Just to add my own anecdote, I too am in my mid-thirties with a child under four. I now live in England (and my brother lives in Canada) - not entirely unrelated to escaping religion. But I baptized my son to avoid falling out with my mother.

I was hanging on to religion in a sort of "Pascal's Wager" sense, until I was forced (and my atheist wife also) to attend a baptism course - the whole process pushed me over the edge and made an atheist of me.

The problem is my parents and the rest of my family still don't know I'm atheist. And the trouble is, despite all the advice above - my parents are so harcore RC, that if they knew the truth, it'd wreck their heads totally. They'd be convinced that me and my wife and kid were going to spend all eternity in the flames. I just can't do that to them. If we do have another kid, it'll be a tough decision, but I just won't be able to do the whole baptism again. I'll probably have to stage a fake baptism as some kind of elaborate charade so my parents don't hate me forever.

God I hate religion. Nothing else has so much power to destroy families...

I hope it's not too far off topic to ask you to explain that a little. What was the nature of the course? And the force?

Seeing as Baptism is the only sacrament a child will have gone through before starting school I suppose it is relevant. I've not personally needed to find the strength to resist conforming for a long long time, but when I did it was the fear-mongering and threats that hid behind the apparently lofty ideals that I thought of. Something like that hideous Rule 68 is always being bandied about as though it were a great gift, full of promise. The not so subtle fear beneath the surface was what I kept in mind to remind me why resistance was crucial.

If they can't convince you to toe the line for your kids benefit in school by extolling the gift of God's grace, they'll happily imply what the alternative is. Even if it's by simple measures like a disappointed or saddened expression.

Atheists don't have to suffer the same mental torments of those unfortunate faithful whose children die before being baptised. It might just strengthen your convictions RDF, or harden your resolve to see what kind of system you resist by standing firm. The consequences to your children by your actions pale against the consequences threatened on those who fail to conform.

This clip is the first of a 4 part 1 hour documentary on Limbo Babies I uploaded from UTV before Christmas. It makes my blood boil and it may put enough fire in your belly to ignore the conventions and damn the consequences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTudSo6s_VU

@DaithiDublin we have a long tradition on this forum to go way off topic!! LOL If our very good mods think it is to much they just open an newthread for it! They are great!

Just on the school thing... I to have two kids and the oldest started school this year. The school was said to be open for all religions and quite a few non religious people attent that school. Still they though it was normal to not tell my 5 year old that he didn't had to participate in the prayers.

I have made a complaint (with a lot of help of Marks) to the ombudsman for childeren and am awiating their reaction at the moment. I will let you know what the result of that will be.

After speaking out in public half the village is not speaking to us and even keep their childeren well away from ours (especially the neighbours).

I can fully understand people don't want their childeren to go through that. It breaks my heart to have t explain to my son why his friends won't come to his birthday party and why he is not asked to attend their anymore. It is hard for him to understand and he is blaming us for sending him to a new school. He loves Haloween and looks forward to that but we have to tell him we have to do it on our own. It is really disapointing to see people use their and our childeren to get back at us.

Yes it is better for the big picture to stand up but I can tell you it is hard. It made me more determined than anything but I fully understand when people choose not to do so. I knew we would not lose our family or friends over it which makes it a lot easier. On the childeren it is really hard though and it breaks my heart every day.

It does my heart good to read Caplice's post.
There are so many 'non-religious in hiding' that it should be a category in the Census.

And to those who seek to appease their discriminators and who are 'going along with' religion I would say, have a look at that Snickers ad - the one where that black guy from the A Team fires chocolate bars from a helicopter or a tank. He's firing them at you.

Why, is it because your an Atheist and they don't want it to rub off, or because you highlighted the state-schools discrimination.

Sheep sheep sheep, that's all they are, being told they are good christians, I just feel sorry for their children being brought up with such bigoted views.

Just for interest what has the local shepard said on the matter, ''love thy neighbour except those pesky Atheists'' ?

The opt out may very well seem futile, but the way I see it, the few people in my old National School whose parents had opted out of religion made me think. They still had to sit in class during the prayers. They spent time sitting in the church during prep. for Communion and Confirmation. Whatever their views were, they just weren't respected at all. I remember other kids would express sentiments of 'being embarrassed' for those kids, since they weren't a part of an otherwise homogeneous group.

It made me think that religions can never coexist with mutual respect, and was one of the stepping stones on the way to my atheism.

So even though it seems pointless, opting out has a more far-reaching impact than you think

Hear, hear.

I can appreciate the very difficult decision to do something that may bring disapproval down from family and community. I do sympathise.

But every time someone decides to keep their head down & pretend they condemn Ireland to another generation of this bigotry.
Who is going to stand up to it if you don't? Your children when they become parents?

Every parent or child I have met who has decided to go the opt out route has in the end not regretted their decision.

I really have two things to say on this...

1) You might think your position is neutral, but you're actually positively contributing to the problem

Before 2008 when the Iona instutute revealed the results of this Red C poll, which to their surprise showed that the majority of people surveyed do not want to put their children into catholic schools, it was taken as a given that the majority of people in Ireland want catholic schooling for their children.

Why? Because of people like you RDF. You made yourselves invisible, thus allowing people like David Quinn and various Bishops to dismiss the argument for secular schooling and allowing yourself to be counted as a supporter of the current education system.

