[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I agree to an extent - I don't think school really ever manages to indoctrinate, parental influence is much stronger (i.e. a child from a religious household in a non-religious school will quite probably be religious themselves - and vice versa, a child from a non-religious household going to a religious school is likely to play along but ultimately reject religion as "truth"). We are an entirely non-religious household (my wife was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school and yet rejected it as truth very early on, as many do, confirming what I was saying) and yet this summer our 4 year old attended a "summer camp" at the local church hall run by a Christian group. She absolutely loved it and enjoyed the stories (or probably more that they were very enthusiastically acted out by the volunteers...) and she was full of questions when she came home. It opens up a plethora of learning opportunities. She decided for herself that they were obviously "just stories, like Frozen" which I'd be lying if I said I'm not glad about, but we're always careful not to lead her thought processes in either direction.

I can see where the alternative viewpoint is coming from though - and it doesn't necessarily mean that there "is indeed a valuable and relevant place for some religion in schools" - rather than strong moral stories are important and that those might be overlooked when every story being taught is religious and taught as truth. Many religious stories have wonderful messages. Many in my opinion have truly abhorrent messages. But anyway - even if they are to be present, I disagree with it all being based around one doctrine, it should be a more well rounded moral / philosophical education. There are some wonderful stories in religions not traditionally taught in Western schools, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and it would be very limiting to overlook these in favour of dogmatic Christianity / Catholicism / Islam, etc.I personally enjoy a lot of religious tales as much as any other, from all religions, living and dead (ancient greek and pre-Christianity Roman Empire myths and legends from those dead polytheistic religions are fascinating)... but in a universe of endless possibility I find the thought of subscribing to one religion completely depressing.

"We can only perceive a fraction of the near infinite planes of existence and barely understand anything about those immediately neighbouring ours, let alone the ones we haven't even considered! Imagine what incomprehensible things might b..."

Religious person: "Yeah but the answer is this "

spoilers! Boring!

..that's exactly it though, TS...a moral or philosophy story that has a good message for children has the same 'learning factor', whether it's based on a religion or not and it is also balanced with many religions, the ones you have mentioned in your post are some of them...because many religion based stories have great messages which are good for children and also easy for them to understand ... but there is obviously balance to it with many non religion sources as well, it's far from being an indoctrination or anything like that...and you're correct, what a child will take from it is also largely influenced and mainly influenced by other environmental factors, the family home being the main one obviously...but it would be blinkered to dismiss a great learning source just because there was an element of 'religion' to it...when there is actually something that all young people can learn from it about tolerance to others/empathy/kindness etc...