Do you remember when the argument for secular schooling was all about the threat of "ghetoisation" and viewed as a immigrant problem?

It's a much stronger argument to suggest that the constitutional rights of the majority of parents are being ignored than those of a minority. That's the argument we now have, no thanks to you and people like you. That's why politicians are finally willing to speak out against the current system and do something about it.

2) You might consider your position acceptable because you've been conditioned to do so

Because I was schooled in a secular system in another country, I have not been conditioned to find it acceptable to...

a) Bow down to religious authority against my will and better judgment
b) Expose my child to an environment where s/he is expected to respect crazy ideas about the nature of reality
c) Expose my child to an environment where s/he is taught to believe that faith is a virtue and that people who have faith have a special right to respect that s/he himself does not deserve
d) Teach my child by example that it is ok to lie and submit yourself to religious bullying for the purpose of making life a little easier
e) Allow my child to be conditioned to regard the above points as acceptable

I don't find it normal or acceptable and if by the time I have children, the Irish education system can't provide them with a secular education, I will take my much sought after skills and experience to a country that can.

That is the word to use ‘respect’,-

- a religious integrated curriculum does not ‘respect’ the philosophical convictions of non-religious parents. Maybe explaining how parents and children are disrespected and denied their human rights might help in coming to a decision on this subject.

In relation to religion and education the word ‘respect’ has a legal meaning and AI are using that meaning to fight for change.

The word ‘respect’ is in the Education Act 1998 and it is also in Article II of Protocol I of the European Convention on human rights and it relates specifically to the issues of opting out of religion etc. It is also part of all the various UN Treaties that Ireland has ratified and it is now part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights under the EU.

The Irish State are claiming that a religious integrated curriculum ‘respects’ the philosophical convictions of non-religious parents and that consequently they are in compliance with all their various human rights obligations.

However the European Court of Human Rights has defined exactly what ‘respect’ means in relation to religious and philosophical convictions in education and when we look in detail at the issue they are not in compliance:-

The European Court has stated that “The verb “respect” means more than “acknowledge” or “take into account”. In addition to a primarily negative undertaking, it implies some positive obligation on the part of the State. The term “conviction”, taken on its own, is not synonymous with the words “opinions” and “ideas”. It denotes views that attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance”

So in relation to your local school the question to ask is how do they ‘respect’ my philosophical convictions?
Do they acknowledge that we even exist?
Do they more than ‘take us into account’ (for example when the class is saying prayers) and taking religious instruction?
As ‘respect’ means that our philosophical convictions must be more than taken into account how does the school protect our child from the religious ethos (atmosphere) of the school that permeates the whole school day?

The answer to the above questions can only be that the school does not ‘respect’ you as they can legally influence your child into a religious way of life.

There are not many cases in the Irish Courts with regard to education but in one of the cases Campaign to Separate Church and State v Minister for Education the court said that a religious denomination is not obliged to change the general atmosphere of its school merely to accommodate a child of a different religious persuasion.

The general atmosphere in denominational schools is a religious atmosphere and the purpose of a religious (ethos) or atmosphere is to influence children into a religious way of life. Therefore a denominational school is not legally obliged to change that atmosphere (ethos) in order to respect the philosophical convictions of non-religious parents who have no option but to send their child to that school. This is reflected in policy and regulations and of course the Education Act 1998. Rule 68 of the Rules for National Schools obliges the Board of Management to integrate religion into all subjects and the Education Act obliges Boards of Management to uphold the ethos of the patron which in 92% of schools in the state is Catholic.

Now the ridiculous thing about this is that the Education Act 1998, Section 15 – 2 (e) also obliges the Board of Management to respect diversity and the ways of life in a democratic society.

This of course tells us that in Ireland ‘respect’ means that your child can be influenced into a religious way of life despite the fact that as a parent it is your philosophical conviction that he/she not be so influenced. It tells us that despite opting your child out of religion he/she can end up reciting prayers or just accepting without question that there is a God as there is no practical way of opting out of the religious ethos (atmosphere) of the school.

When we look at what the European Court and the UN have defined as exactly what ‘respect’ means on the ground we can determine that we are not ‘respected’ and are discriminated against because we have no religion in the education system.

So on the ground then when you enrol your child in the local school which is nearly always Catholic you can expect to be ‘disrespected’ because of your philosophical convictions and your child will leave their human rights at the school gate on the way in every morning. These are the ways of life in the Irish Republic where the majority accept that it is simply not an issue if your child ends up reciting prayers and you are just a trouble maker if you speak out. Shut up and put up with it as we are the majority around here and let us get on with teaching the next generation that diversity and human rights mean that it is ok to coerce and influence minorities into the Catholic religion.

Suckers

I didn't know about this, don't parents have to give permission for their children to be taken out of school durning school hours?

Excelent point

Ah, something I should have clarified: My old primary school has the parish church on school grounds. Yes, really. Sacred Heart of Jesus, N.S.

I don't know really.. I just think a few people started to be against us and it spread, people just don't want to be seen talking to us. indeed sheep. But it seemed fine after the news paper articles but it kicked off after the morning show and primetime. Still have no regrets though and would do it all again!! It makes us more determined then ever to follow through till where ever it takes us. I need to say that it seemed all me but my wife is supporting me 100%. It is only really hard on my son at the moment.. which in turn is hard on us since it is us making the desiccions for him.

The local shepard is chairman of the board of management.... do I need to say more??

good post bip!